Christmas break and some more editing!

We had the opposition on our paper last week so now we are almost done! We'll have to fix all the errors, misspellings and other stuff during the christmas and leave the paper for the examinor in the beginning of Januari. It feels ok, at least we don't have to change any major bits. Right now I'm up in northern Sweden at my parents house and Olof ran of to Tenerife with his brother so we will have a break for a week or so before doing the last bits.
Ha en bra jul!

The [Ojzaioj] myspace!

Live from Rosenbergssalen at the Malmö academy of music, Sweden!
Listen at: www.myspace.com/ojzaioj

The progress

I just finished the first draft of my part of our paper! Even thou I will probably have to change a lot it feels so good! So good that I want to share a very strange video, the vietnamese bamboo piano plays : La Paloma!

Back to Hanoi and some youtube tips

The 11th of January 2009 the Vietnamese ensemble at the Malmö academy of music will participate at a concert at the opera house in Hanoi! It's a concert celbrating forty years of diplomatic relations between Vietnam and Sweden. If you are in Hanoi, you should come! After the concert Me and Pia, our singer, will stay in for another three months to really dig in to the music we have tried to play the last five years. Recently I have looked on a lot of vietnamese traditional music on youtube, unfortunately very much is crap, but I also found some favorites. Here is some of the nice videos:

and

All these books...

Today me and Olof had one of our meetings and tried to put the bits and pieces of our essay together. We ended up workig on the separate pieces instead. I worked on our literature chapter and eventually I think I got everything in there. Some parts I still have to double check, for example who really wrote the liner notes to the Caprice CDs. But here it is in it's almost completed form:

Books, Cds and Articles...
Literature about Vietnamese music in English is scarce and in Swedish, non-existent. There is one central book on Vietnamese music often referred to, it is Tran Van Khè’s Musique du Viêt-Nam (Buchet/Chastel, 1967), but unfortunately it is only available in French and German (which neither of us masters). Oxford music online and the Garland Encyclopedia of World music provide an overview but don’t go into the details of every genre. Phong T. Nguyen wrote the article in Garland, with some general information about music in Southeast Asia by Terry E. Miller. The Oxford online article was written by Phong T. Nguyen and Tran Van Khé. When it comes to specific genres we have looked in other books. Barley Norton has written a lot about Ca tru; Ca trù - a Vietnamese chamber music genre (1996) and Singing the past: Vietnamese Ca tru, Memory and Mode (2005) have been our main sources on that genre. Norton’s article: "The Moon Remembers Uncle Ho": The Politics of Music and Mediumship in Northern Vietnam (2002) have given us some more insight in Hat chau van as well as on the political impact on performance practices. Another author who have written about Ca tru is Stephen Addiss. His article: Hat a Dao - the Sung Poetry of North Vietnam (1973) describes the importance of the poems in the performance of Ca tru. He has also written a small essay called: Music of the Cham Peoples (1971), it contains a part on the Cham music’s influence on Court music. When it comes to mode and performance of Ca hue and Tai tu, Lê Tuan Hung’s book Dan Tranh music of Vietnam – Traditions and Innovations have been indispensable. Lê also writes about the impact of politics on traditional music, both in Dan tranh music of Vietnam and in an article in New perspectives on Vietnamese music – Six essays (Nguyen ed., 1991). Miranda Arana writes about politics and music in her book Neotraditional music in Vietnam (1999), it