Cambodia is home to several Khmer music ensembles, with the most popular being the Pinpeat, which is the most closely associated ensemble to all classical performances.

This ensemble has been recorded to date back to the Angkor era, more than a thousand years ago, with its beginnings in the Angkorian courts.  The instruments carved on the Angkor Wat temple walls stand as testimony to its long and glorious past.

Pinpeat is considered to be one of the strongest ensembles of all Khmer music ensembles with approximately 9 to 10 wind and percussion instruments.  Pinpeat sounds beautiful and is sweet on the ears, with a rich and strong rhythm that has the power to make people feel cheerful. This music is used in many of the Cambodian daily rituals.  It is played as an accompaniment to masked play, court dance, shadow play and at religious ceremonies.

This ensemble has a vast number of theme melodies, more than 250 of them. It has earned the name of being the dance music (phleng laim) or the drum music (phleng skor.)  All the pieces are associated with some action or the other, with relevant patterns of drums that are used as a support to the action performed on stage. We can take the example of “Reamker,” where the Pinpeat music is played in coordination with the different nuances of the story.

The instruments which are part of the Pinpeat ensemble are: high bamboo xylophone (roneat ek), low bamboo xylophone (roneat thung), quadruple-reed instruments (sralai tuch and sralai thom), high-pitched metallophone (roneat dek), low-pitched circular frame gongs (kong thomm), high-pitched circular frame gongs (kong tauch), Two huge double-headed barrel drums (skor thomm), small finger cymbals (chhing), small double-headed barrel drum (sampho) and vocals (chamrieng.)

Pinpeat was the basis of many other Khmer ensembles, including the phlaeng mahaori orchestra related to temple ceremonies; phlaeng knong schoor and khlang chnak orchestras, which as both related to funeral rites.

The hypnotic beats of the Pinpeat ensemble with waves of beautiful sound driven by a strong pulse, gives the listener a feeling of inner joy.