vietnamese music inquiry

[jeannie]

Not sure if this is the correct place to post this...I've been active on this forum in the past for Chinese traditional music-related discussion (dizi & guzheng), but now I want to talk about Vietnamese traditional music. There doesn't seem to be a large online communal space to talk about Vietnamese traditional music so I thought I'd return here.

I will be traveling to Vietnam this summer with my family (I am second-generation Vietnamese, my parents are immigrants from the South) and would love to either pick up an authentic dan tranh or a dan bau.

I'm wondering if anyone has any experience with buying and playing Vietnamese traditional instruments and can impart some wisdom Some questions I already have are the differences between dan tranh of varying string numbers, qualities to look for when choosing dan tranh/dan bau, reasonable prices, and also perhaps some resources for learning the instrument in the US. I am from Houston which thankfully boasts a very large Vietnamese community, but I surprisingly found it difficult to find places teaching dan tranh (at least using an online method).

Also, any preferences between dan tranh and dan bau? Of course, it would be difficult to bring a full-sized dan tranh back to the US, something that I haven't quite figured out how to do either.

[davidmdahl]

Hello Jeannie,

I suggest contacting Julie Trinh Dang of Vietwave (https://www.vietwavemusic.org/) in Houston. She should be full of good advice and help. I bought my dan tranh made by Nguyen Vinh Bao via Julie some years ago. HaiYen, a daughter of Pham Thuy Hoan, also lives in Houston. Co Thuy Hoan is the leader of the traditional music group and school Tieng Hat Que Huong in Saigon. HaiYen may be able to direct you to a good instrument source as well. It is hard to find good instruments on your own in Vietnam, so a contact for a reputable maker is essential.

Dan tranhs are available with 17, 19, and 21 strings. The older standard was 16, and I have seen photos of even more than 21 strings. I have a 21 string tranh. If I had it to do over again, I might choose 19 strings.

As I understand it, bringing large instruments back from Vietnam on the plane has become a lot more challenging. Especially for a dan tranh, you could easily spend $200 or more on shipping or excess/oversize baggage fees. I suggest checking with the airline. Julie likely has useful experience as well. A foldable dan bau should be less of a problem to bring home.

Best wishes,

David

[jeannie]

Thanks David for the response. I got in touch with Julie and she redirected me to a couple different sellers. I just want to post an update now on what I ended up doing for anyone else who is interested in purchasing a dan tranh.

I ended up buying a 17-string one off of this website tatham.vn/dan-tranh-c138.html - it is from a seller based in Vietnam. I got it shipped to the US and bought some supplies (tuner, book, etc.) with it. Total cost was less than $500 which I considered very affordable.

Because I will be learning how to play it over the summer and the town I'm staying in doesn't have a dan tranh teacher, I looked into lessons online. Mr. Hoang from this website www.khacchi.com/vietca_classes.html then directed me to Vanessa Vo (Van Anh Vo). She is a very well-established dan tranh player in Vietnam and the US. I'm very excited to start learning dan tranh with her.

Many thanks again for the response. I wish anyone else who is interested in learning dan tranh the best of luck!

[davidmdahl]

Thanks for the good news, Jeannie. I am glad to know you got some good help. I have a dan nhi (fiddle) from Ta Tham, but I have not seen or played their dan tranh. I hope it works out well for you.

I know both Bic Hoang and Van-Anh, and they are wonderful women and artists. Van-Anh is a terrific teacher, considering the skill of her students that I have heard. You might enjoy the following performance with Bic on dan bau and Van-Anh on dan tranh:



Good luck with your studies!

Best wishes,

David