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.