The Temiar orang asli mainly originate from the states of Perak, Pahang and Kelantan. Originally hunter-gatherers, their main form of music is vocal, accompanied by bamboo stampers or awar and one or two Temiar frame drums or batak, sometimes punctuated by a single gong.

Call and response singing is an intricate part of Temiar healing "services". The bomoh or medium, acts as an intermediary between the spirit world living in the forest and the rest of the tribe. Communication is in the form of call and response singing.

The Temiar people also have a primarily solo instrumental repertoire, which is drawn from healing song melodies and also nature. Instruments used include noseflutes, mouth blown flutes, a two-stringed tube zither, metal mouth harps and mouth harps made from palm. Instrumental music is monophonic, and is performed during daylight hours, as opposed to call and response singing which is designated as a night activity. Roseman (1991).

Temiar music is documented in detail by Roseman (1995, 1991), who derived the term Temiar Dream Song. Oesch (1974) describes a similar type of music among the Senoi, another orang asli group, of Melaka.