Bok Srou

Bok Srou (Pounding Rice) is the folk melody often used for Robam Angrae, a dance involving two people beating, tapping, and sliding bamboo poles on the ground and against each other in coordination with one or more dancers who step over and in between the poles.

The " Stick Dance " of the Cambodian Theater . This dance is found in various forms throughout South East Asia. An anazing display of agility is found in this dance and it's performers . The steps quicken as the dance progresses forcing the performers to be ever more agile and faster moving in their steps .

Bok Srou starts slowly and increases in speed until the dancers can't keep up. Bok Srou is the piece we teach to beginning students. Often people who have never played a note in their lives, come in and learn Bok Srou and are playing with the ensemble within two hours. Here is a pdf of the sheet music, which is in

-standard western notation,

-Chinese notation (the notes of the scale are numbered 1 through 7; a dot under the number indicates the octave below, while a dot above the number indicates the octave above), and

- solfege (do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, ti).

The first half of the page is the simple melody with repeats, followed by an elaboration in running eighth notes.

Bok Srou in pdf format for roneat (xylophone) or khim (hammered dulcimer)