Singer Gabriel Brown and navy officers warmed up the open-air stage with many popular songs and dances of pop king Michael Jackson.

Brown also performed famous Vietnamese folksongs “Trống cơm” (a kind of drum used by folklore troupes) and “Bèo dạt mây trôi” (Flowing duckweed, wandering cloud) amid rapturous applause from the local audience.

The US officers aboard the command ship USS Blue Ridge, the guided-missile destroyer USS Chafee and the rescue ship USNS Safeguard are on a friendship visit to Vietnam.

While in the Southeast Asian country, US navy officers also collected rubbish along Tien Sa Port to encourage local people to protect the environment.

The visit focused on the intensity and diversity of training programs between Vietnam and US navy forces through holding conferences on search and rescue activities, and sharing experiences in medical training.

Last year, a naval group of the US Seventh Fleet with USS Chung-Hoon and USS Preble destroyers and rescue ship USNS Safeguard carrying 700 officers and sailors arrived at Tien Sa Port under a training exchange program between the two navies.

source from: qdnd

 

Bai Choi singing is one of the folk arts and contests in the central region, from Quang Binh to Binh Thuan. When mentioning this folk art, people often think of Bai Choi singing in Hoi An, Quang Nam Province. However, few people know that Binh Dinh is the cradle of the art. Now, the province has restored all ceremonies and rites of an ancient Bai Choi festival.

The umpire must have the ability to improvise quickly and humorously.  Drumbeats create an exciting atmosphere at the festival. Bai Choi artists in Binh Dinh perform together. A set of Bai choi cards. Announcing the name of a card which has the same words as in the song. Awards for the winners. A reward of wine for the winners Players sit in huts built with bamboo. Binh Dinh Bai Choi Group performs at Kim Ma Theatre in Hanoi.

According to Nguyen An Pha, former Vice Director of the Binh Dinh Provincial Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism, most artists who performed at this festival were young and belong to the 3rd generation of Bai Choi singers. However, their voices, skills and improvisation were quite good.
Bai Choi singing originated from the daily life of people in rural areas in the central region. Therefore, the melodies and songs of Bai Choi are fairly popular, reflecting the simple souls and feelings of farmers as well as the social and cultural issues affecting their lives.
The structure of a traditional Bai Choi singing festival contest consists of nine bamboo huts with four huts standing parallel and one in the middle where the game’s umpire sits. The game starts when the umpire who wears a traditional costume gives the players three bamboo or wooden cards printed with pictures and words. When the umpire sings a sentence of a folk song that has the same words as the card of a player, he or she hits the wooden bell to signal that his or her card matches the umpire’s words and becomes the winner.
The umpire must have a wide knowledge of literature and the ability to quickly and humorously improvise. During the game, the beat of the drums, the ringing of wooden bells and the melodies of a two-stringed fiddle are necessary to make the festive atmosphere more ebullient and interesting. The audience can not help laughing when the umpire runs around shouting witty songs and poems. The rule of Bai Choi is not focused on winning but rather at relaxing and enjoying the mood.
The festival of Binh Dinh Bai Choi is an activity to further promote the unique artistic genre of the land. It is also expected to make a contribution to the target of submitting a profile of the cultural space of Binh Dinh Bai Choi to UNESCO for recognition as an intangible cultural heritage of humanity.

source from: vietnamnet

Alang Vel’s musical instruments on display in his house in the remote village of TaLang in Quang Nam province show his love for the traditional music of the Co Tu ethnic group.

Patriarch Alang Vel, who has spent his life making many musical instruments created and played by Co Tu people for years, is admired by both amateurs and professionals.

“By playing our musical instruments, people can see and feel Co Tu’s culture and lifestyle,” said the 89-year-old.

Many visitors are surprised by the depth of emotion and skill displayed by the artisan.

Using his knife, Alang Vel has made several kinds of instruments, including a khen (wind instrument with small bamboo tubes) and an apel (a stringed-instrument in wood), two of Co Tu’s most popular instruments.

Born in a poor family in TaLang, a small village located in BhaLee Commune, Alang Vel has dedicated his life to music.

“I began playing traditional Co Tu music when I was 10,” he said, making several instruments for his own performances.

Some of his most outstanding works include the atoong and ampraay, which are often stored and displayed in local communal houses, or guoi, around the region.

A guoi is the largest and tallest house in the community, located in the middle of the village and made from wood.

The house is used for meetings, rituals, performances and reception of special guests.

An atoong is made of seven wood tubes, one-metre long each. The tubes are attached together by two strings.

The instrument’s music is sweet and strong, depicting the character of the Co Tu people, according to Alang Vel.

Another instrument, ampraay, is a collection of five bells made from a kind of fruit. Its tinkling is heard when the player pushes the instrument on the ground.