also gives an insight of the Hanoi conservatory of music’s impact on Traditional music in Vietnam. The six essays in New perspectives on Vietnamese music have been of big use, especially the articles: Ethno-Historical Perspectives On The Traditional Genres Of Vietnamese Music by Phong T. Nguyen; Music and Theater In Saigon – 1970: An American Soldier’s Observations Revisited by Terry E. Miller; Vong Cô – The Development of a Vietnamese Song Style by Mercedes Dujunco and the previously mentioned article by Lê Tuan Hung: Music and Politics: A Socio-Musical Interpretation of Aspects of the Dan Tranh Zither Composition in Southern Vietnam Since 1975. Phong T. Nguyens article: Restructuring the Fixed Pitches of the Vietnamese Dan Nguyet Lute: A Modification Necessitated by the Modal System (1986) and Significance and Development in the Vong Co of South Vietnam (1975) by John Trainor have been good sources for to understand the principles of modality in the chamber music of Southern Vietnam. Documents of Vietnam’s Court music (1999) by Tô Ngoc Thanh describe the court music in Vietnam in both historical perspective and in comparison with Tai tu, Ca Hue and Tuong with regards to mode and repertoire. The literature on theatre in Vietnam are mostly concerned with the actors and the plot of the plays and not with the music. One exception is 150 Melodies of Traditional Cheo (2006) by Bùi Dúc Hanh, it’s mostly a tune book but also contains a bit on the history and performance practices of Cheo tunes. Vietnamese Theatre (1999), anon ed.; Cheo – Popular Theatre (2005) and Vietnamese Classical Opera (2006), both the last ones gives Huu Ngoc and Lady Borton as General Editors, are all published by The Gioi Publishers, a government owned company. Especially the first one, Vietnamese Theater, contains a lot of useful information but all three are written in a quite bad language and lacks references. They are probably meant for tourists rather than researchers. Colin Mackerras essay: Theatre in Vietnam (1987) gives us a more nuanced picture of the different styles, but it is still a general overview. He also focuses more on the situation of theatre in modern society, in 1987 that is. As the literature is quite limited we have also had great use of liner notes from various CDs and LPs, most of them written by Tran Van Khè. He has written the liner notes for: Vietnam – Music from the city of Hue (Inedit CD, 1996); Vietnam – Hat Cheo traditional theatre (Unesco CD); Vietnam – Ca tru and Quan ho (Unesco CD) and together with Nguyen Huu Ba: The music of Vietnam I – The tradition of Hue (UNESCO/Barenreite LP, Late 60s) and The music of Vietnam II – The music of southern Vietnam (UNESCO/Barenreite LP, Late 60s). The five CDs, Music from Vietnam 1-5, Produced by the Swedish record company Caprice together with Sida (The Swedish international development agency) also have liner notes that contain a lot of information on the music. They cover two CDs with minority music, one with music from Hue, one with a mix of different traditional music and Neotraditional music and a solo album with the Cai luong master Kim Sinh. Sten Sandahl wrote the liner notes on those albums. For general information of Vietnams history and recent development we have read Hans Hägerdal’s Vietnams Historia (2005) and Chasing the Tigers – portrait of the new Vietnam (1997) by Murray Hiebert. Hägerdal deals with the history of Vietnam from prehistoric years up to the present day focusing mainly on the Vietnamese history prior to the unification of the country in 1975. Hiebert’s book focuses mainly on the economic growth since the late 80s, and seems directed to companies planning to invest in Vietnam. Nevertheless he addresses some interesting things about politics as well as describing the Len dong ritual with the eyes of a non-musical outsider.

