Roneat

According to the Khmer national dictionary, roneat means xylophone and is described as "the percussive musical instrument that has a long body where its bars are made from bamboo or other good quality woods or metal bars striking with a pair of two roneat sticks played in the pinpeat and mohaori orchestras.

[1] The Garland Handbook of Southeast Asian Music edited by Terry E. Miller and Sean Williams, argued that the word roneat is a Khmer generic term that refers to xylophones or metallophones — idiophones, with bars of bamboo, wood, or metal.

[4] One of the oldest xylophones in mainland Southeast Asia can be found in Lam Dong Province, Central Highlands, Vietnam.

[5] Researchers have found many stone xylophones in Vietnam's Central Highland where the Mon-Khmer indigenous minority, the K'ho lives.

[9] Fortunately, recently, more than 200 hidden paintings were revealed on the wall of Angkor Wat with the help of new technology.

This orchestra includes two hanging gongs, a drum, kong vong thom, roneat, and trumpet.

According to another source, Cambodian roneat genres were derived from the Javanese gamelan musical instruments which influenced the Khmer musical instrument in the early Angkorian period, and which spread from Kampuchea further northwest to Myanmar.

[11] The last monarch of Khmer Kingdom of Chenla King Jayavarman II, who returned from the Javanese Court in 802 a.d., began the grandiose consecration ritual (the concept of Devaraja or God-King on sacred Mount Mahendraparvata), now known as Phnom Kulen, to celebrate the independence of Kambuja (Cambodia) from Javanese dominion.

Many were found in Vietnam's Tay Nguyen or Central Highlands, eastward of Cambodia, played by the Koho people.

It has twenty-one thick bamboo or hard wood bars that are suspended from strings attached to the two walls.

Originally these instruments were highly decorated with inlay and carvings on the sides of the sound box.