Alang Vel said the Co Tu people played their music at traditional festivals and rituals.

“Our instruments are simple in design, but they help the players share their passions and thoughts when playing,” he said.

The artist has displayed and performed his works in HCM City and Da Nang , capturing the attention of many music lovers and folk-music and cultural researchers.

“I love travelling to play Co Tu music because the art helps people learn more about the Co Tu.”

Most Co Tu people live in Quang Nam and Da Nang provinces. They believe and worship Giang (God).

Every year, the Co Tu hold dozens of minor and major rituals worshipping Giang to pray for good luck, good health and bumper crops.

source from: tuoitrenews

The show was part of the 16th Festival of the Imaginary (Festival de l’imaginaire) held by the French Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs and Ministry of Culture and Communication of France.

This was the first time the full story of Quan Am Thi Kinh has been performed with French subtitles, which were translated by Nguyen Thuy Tien, a member of the Vietnam Music Institute. Prof. Yves Defrance, a Vietnamese folk music researcher and also Director of CFMI of Rennes University 2, also joined hands in arranging the show from its beginnings in 2005.

Quan Am Thi Kinh is a story about a beautiful and talented woman called Thi Kinh, who was wrongfully accused of trying to kill her husband when cutting a stray hair of her husband’s beard growing in the wrong direction. Having no way to prove her innocence, she sought to renounce the world and seek release in religion. She thus disguised herself as a man and entered an order of Buddhist monks.

But once again, she, in the form of a handsome man, was thought to have a baby with a village girl named Thi Mau, and was expelled from the temple. She left with the baby but then could not sustain herself and the baby because she felt ill seriously and could not defeat the dead. Thi Kinh left a letter revealing her secret. Thanks to her endurance of indignity and her spirit of self-sacrifice, Thi Kinh entered into Nirvana and became Goddess of Mercy.

source from: vov

In the North, hát giao duyên do not especially serve the rythm of the work.

Gặp nhau đây mới đầu trăng gío, Meeting here like this before any courtship
Hỏi một lời đã có chồng chưa? I want to know: are you married?
Love, as expressed through hát giao duyên, was very simple and as gentle as its tune:

Ngồi xuống đây bẻ cây vạch đất, Sit down here, break a branch and draw on the ground,
Cỡi khăn trầu kết cấu lương duyên. Take off the scarf, promise a marriage.
Hát giao duyên in the North were called Lý giao duyên in Central Vietnam and Lý giao dươn in the South. In Central Vietnam, lý means villager’s song compared to the music of Hue which was the production of nobles (imperial family, mandarins, etc.). All folk songs in Central Vietnam and in the South are either hò or lý. Lý is developed from children songs to songs for fun, popular theater songs, ritual songs, music of Hue, traditional and reformed theater music. Lý songs were named after the content of the song or the first few words of the lyrics. The following song was sung in the pentatonic scale nam, nuance ai (RE nearly flat, FA vibrato, LA nearly flat) and was named “Lý vọng phu” (Waiting for husband):

Gío mùa xuân rưng rưng nước mắt, Spring wind blows, my eyes fill with tears,
Nhó tới chàng ruột thắt héo don, I feel emptywhen I think of you,
Gío mùa hè tiếng ve kêu dề, Summer wind blows, cicadas call to crickets,
Mong nhớ chàng bóng xế trăng lu, Waiting for you, the days decline, the moon fades,
Gío mùa thu mẹ ru con ngủ, Autumn wind blows, I lull you, my child,
Cha con đà vui thú nơi đâu, Where does your father dawdle,
Gío mùa đông nằm không thấy bạn, Winter wind blows, resting here alone,
Nhớ thương chàng nhiều đoạn đắng cay. Missing you, I feel deep pain.
Lý giao duyên turns from a self-evolved love song to a declaration to the love objects:

Giải sông Ngân mây rầu rầu chuyển, On the milky way a cloud sadly flows,
Một bước đường trời biển chia hai, In a moment the sky and the sea will separate us,
Hỡi nàng nàng ơi! My dear!
Anh dặn một lời xin đừng quên, Don’t forget what I tell you:
Cảnh phù tang gío vàng hiu hắt, This short life is just like the light breeze,
Một bước đường như cắt lòng tơ, One step from you, my heart hurts much,
Hỡi nàng nàng ơi! My dear!
Em dặn một lời xin nhớ đừng quên…. Remember what I tell you, don’t forget….

Source : tienghatquehuong

Hát Chầu Văn combines trance singing and dancing, a religious form of art used for extolling the merits of beneficent deities or deified national heroes. Its music and poetry are mingled with a variety of rhythms, pauses, tempos, stresses and pitches.

It is in essence a cantillation where the tunes and rhythm depend on the contents of the sung text and may be linked together into a suite, used in relation to a mythical happening, with hints at some features of modern life.