Now, time for pizza!

Concerts and Modality

Last week we had a visit from Dr. Barley Norton who had two lectures about Vietnamese music for us. The first lecture was about mode in Tai tu and Ca tru and the second about Chau van and "new traditional" music. It was very interesting and it felt good to finaly be able to ask questions to someone who knew a lot about he subject and could speak English! I hope that we will be able to meet him again in Hanoi in januari. Me and Olof had our exam concert, together with a classmate of ours, last saturday. It was a tremendous success, loads of people and happy musicians! The program consisted mosty of swedish tune but also two vietnamese ones, Duong truong duyen phan (Cheo) and Tam luan cuu chuyen (court music). Ysterday we had an other concert, this time with the whole Vietnamese ensemble and a group of dancers that our singer, Pia, have worked with. They have composed dance movments to one Cheo and one Ca tru piece, her idea was to make them learn to understand whats going on in the music by using movments. Pia will present that experiment in her exam paper, I´m looking forward reading it! Mine and Olofs paper is on its way but the last week we have mostly rehearsed for our concert. Our instructor doesn't seem to be worried so we decided not to be either. I have put together a short introduction to mode in Vietnamese music, i decided not to write in detail of the different genres only to give an quick overview, here it comes:

Mode in Vietnamese music
The concept of mode in Vietnamese music is a jungle; everyone seems to have an own interpretation of it! But there are nevertheless some parts that are coherent so we will try to present an overview on the subject. The concept of mode is different in the different genres. In cheo there is no real concept of mode, every song is separate and even though there are similarities in how they are performed there are no general rules to follow. The tunes are normally just divided by their use or which sentiment they show (the different song types are called lan dieu). In the various chamber, court and religious music there are a developed system of modes with separate rules for the different mode rather than the separate tune. Tuong also has a concept of mode but we have not managed to find any information on that. The whole thing is complicated by the fact that there is a lot of different terminology in the various genres and the same words sometimes have different meanings.
In general one can say that the modes in Vietnamese music are divided in: mode and modal nuances, according to Dr. Barley Norton (lecture, 13/11-08) this idea derives from the researcher Tran van Khè’s theories on Vietnamese modality. One mode can have several different nuances. The modes are normally: Bac - Happy (can also be interpreted as north) or Nam - Sad (can also be interpreted as south). The nuances can be named after a feeling like, anxiety or a more metaphorical thing like, spring. Another important thing about the Vietnamese mode is that they do not only contain a tonal material but also things like: different intonation practice, ornaments, melodic movements and speed (Lê, 1998; Norton, 2005;Garland). One should also keep in mind that like most modal music, the Vietnamese music is heterophonic. This means that it is linear, not based on harmonics like western art music and that every musician plays different version of the same basic framework.

Theatre

The tricky part (and interesting too) in writing about the theatre forms of Vietnam is that the different sources give different accounts on for example the order of performance. They also use different names for instruments and different meaning to some of the names.

For example, in the description of Tuong, Miller instead of using the word dan (instrument) as a prefix of the instruments use the word don. The lower two string fiddle (dan ho as I understand it) is referred to as co or don co by both Miller and Nguyen, Six essays on Vietnamese Music. However a google search for the word don doan (one of the lutes used in Tuong) renders no matches related to music, You may instead watch a video of a child learning to say I love you as the top hit. A search for dan doan however gives you a music related results (as the fifth hit: Dan doan, Dan Nguyet Family, Traditional Vietnamese String Instruments. Provided by the webpage www.saigonstrings.com). there is also a couple of variations on the ken (sona, ken bao, ken bap, ken thau) in the books mentioned above and below.

Another thing is the performance order of Chèo, which according to the book Theater of Vietnam starts with thi nhip (explained as the start of Chèo). Nguyen explaines thi nhip as a "rhythmic competition song" and states that Chèo starts with the he moi where two of the he (clowns) enter the stage waving torches (moi = torch) to clear the performance area.

Something that I have trouble understanding is the dieu or lan dieu. I don't have a good translation for it yet. It seems to mean a lot of things at the same time. Nguyen uses it as "modes" or "song styles". Garland encyclopedia of world music (south east asia) explained it a little bit more.

Diêu (diêu thuc or thuc diêu) is used in art and literature. Diêu admits to variant meanings: fashion, way, manner, melody, song, piece and rhythm. It would not be wrong to say there are 46 diêu in Ca tru, 20 in Ca hue and 80 in Nhac tai tu (chamber musics of north central and south).Each diêu has distinctive modal expression, understood as a mode or a type of song with endless variations. 

Lan diêu, refers to aria, type of melody or style of song and contain most features of a mode. (used in Chèo and hat quan ho, northern Vietnam)

Diêu is somewhat equivalent to mode in the central and south, but it has generalized meaning. Hoi meaning breath, air or nuance is more specific and preferred to be used according to Garland encyclopedia. It describes either the meaning of a mode or a specific nuance distinguishing one mode from another (by specific ornamentation) If you play the wrong ornament you destroy the mode.

The combined hoi-diêu is used for clarity.

I am still not entirely sure I understand it though.

As a final note I have to mention the famous chinese soldier, Ly Nguyen Cat, who was supposed to have taught Tuong theatre to the children of aristocratic familys under the Ly-Tran dynasties. This statement of course is impossible to verify. I will probably keep it in the paper though, becuase he is always mentioned in the different texts on theatre that I have come across.

