Today, the Kammu are an upland people mainly found in Laos, Yunnan, Thailand, Burma and Vietnam. This people - who have retained their orally based culture through to the present day - provide an example of complex sung poetry that has seldom been studied in detail.

What this volume offers is an ethnomusicological presentation of one person's vocal performance of rather highly varied sets of words in different manners of performance, and the use of these competences in communication with other singers. This orally transmitted form of singing is unique to the Kammu but is related to a much larger complex in Southeast Asia. It will thus be of interest to a wide group of musicologists.