The art of Hát Chầu Văn originated in the Red River delta and dates back to the 16th century, spreading later to the whole of the country. During its development course, Hát Chầu Văn has taken in the essential beauty of folk songs from regions in the north, the centre and the south. In North and Central Vietnam it was called Hát Chầu Văn, whereas in the South it was also called Rỗi Bóng.

Hát Chầu Văn in North Vietnam

In the North, a ceremony always began with a mass to invite deities to come. The master of the ceremony (cung văn) read a petition and said some incantations to the underworld. After the invitation to the spirits, the person, frequently a woman, who was going to be become the speaker for the spirits sat on a mat in front of the altar. When the spirit had not yet seized the person, the cung văn and the orchestra played together to encourage the spirit to distrain the person.
The lyrics in Hát Chầu Văn were strongly emphasized. The cung văn not only had a good voice and knew how to play musical instruments, but he also knew how to give compliments at the right time and in the proper situation.

Finally the distrained person let the cung văn know by a certain gesture that she had already been seized. When a distrained person was seized, a fairylike life began: a life full of flowers and butterflies like those of te spirits. However, sometimes when te spirits were in a sad mood, the songs and melodies also changed to fit the situation.
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Hát Chầu Văn in Central Vietnam

One significant aspect of Hát Chầu Văn in Central Vietnam is that people serve as distrained persons en masse, sometimes five persons participated in the same ceremony.
Every year, a festival of distrained people was organized in the Hòn Chén Palace near Huế. This palace is located on the bank of the Hương River, and because of the outsize number of participants, they had to celebrate the ceremony on their boats. The river was crowded with thousands of boats, thousands of people dressed in colorful clothes, dancing to the offering music in an atmosphere full of incense and scent of offering fruits and flowers. Hát Chầu Văn adopted even the tunes of the Music of the Court Banquet.
Hát Chầu Văn in Central Vietnam is generally more prosperous than Hát Chầu Văn in the North. The melodies lie in many different pentatonics, the rythm is far more complicated than that of the North.
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Hát Chầu Văn in South Vietnam

Hát Chầu Văn, also called Hát Bóng, in the South follows the same pattern of Hát Chầu Văn in the North and Center. Some of the tunes are influenced by the classical music of the South.

Two kinds of Hát Chầu Văn: Hát thờ and Hát Lên Ðồng

Hát thờ (worship singing) is the chanting accompanying an act of worship. Hát thờ is slow, grave, and dignified. Variations in the music are few and contain little contrasting pitch and stress.

Hát Lên Ðồng is the cantillation accompanying psychic dancing claiming to respond to occult powers and expressing the will and orders of some super-natural being. It may contain many variations depending on the number of verses sung, often coming to a climax or slowing down to the tempo of a meditation.
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Musical accompaniment in Hát Chầu Văn

The instrumental music accompanying hat van plays a very important role, either in emphasizing important passages or creating contrasting effects, in any event enriching the content of the chant.

The main instrument used in hat van performance is the dan nguyet or moon-shaped lute, accompanied by the striking of the phách (a piece of wood or bamboo) marking the rhythm, xeng (clappers), trong chau (drum) and chieng (gong). The 16-stringed zither (dan tranh) and flute (sao) are also used in the recitation of certain poetry and sometimes the eight-sound band (dan bat am) is also used in certain ceremonies.

Hát Chầu Văn has acquired over centuries both learned and folksy characteristics and has proven to be a strong attraction to musicologists at home and abroad.

Source : tienghatquehuong

Tuong stage with tragedy plays shows heroic roles of loyal sentiments thought. Therefore, art forms supporting it must be suitable with violence and strained nature. So, the Tuong orchestra is a gathering of musical instruments with many different intensities. The orchestra consists of following musical instruments:

Three reeds (high, middle, bass) called oboe, two two-stringed fiddle Nhi, one small cello, one big drum, one chien drum, one cymbals, one gong, one bell and one temple block.

Three key musical instruments, which are the characteristic of Tuong stage, are oboe, two-stringed fiddle Nhi and Chien drum. Chien drum is musical soul of Tuong stage.

Source : vnmusicology-inst

The Vietnam National Cheo Theatre will present a performance of a famous Cheo (traditional northern-style opera) play, the ‘Quan Am Thi Kinh’, at the Maison des Cultures du Monde in Paris from March 16-17.

Since 2002, the festival has been a cultural melting pot, offering traditional and contemporary music, dances and traditions from around the world.

Cheo traditional opera originated from the Red River Delta area in the North of Vietnam. Cheo is a narrative genre of folk theatre, recounting historical, legendary and folk humorous stories through a combination of music, singing and dance.

source from: hanoitimes

Ca Hue, or the Hue folksong music, is played aboard these boats on the River every night by music troupes arranged by the boat owners.