The repertoire part - general thoughts

On my Ipod I got forty albums with various kinds of Vietnamese music. Fifteen of them contain “traditional music” of no specific style, the rest are theme albums with Ca hue, Ca tru, Xam and so on. In those fifteen albums there are eight recordings of the tune Luu Thuy, mostly together with the tune Kim Tien. If I would add some of the albums with music from Hue and Southern Vietnam, the number of Luu Thuy renditions will be twelve. The percentage would probably be the same. My first thought when I realized this was: don’t they have any other tunes? In Swedish traditional music you might hear the same tune performed by many different groups live, but on an album most try to be a bit more original. The same doesn’t seem to be true for Vietnamese folk music groups, at least not judging from my Ipod. When you look at the other tunes on the albums you realize that even though Luu Thuy sticks out of the crowd, the crowd is quite small. The same tunes keeps reappearing on the screen! I guess that this could be seen as an indication that the Vietnamese Folk music canon is not very extensive. Of course one could have objections on this unscientific way of looking at repertoire, I mean I have not listened to all the albums produced with Vietnamese traditional music! To be honest I have even avoided buying some albums that looked to “touristy” or “pop-musicy”. But the albums on my Ipod still gave me the idea to have a look at the repertoire and folk canon that seems to be very strong both in the Academy of music in Hanoi and among recording artists in Vietnam. When I write about repertoire in our essay I will focus on the repertoire of our Vietnamese ensemble in Malmö and compare our repertoire with what I can find on the repertoire in the Academy of Hanoi. I’ve done interviews with our main teachers and have also read what I have found about the subject. One of our teachers was kind enough to give me copies of a list with tunes that he expects his students to know. As this is a quite small essay and as I’m no expert on Vietnamese music or the Academy system and the cultural politics of Vietnam, I will only try to get an overview on the subject.

Folkmusikens hus is threatened by insufficient funding!

Folk and world music is a creative part of the modern Swedish music scene. The activities at Folkmusikens Hus are respected both nationally and internationally and it is often referred to as a model for regional and national folk music centers around the world.
The digital music archive, and the expertise surrounding it, that have been built up in the Folkmusikens Hus during the last eleven years is something Sweden should be very proud of and which must continue to evolve. Folkmusikens Hus provides a model for other similar activities, and helps to continue to inspire people with music that has been used for centuries. The archive has a high cultural value and it is important to clearly demonstrate it!
We believe that the activities at Folkmusikens Hus (including concerts, courses and research on dance and music) contribute strongly to important fields in our society. Fields like: cultural heritage values, the role of culture in society and not least, culture as a cornerstone of a democratic society construction.
This is not just an activity in Dalecarlia (Dalarna); it has great significance nationally! Folk music needs to gain a stronger foothold in Sweden and internationally. Folkmusikens Hus plays an important role in this.

Join the facebook group "support Folkmusikens Hus"
and do as 3000 other people around the world: sign the PETITION!

The paper

My first assignment for the paper will be to write about the different theatre forms of Vietnam. In Hanoi I bought some books that describe them a little bit, and there's also a great deal of information on the internet. Garland, Grove and various articles will be my next step. I will probably focus on Chéo, Tuong and possibly the water puppet theatre, since these are the once I have seen for myself. However there might be changes to this plan down the road.

I'll be back soon to post something concerning the content of the paper, rather than these small posts about what's going on in general.
Good night.

At home

And so we are in Sweden again.

It feels very strange to be back. It's too cold and there're too many things other than Vietnamese music that demands my attention. Tomorrow we have a concert. SIDA and the two schools (National Academy of Music, Hanoi, and Academy of Music, Malmö) will have a meeting in Malmö, and we will give a performance. We are also going to talk a little about our views on the project. What we have been through. Maybe something will surface that contributes to the paper...

...the paper now need structure, a plan for the writing process... I need to call Esbjörn.

The last week

This is the last week in Hanoi. Helena left today (due to obligations in Sweden) and her departure reminded us that it is very little time left to do all the things we have planned to do. There are a few more interviews that I need to do, and I need to get one of the interviews translated. Today me and my teacher talked about microtonality and the way it is taught in the Academy and in the Chéo theatre. He also let me know how he feel about the notation of Chéo music... at least that is what I hope. Since I don't understand a word of Vietnamese, and he doesn't understand English, it is hard for me to tell what we really talked about. Tomorrow I will hopefully get a translation from another teacher.
I'm keeping my fingers crossed...

Learning Chéo from a master

My teacher, Diêu, is a performer at the Chéo theatre. His way of teaching is very different from the way of the Academy. For instance he doesn’t use notation. He occasionally takes a quick look in my Chéo book, but he only seems to check the lyrics. Another difference is that he is very inconsistent in his playing. I always record the whole song when I learn a new piece, and then we move on to learning it phrase by phrase. The full version is always a little bit different to the phrase by phrase-version. For example how he use the ornaments, in the full version they are always more fluent and it is hard to discern what is really going on in the left hand. Some melodic movements are completely different and sometimes he performs, with such ease and subtlety, a rhythmic variation that has me completely bewildered as to where the beat is until he, with equal subtlety moves out of the variation. He can play an elaborate scale movement one time and the next time limit the phrase to a mere skeletal framework. Over time this gives me a fairly clear image of the framework, lòng bán, of each song that we play.

