Guitarist Dang Ngoc Long

We can understand composers of folksongs after listening to melodies of the songs. All of the folksongs are seemingly remind us of nostalgia regardless of their animated and cheery melodies. Unlike modern music such as hip-hop dance music, pop-rock, folksongs are sweet and gentle. Hence, they are considered inner voice and quintessence melodies of a nation, of a region. They usually share common value. One nation can understand others easily through the folksongs. Is there any musical instrument in the world to perform the trans-national folksongs better than guitar which can help to overcome language barrier and prejudices?

Modernized Vietnamese folksongs are born in different conditions with renovated Vietnamese music works. It is probably simple for the musicians to play the Vietnamese folksongs with music instruments introduced from abroad now. However, it turned out a long difficult course of Vietnamese musicians to introduce beaufitul Vietnamese souls to the world. If we look back long history of Vietnamese music, we will recognize ardent aspiration of the Vietnamese musicians.

In  International Guitar Competion and Berlin Festival 2006 in Germany, Vietnamese musician Dang Ngoc Long, Headmaster of Berlin-Gesundbrunnen Music Schook, had a successful night performance. He played not only famous foreign ballads but also introduced guitar adapted versions of Vietnamese folksongs. Some of them were composed by Dang Ngoc Long himself.

If the musician doesn’t understand his nation, he can’t perform the guitar adapted versions of the folksongs succesfully. Let’s listen to the folksong “Floating water-fern and wandering clouds” adapted and performed by Dang Ngoc Long to know the reason why the musician is so famous. (Click here to listen to Floating water-fern and wandering clouds)

Although you have no idea about culture and people in the North Delta Vietnam, you can imagine yourself walking in a peaceful land through gentle, elegant tunes of guitar. If you already know about the northen delta, your imagination will certainly bloom more. So bloomy that my above comment becomes redundant. Let’s listen to To spin thread and thread a needle adapted and performed by Phung Tuan Vu so that you can experience the sweet melodies of the Vietnamese northern folksong (Click here to listen to To spin thread and thread a needle).

On 5^th August 2006, SBS National Australian TV broadcasted Masterpiece music performance of Vietnamese musician Hoang Ngoc Tuan at Seymour Centre, Sydney. He played Rice Drum, chapter II of Full moon festival suite which was developed from Bac Ninh Love Duets.

In his effort to introduce unique nuances of the Vietnamese folksongs, Hoang Ngoc Tuan has enriched cultural treasury of the nation. In recent years, Full-moon festival suite and Memories of the highlands, two guitar music works of Hoang Ngoc Tuan have been regularly played in many classical guitar performances and guitar competition in Vietnam (Click here to listen to Memories of the highlands).

Do you find the differences of Vietnamese folksongs in the north and in the south? The northern folksongs  are gentle, refined and subtle while the southern folksongs express broad-minded and liberal characteristics of the southern people. Listen to the folksongs, we can understand people of a nation, of a region. Endless regular arpegios and simple melodies can be found easily in the southern folksongs. If you listen to folksongs of the highlands, you will probably go into ecstacy over their strong melodies.

• Written by Ba Phung
• Translated by TU