It has always been popular, helping take the Hue art to foreigners visiting the former imperial city.

However, it has been plagued by many problems – unprofessional organisation, foreigners complaining about being cheated with short shows, low-quality performances, and rude behaviour by the boat crew.

Cultural authorities decided it was enough and brought in sweeping changes with effect from January 8 – performers need certificates from cultural authorities to be on the shows, each show has to be of a certain minimum duration, the boat owners cannot hire the troupes but have to use ones sent by the Centre for Ca Hue Performance Management.

The boats also have to deposit half of the expected collections of a show with the centre and cancel a show if it is delayed by 30 minutes.

Boat owners often cancel and delay shows without advance notice.

The owners are opposed to the changes, saying they face losses if they have to forfeit their deposits if shows are cancelled for delays.

Vo Van Rot, a boat manager, told Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper that he did not want the centre to allocate performers since he had been doing this for 20 years and knew which troupes were the best.

Last Friday, all boat owners refused to accept tourists or art troupes on board.

The Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism has backtracked at least partially, telling the centre to postpone compliance of the deposit rule. The boats called off their protests the next day, but the standoff continues.

Nguyen Tan Ton Nu Y Nhi, a ca Hue performer, told Viet Nam News that she would prefer the shows to be managed by the centre and for it to designate performers.

“That will help us have elegant shows, not the messy ones like now,” she said.

Nguyen Tan Thuong, the centre’s director, admitted however that not all performers supported the proposal.

A local tour guide told Viet Nam News that most boat managers did not care about the quality of the shows, only their income.

A revamp was the only way to bring tourists back, he said.

source from: vietnamnews

Le Van, a musician and craftsman, and his close friend Vo Van Ba, 69, also a craftsman in Ben Tre Province in the Mekong Delta, have been so busy these days. Both are trying to make and perfect orchestral instruments from coconut timber for the upcoming traditional music performance in April.

Their plan has received strong support from the provincial department of Culture, Sports and Tourism, and if all goes well, a unique traditional music concert using all coconut timber instruments will be organized on April 30 in Ben Tre to celebrate the country’s unification day.

Coconut timber instruments

Coconut tree, the native plant of Ben Tre that gives it a distinct culture, is the main material in many modern industries, such as coconut pulp, coconut shell charcoal and coir, as well as coconut timber, a hardwood-substitute from coconut palm trees.

Coconut timber, an alternative to rainforest timber, has many applications both as a structural and interior design material like pillars, furniture, floors, walls, ceiling joists, or wood paneling.

However, it has never been used for making musical instruments.

Van is the proud owner of a collection of Vietnamese traditional string instruments he created entirely from coconut timber, including dan gao, dan sen, dan bau. All of them are Vietnamese traditional music instruments that can be played solo, or as part of an orchestra to accompany “cải lương” (Vietnamese folk opera).

A musician and general secretary of Nguyen Dinh Chieu association of literature and art, Van confided that he has put all his faith in coconut timber instruments since he made the first one successfully during the war.

As a member of a performing troupe that travelled places to entertain the revolutionary army, he often saw how their instruments got broken or damaged after a raid and tried to fix it using coconut wood.

“Much to our surprise, the new instrument sounded very nice,” Van recalled.

After that, coconut became the standard material for him to turn to in fixing all kinds of string instruments for the band.

After peace returned to the country, Van met Ba, who became his close friend, and received his friend’s full support for the idea of making traditional music instruments entirely from coconut tree. Together, they have created over 100 instruments of all kinds.

“To have a strong and durable instrument that can be used for a public performance, we have to work very hard,” said Ba.

“We had to make each instrument as meticulously as we can because coconut wood is much tender and requires a lot more care. Otherwise, the instrument could easily get broken,” he added.

Unique traditional music concert

Ben Tre Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism has agreed to organize, and broadcast live, the Coconut Festival on April 30 to celebrate the Vietnamese unification day. The highlight of the festival is an unprecedented traditional music concert performed with all coconut timber musical instruments.

According to the department director Tran Ngoc Tam, the agency will make an advance of VND40 million (US$1,900) and harvest some fifty-year-old coconut trees for the two to use for making a set of 10 traditional musical instruments. After the instruments are finished and ready for use, their quality will be appraised by a team of experts.

An orchestral performance of the province’s signature song Dang dung Ben Tre song (Ben Tre’s Posture), using coconut timber instruments, will inaugurate the ceremony. After the ceremony, the instruments will be displayed in an exhibition center for 7 days.

Meanwhile, the two craftsmen are making every effort to finish the instruments in time for the ceremony.

“Two months have passed and we have almost done with it. Now we are testing and fine-tuning them for the last time,” Van shared.

source from: tuoitrenews