In the phrase by phrase-version he is more set in what he teaches me. He only changes a few of the phrases from time to time while most of them remain the same. In a teaching situation (or maybe this is a learning situation) it is very tricky to remember the whole melody because of this. I mainly use the lesson to practice different ways of performing each phrase but when it comes to putting the piece together, I prefer to do it by my self, at home. Listening to the full version over and over again. When I come back for another lesson, my newly acquired version is rapidly changed and improvised upon. In this way I, once again, am able to discern the important pitches in each phrase. Although it is time consuming and demands a whole lot of work from my part, I think it is a very good way of learning this kind of traditional Vietnamese music, Chèo.

What I try to remember is that every phrase both is and isn’t…

Some teacher difficulties

I stayed at the hotel this morning to get some practice on my own. I´ve recorded Anh playing some tunes and now I need a to listen and try, without having somebody showing me all the time. It's also very nice not having to go to the conservatory every morning as I also want to think about our essay. The Sona is working out ok, its easier this year but still I wouldn't refer to the sounds I'm making as music. The last three or four lesson my teacher have played the same frase from a Tuong piece over and over again, and I'm trying to follow. In my ear it sounds more or less the same but he is not giving up! I would really like to have an explanation of what part I'm missing! Maybe I will ask Tra My to come and help to translate what he wants me to do. Another interesting thing with the lessons at the conservatory (or academy?) is that quit often there might be two or more other people in the room (these ar small rooms!), just hanging out or playing something completely different. In the beginning it felt a bit annoying but you get used to it.
The Sao is the real headache this trip (as the last one). As I've never played any transverse flutes before (just whistles and different reeds) I'm having real troubles with the basics of getting the right sounds out of the instruments. Trying to explain to my teacher that I want help with my embouchure seems like mountainous task. I tried last year with mr. Le Pho, his answer was "it will be ok". This felt reassuring of course, but as I only had three weeks I stressed the matter to get some more focused exercises. This seemed to annoy him a little and he answerd that the tecnique was indescribable: "What shall I do put a small camera in my mouth?". This year Tra My asked Tiên Vu'o'ng (Anh's teacher when he was at the academy) about exercises and according to him Anh now loads of them so Tra My promised that she will help me to talk to Anh about it. On the whole most of the trouble I've been having ends up with communication problems, somethings are very hard to explain without words. Showing a trill or a finger variation is not that hard but trying to explain the feeling you should have in your throat to hit the hi notes is more difficult if you dont speak the same language. (the picture shows Anh and one of his friends trying out a new Sao Meo, while I´m trying to play Sona)

Notation... Make it better

The notation of the Vietnamese traditional music is often used as a framework, cái suòn [“the frame”], cái can [“the root”], or chân phuong [“standard”]. (Lòng bán is the name I have been taught to use when referring to the framework, so that's what I will do.) It can be described in a few different ways. The ones that I have come across so far are the western notation and the Chinese signs both in its original form or written in roman letters: ho, xu, xu, xang, xe, cong, phan/oan. (The two xu:s are actually meant to be two different ones, but I’m unable to add some of the intonation marks of the Vietnamese language in Word. This also affects some of the other Vietnamese words in this document. A Vietnamese reader may have difficulty understanding them, and for this I am sorry.) The framework, after being learnt, is processed by instrumentalists who, through improvisation, add their own style to the piece. This practise is referred to as biê´n hoá lòng bán [“variations on a basic framework”]. It is this kind of improvisation that I refer to later in this post.

Le Tuan Hung speaks of two different levels when elaborating the lòng bán. The first level adding pitches to the framework, the other decorating it with ornaments. I’m not exactly sure which of the following methods belong to which level but the adding of hoa lá cành [“flowers, leaves and branches”] and chê´ chu [“inventing pitches”], sound like they could belong in the second level while thêm chu [“adding pitches”] could belong to the first. That is my interpretation at the moment.

