The best known musical instrument of the Lao is the khene, a three-foot long bundle of fourteen or sixteen bamboo tubes enclosed in a carved wooden windchest, covering one or more finger holes at a time. Vocal music, which in Lao, is called lam or khap, is the most important kind of music to the people. The performance takes the form of a staged courtship between male and female singers. The artists performing on this recording are all Laotian born and now living in the United States.