Vietnamese Musical Instruments        

   The earliest musical instrument to be discovered was a  bronze drum. The bronze drum   , estimated to be about 3,000 years old, is engraved with figures of a dancer. There is a star in the middle of the bronze drum, the star is presented for the sun of the earth.   

    Dan Bau or Dan Doc Huyen(Monochord). An acoustical instrument consisting of a sounding box with one string and a movable bridge, used to study musical tones. The instrument's single string stretchs over a trapezoidal wood soundboard. The soundboard is made of the hard rind of the bau (type of gourd). Subtle ornamentations, glissandi sounds, and imitation of the human voice could be produced by simultaneously plucking the string and pulling the ancient whammy bar. The whammy bar is a flexible bamboo stem which attachs to one end of the soundbox.

    Dan co . A fiddle played with a bow, having 2 strings tuned at intervals of a fifth, an unfretted fingerboard, and a pipe-bowl-shaped sound-box. It is capable of great flexibility in range, tone, and dynamics. There are 3 holding positions: The cornet is pressed against the musician's hip as he/she walks. The wooden resonant box is held between the musician's knees sitting on a stool. The cylinder is held between the musician's feet in sitting position. Dan Nhi is called Dan Co in South Viet Nam.

 

     Moon Lute. Dan Nguyet or Dan Kim, unlike the Chinese yue'ki`n, Dan Kim has a long, slender fingerboard with unequal frets which allows extreme modulations.

    San Lute. Dan Nhat has five strings and a short, slender fingerboard with unequal frets which allows extreme modulations.

    Dan Sen. Dan Sen is a 2- string, 14 keys instrument. It's only used in the Hat Boi( Traditional Drama) in South Vietnam.

   Chien(this instrument set of 12 bells is tuned to the chromatic scale and played with 2 light hammers). Choung(this gang bell is made of cooper, played by striking with a mallet at the beginning of the khai kinh)

   There are a lot of Vietnamese instruments such as trong com, cai bong, gong, chien lenh, trong ba bong, trong lenh, trong tran, dan ti ba,  dan gao, dan tranh, ken, etc. If you want to find out more about the Vietnamese instrument you can click on - Globe.gif (126 bytes) viettouch.com - to find some more information.

Read this in Vietnamese