When I talked with one of our teachers in an interview about notation, she explained that the music books that you can buy from the music store in the National Academy of Music are only one persons’ opinion on the music, revealing only one variation for each instrument. All teachers don’t have to agree on that variation, but it is the variation chosen by the school to be printed. That doesn’t mean every teacher has to use that notation. They are free to use their own variation to give to their students. The fact that there are five different teachers for the Dan Nhi alone, suggests there could be many different variations of each song taught at the academy.

It’s also not very likely that the variation once printed is up to date. I happened to walk through the Dan Nhi-part of the school last week and stumbled upon a student practising. We started a conversation using poor English, worse Vietnamese and the universal language of Sign and it turned out I had been taught by his teacher last year. I also noticed that he had the same music book as me, so I asked him to play a tune that I knew since we obviously must have the same variation, sharing both book and teacher. Although I could recognise my old teachers’ sound in the students’ playing, many things were different in this “newer” variation. Maybe this doesn’t prove anything. Maybe I changed my way of playing the tune when I returned to Sweden. Maybe the student played his own variation inspired by our teacher. Maybe he didn’t mean to play the notation at all. But it’s highly probable that it is the source of the variation being taught i.e. the teacher that is changing his variation. Maybe there should be a different way of recording the main melody, without printing a detailed prescriptive notation that try to explain a melody that might be changing slightly each year.

One of our teachers has previously let on to us that students at the National Academy of Music don’t know how to improvise in Vietnamese traditional music anymore, something that could be a result of the use of notation and printed variations. If the students learn something very detailed to begin with it is harder for them to determine which is the framework and which is the improvisation. She also points out that it is harder to change an elaborate version into another version. She wants the students to be able to use the notation or the framework to correctly extract the music prescribed in it, but believes that the system for notation used today is inadequate. She definitely thinks that western notation can be used for Vietnamese music, but it has to adapt to the traditional music of Vietnam. Someone has to make it better…

Preview..

By the way, here's a little sample of todays ensemble lesson. 

At least what it sounded like.

Questions.... and worms.

It seems like the more we try the less we understand. Today Esbjörn and I went to practice in a room by ourselves and started working on Tuong tu khuc, a Hué piece (from Hué the former capital of Vietnam). Like a lot of Vietnamese music it is pentatonic... except the notation suggests it is heptatonic. We puzzled over this for a while, until Esbjörn suggested that the pitches making the piece heptatonic (in this case B and E) could actually be variations of pitches in the pentatonic scale (in this case A and F). When looking in Le Tuan Hungs Dan Tranh music of Vietnam - Traditions and Innovations, it seemed to us that this could be a highly possible explanation. We will get back to this issue when we have read more about it.

Then we compared Tuong tu khuc to Ly con Sao. That presented us with another can of worms...

Thoughts on Miranda Aranas book: Neotraditional Music in Vietnam

I remember reading the phrase Nhac dân tôc hien dai (roughly: neotraditional music) in The Garland Encyclopedia of World Music one year ago. As I can recall it didn’t say too much about it but concluded that it was a politically endorsed genre that had connections to The Hanoi Conservatory of Music. Since the beginning of this project I’ve thought about what we are really learning and the difference between some things we have learnt from our teachers and some of the acts we have seen by Vietnamese musicians in Sweden and Vietnam. Things like: what’s the deal with the Trung and strange czardas renditions? Playing happy apparently homemade tunes on the K’ny while making fun of the different sounds you can make with a piece of bamboo? And why were some teachers on the conservatory upset when one of our Vietnamese teachers in Sweden taught us the “do re mi” system of Court music (we didn’t hear about that until a few years after)? I was very impressed by mr Tezan’s (this is not how it’s spelled only how his name sounds) K’ny playing, but the whole thing was a bit unnerving. After I’ve read Miranda Aranas book I feel a lot more prepared to handle these matters. Even though a lot seems to have changed at the conservatory since 1994 the book pinpoints some things I’ve felt been hinted to us during our stays in Hanoi and from our teachers in Sweden. It would have been interesting if we knew about this book two or three years ago. Could we have had a deeper discussion about traditions (both in and outside the conservatory) with our teachers or would it just been loads of misunderstandings and people taking sides? Even though I wish we had read the book earlier it was probably good that we didn’t. We have had loads of misunderstandings already without having to dig our fingers into apparently very sensitive matters. I have a feeling that the friendship we have with our teachers at this point (which we might not have got if we had harassed them with questions about politics in traditional music) will give us the opportunity to discuss these matters anyway.

