Ken, ken, ken...

I have been thinking a lot about the instrument I’m playing. Early on I realized that the Vietnamese uses a lot of different names for it. I’ve mostly been calling it a Ken sona as that was the name Khanh used during our lessons the first trip. But before I met him I had bought an instrument in Hue called Ken bau. Khanh dissmised that instrument and said I should buy a Sona from him instead. Ken is the name used for all reed instruments in Vietnam.
My two instruments are quite similar; they have four parts: reed, reed stake, body and bell. The bore and holes of the "body" are virtually the same on my two instruments but the bell, the reedstake and the reed differs. Another kind of reed and stake could mean the use of a different playing technique. A small reed and a stake with a lip-plate imply a playing manner where the reed vibrates more or less freely in the mouth, my Ken bau has these features. A larger reed and no lip-plate imply a more oboeish way of playing with the reed between your lips, my Ken sona has these features.
Most of the pictures I seen with different kinds of Vietnamese Ken has a lip-plate and a small reed, so has most of the types I seen from the Middle East and China. The Cham minoritys Ken, Xaranai, don’t have a lip-plate and the pictures shows that the player has the reed between his lips. The same is true for the Indian Shehnai. I tried to discuss this with Khanh but as we don’t speak the same language we couldn’t go into details. He showed me some different kinds of Ken and reeds, pointed shook his head and wrote down names and origin. According to him the chinese models has a lip-plate and a smaller reed, he doesn’t like the lip-plate. When he plays on the Chinese sona he uses the same stake and reed as for his Vietnamese Ken.
From this “discussion” I also understood that the Ken I’m playing is a north ("bac-Ha noi") Vietnamese typ and that he also uses a southern model ("nam-Da nang, Hue"). The “nam” Ken is smaller (tuned in C instead of F) and has different fingerings and a different kind of reed (still held between the lips). He doesn’t play the nam tunes on his bac ken as it doesn’t allow the right ornaments. This might explain why he didn’t want to play Xang Xe (a nam tune) with ornaments on the bac Ken, he only played the framework melody. Khanh is also an instrument maker so I have ordered a southern style Ken from him as well. Hopefully I will be able to do some documentation of him building it. According to Khanh both the nam and the bac model is called Ken bop.
I’m not totally certain that you could hear what kind of instrument the musician is using only from a recording. But I get the impression that an instrument with a lip-plate where the reed is vibrating freely in the mouth-cavity gives a rougher sound than when the reed is controlled by the musicians lips. This is probably not always true but the videos I’ve seen and the pictures accompanying recordings I’ve heard suggest this.
Why do Khanh and a some other ken players I’ve seen in Hanoi play with the reed between their lips when most of the pictures and recordings of Vietnamese ken players shows the other way of playing? Khanh is a Tuong musician; can his way of playing be connected to the Tuong style? Tuong is some times called court theatre, but the ken used in other court music is played with a lip-plate. Stephen Addis (Music of the Cham Peoples, 1971), wrote a few lines about Cham influence on Vietnamese court music and says that one of the influences that still can be seen is the use of the Ken. But the Ken bau of court music has little resemblance of the Xaranai neither in playing manner or appearance. Of course this influence that Addis writes about was hundreds of years ago so a lot might have changed. Khanhs nam style Ken bop looks a bit like the Xaranai; both the reed and the general shape of the instrument. But I have not seen any really good pictures of a Xaranai reed so this resemblance might only be cosmetic. Tuong seems to have been most popular in central and southern Vietnam, the area where most of the Cham are living so it’s not impossible that there has been an influence from their instruments. Maybe this way of playing is a later influence maybe from the European oboe? Or it might just be convenience; when playing with the reed between your lips you have a better control of the sound and you can probably squeeze out more of the instrument by playing in that manner. I will try to bring one of my English speaking Vietnamese friends to Khanhs home to discuss a bit more about this.

First meeting with the teachers

Yesterdays visit at the Musicology department was a bit strange. Hai Van couldn't come so she sent mr Le Pho instead, Le Pho has many qualities but English is not one of them. Nobody seemed to know why we were there and when I tried to explain that I wanted to listen to funeral music and other styles of music that uses the Ken they took me to a computer and showed me their website. I've used it several times before so I was not really impressed, I got the feeling that they thought that we were total beginners on Vietnamese music and therefore would be happy just seeing the webpage. As far as I knew they should have been told what we wanted to do, but no. After several phonecalls to Hai Van and loads of misunderstandings I finaly managed to shedule a meeting with the author of an article about funeral music, mr. Dang Hoanh Loan. I hope that by talking to him, through Hai Van, I will be able to learn a bit more about the music he describes in his article.
This morning we went to the Nha Hat Cheo, the cheo theatre, to meet with our new teachers. As I suspected I was going to play with Nguyen Ngoc Khanh, he was my teacher during my first visit to Hanoi. It was very nice seeing him again and even though we don't speak the same language I hope it will work out. At first he said that it was better for me to play folksongs as I wouldn't be able to play Tuong with anybody in Sweden. When I explained that my interest was more from a researcher perspective than musician and that I also was interested in funeral music he looked very surprised. That a western could be interested in learning about funeral music made him very suprised but pleased as he himself played had played that music a lot. Khanh is apparently know by everybody as the best player of the Sona and he seems very aware of that. He made it clear (as far as i understood it) that he expected me to treat him as the best and that I must show respect for his old masters by bringing an offering to his house before we started with the lessons. It turned out that he had an altar for his four old tuong masters and that he should tell them that he had a new student so that they could help me to learn. Hai Van explained this to me. Khanh have had another western student on the Sona, he told me, an oboist in the new york philharmonic orchestra. It might have been a while ago as he had some troubles remembering her name but he hought it was Anna. We didn't play so much this first time but he changed the bell of my Sona so that it would intonate better. He explained a bit about vibrato and copied two tunes that I could start with. The tunes were both to be played when the king where walking about in a play. I also asked him to write down the names of the different parts of the instrument as this might be good to know. This afternoon we will go to Bac Ninh and watch a Tuong and a Cheo play. Hopefully this will give inspiration for next weeks lesson!