The
music of Vietnam and its history are too complex to be described
briefly. True, to a large extent, Vietnamese music was handed
down from one generation to another. I am spending my life
studying music of every corner of the country, and am fortunate,
however, in having some various written and oral sources on
my research.
It is hoped that the present information will prove both informative
and entertaining to those who have been attracted to Vietnamese
music. The
exact ethnological origin of the Vietnamese music is not clearly
known. In addition to the Chinese, Korean, Mongolian and Southeast
Asian’s influences found in archeological remnants,
there seems to be something that can only be explained as
indigenously Vietnamese.
Along
with Chinese literature, architecture, government, and religion,
Vietnam had adopted Chinese music models and developed music
of her own. However, in the process of adaptation, the system
was likely reshaped by the Vietnamese people according to
their own well established habit.
Western
music is easily understood by Westerners because it is part
of their own heritage. A large part of Vietnamese music is
either incomprehensible to them or greatly oversimplified
for them by convenient stereotypes provided by only partially-informed
writers, who sometimes confuse it with that of China. Therefore,
before Westerners could understand Vietnamese music, they
must first have an idea of its place in the general history
of Vietnam.
Because
of her geographical locations, Vietnam belongs as much to
East-Asia as to South-Asia. Moreover, Vietnam was under Chinese
domination for a thousand years (from the 1st to the 10th
century). Besides, at the crossroads of peoples and civilization,
Vietnam was also in touch with the people of the ancient Indianized
Kingdom of Champa (The Cham still exist in greatly reduced
number as one of the ethnic minorities in Viet Nam today).