Getting started

We are on our fourth day in Hanoi and we have had our first lessons. Today we'll hopefully recieve a schedule for the rest of our stay. Olof has made his first interview and I have read Miranda Aranas book. I will probably write more about the book later today as I will stay at the hotel coughing today instead of playing the flute. 

Yesterday we visited a Ca Tru performance in a village just outside Hanoi, it was our Ca Tru "maestro", Mai Hue (the woman on the picture), who brought us there together with one of her Dan Day students. It was very nice, almost all of the musicans were children from the village trying to learn the genre. Some of them didn't look that enthusiastic but most looked like they were having fun. According to Hue most of them started to play Ca Tru just a few months ago and in that case it was very impressing. Some time during our stay we will visit Hue's Ca Tru club in Hanoi, it will be interesting to see and hear what have happened since last year. 

Hanoi!

We have arrived! Tomorrow at 8.30 we will go to the Academy to find out what will happen. But first we have this afternoon free to adjust to the new enviroment. I just caught the worst cold in years so there will be no Sona for some days I´m afraid. Thats all for now, Olof is to exited to write anything at the moment as he just repaired his Dan Nhi with dental floss.

New books!

During this week we have received some new books from the USA and Australia:

Dan Tranh music of Vietnam - Tradition and Innovations by Le Tuan Hung

Neotraditional Music in Vietnam by Miranda Arana

Ca tru - A Vietnamese chamber music genre by Barley Norton

We also received two books from The Music Library of Sweden:

New perspectives on Vietnamese Music - Six Essays, Phong T. Nguyen ed.

From Rice Paddies and Temple Yards - Traditional Music of Vietnam by Phong T. Nguyen and Patricia Shehan Campbell

I haven't had time to read so much than the introductions yet, but one of the chapters of Le Tuan Hung's book can be find on the internet (Here). Miranda Arana's book might shed light on some questions on political influence on tradtional music in Vietnam that I have thought about. Nguyen and Campbell's book turned out to be a textbook in Vietnamese music complete with a tape for beginners. As a music teacher student, it will be very interesting to see which methods they use to explain the subject. Both Le's book and New Perspectives on Vietnamese Music have large bibliography and discography chapters that may be useful later on. I will write more about the books later on, maybe after our trip to Hanoi depending on whats on the schedule when we get there.

Lost in translation

At the moment I'm reading a thesis by Cecilia Hultberg, The Printed Score as a Mediator of Musical Meaning - Approaches to Music Notation in Western Tonal Tradition.

It is very interesting to read because it deals with problems I am likely to run into when answering my previously posed question regarding musical notation in Vietnam.

Among many other things it states that notation, like writing in general, is a socio-cultural phenomenon, and that musical meaning is always experienced in the specific cultural context , in which people participate i.e. in order to fully understand the socio-cultural phenomenon, you would have to understand the specific cultural context, in which it applies.

With this in mind I wonder if the music notation of the western tonal tradition is limited to western music, or can it successfully be applied to other musical cultures as well?

My response would be that some things will be lost in translation... which things?

Expectations are high

Vietnam, here we come... and what a trip it will be. I will probably meet with a Dan Nhi player from the Chéo theater. According to our Vietnamese teachers, the conservatory mainly teach the different techniques of the instruments. For deeper knowledge in, for example, the Chéo genre you have to study with the Chéo performers at the Chéo theater, and the same goes for all the different genres.

One of my main objects in the paper is to investigate the use of notation in the different educational establishments of Vietnam. Esbjörn and I have talked about focusing on three different educational establishments: the conservatory of music, the Chéo theater and a private study group focusing on the Ca Tru music. My question is:

How do the different establishments view written music and notation as a pedagogical means and how do they use notation in their teaching?

On the 6 of september we will leave for Hanoi. It's a bit earlier than we expected so we will have a lot to read the following weeks. We will be five on the tree week trip, almost the whole vietnam ensemble at the academy. In addition to me(Sao/Sona) and Olof(Dan Nhi), Sara(dan bau), Helena(Dan tranh) and Pia(song/percussion) will be on the trip. For me and Helena its the third trip to the conservatory in Hanoi and for the rest their second trip. Hopefully we will get alot of material to our paper.