And the Beat Goes On—the Variety of Vietnamese Percussion

                                                            by Jim Goodman

drummers at a temple ritual in Hanoi

        Drums have always been a part of Vietnamese culture.  Drums and other beating instruments are part of every musical ensemble, from trios to full orchestras.  Yet historically speaking percussion per se was not simply to accent the rhythms of musical melodies.  Drums played a role in situations where there was no music to accompany.  Drumbeats of regular cadence announced the passage of high mandarins through the streets.  Sentinels beat big drums to announce fires or the bursting of a dike.  Authorities used drums to assemble citizens.  Even during the performance of songs drums were used independently of the music to underline the sentiments of songs.  Drums even amplified the audience reaction with drumbeat rolls to underscore the applause or a run of discordant beats to emphasize disapproval.

playing at the Hai Bà Trưng festival

       Besides drums, gongs and chimes also have an ancient tradition.  Originally these were made of stone.  Artisans shaped different sizes of tubes for the chimes and usually cut the stone gong in the shape of a fat crescent.  Later on bronze became the favored material.  Chimes were only installed in temples, but gongs, though also in the temples, were used in processions, both religious and secular.

       The urge for percussive expression did not remain limited to drums, gongs, cymbals and chimes.  The Vietnamese also developed a range of clappers and woodblocks to produce rattling and knocking sounds subtly different from each other and from the sounds they could obtain from their drums.  The clappers consisted of a pair of flexible bamboo tongs, on the end of which were mounted a pair of thin, crescent-shaped pieces of wood, or an animal head which struck a wooden disk, or a pair of slit hardwood blocks.  When handled skillfully these sounded like castanets.

       The woodblocks included solid pieces, partly hollowed blocks or carved frogs with a ribbed back, and pieces shaped like big seeds, with slits in one side.  Exactly how big the wooden piece was and how much of it was slit or hollowed determined precisely what kind of sound it gave when hit with a wooden mallet.  And they were all slightly, to a trained ear, recognizably different.

slit hardwood knockers

       Bells of various kinds included the bronze temple bells as well as small bells attached to sticks or lotus shaped- wooden rattles, or embedded in hollow, hand-sized rings.

       The range of percussion also included bamboo tubes of various sizes that when struck gave off different sounds accordingly.  The tubes could also have a corrugated band of notches on one side, like the carved frogs.  When the player rolled the mallet along the notches it produced a scraping, rattling sound similar to that of the washboard used in jug bands in the rural United States. 

       The ensembles that entertain diners at swanky restaurants in the big cities of Vietnam use several different percussion instruments in their shows.  Among the more recent additions to the percussion set are small, handle-less porcelain teacups.  The player holds a pair in the fingers of each hand and rattles them at the appropriate moments.

playing the wooden frog

teacup percussion

       Clappers and woodblocks join the drums, gongs and other instruments in festival processions, too.  On these occasions, though, an essential percussion instrument is one that is of strictly Vietnamese origin, not taken from the Chinese or any of the hill peoples.  Called sênh tiền in Vietnamese, it is kind of a two-piece coin clapper.  In the left hand the player holds a pair of narrow wooden boards, about 2.4 cm wide and 1 cm thick.  The top piece is 30 cm long, ribbed on the top surface, and joined to a bottom piece 33 cm long, which is ribbed on the bottom surface.  The two are joined at a point about 8 cm from the near end.

sênh tiền players

       About 1 cm from the far end of the lower board a mounted screw, standing upright about 2 cm, holds a pair of old coins with square holes in the center.  Two more upright screws at the end of the upper board hold a pair each of these coins.  At the hinge the clapper opens up to about 75 degrees.  When the player opens the clapper at the hinge and closes it the coins on the screws jingle.  In the right hand the player holds a similar wooden board, 31 cm long, about 2.3 cm wide and 1 cm thick.  Both the top and bottom surfaces are smooth and usually embellished with some flowery mother-of-pearl inlay.  This piece is ribbed on the sides and the player draws the ribbed sides against the ribbed top and bottom surfaces of the coin clapper while playing it.

       The most common appearance of this instrument is at the head of a procession column during one of the big annual festivals.  The sênh tiền players are usually women, but occasionally include one or two older men.  The men will dress in the ancient farmer style, with a loose, translucent, thin black tunic over a side-fastened shirt and a pair of trousers, yellow headband and, just for the procession, a bright, spangle-studded sash.  The women wear the loose, four-flap tunic over long skirts and a white blouse, multi-colored belt with a long front end, and thick red headbands.

       The sênh tiền players usually lead the column.  The processions are generally slow and stately, while the sênh tiền players both dance and play their instruments.  The space for their performance is quite limited and always inching forward, but the players make good use of it.  Their dance steps are slow but rhythmic, the movements of their arms and legs as graceful as those by chèo stage performers.  The bright flaps of their costumes swirl colorfully when they turn and all their gestures and steps correspond to the subtle rattling and tinkling of their instruments.

ca trù performance in Bạch Mã Temple, Hanoi

       One of the simplest percussion instruments is the phách, which is simply a thin, slightly curved piece of hardwood beaten with a pair of wooden sticks, and played by a ca trù singer.  She sings traditional folk ballads dating back many centuries that praise the beauty of the countryside and the joys of rural life. The genre is also known as hát ả đào, after a young woman named Ả Đào who sang such songs to the Chinese soldiers encamped by the river.  So charmed were they by her voice they kept drinking more and more alcohol to enhance their appreciation.  When the soldiers had become completely drunk Vietnamese guerrillas suddenly swarmed into the camp and pushed the drunken soldiers into the river, where they all drowned.

       After the expulsion of the Chinese and the establishment of the Lê Dynasty hát ả đào’s popularity spread.  At the Lê court it became the favorite form of royal entertainment.  Comprising a single female singer backed by three instruments, one stringed and two percussion, the shows were quite restrained, almost austere, compared to the stage productions of chèo and tuồng put on by the previous Trần Dynasty court.  But to enjoy hát ả đào performances Vietnamese music-lovers did not have to depend upon a royal invitation to come hear it at the court.  Inns sprang up in the capital that employed hát ả đào singers in more private settings.

       Customers at these inns, mostly male, celebrating the birth of a son, promotion in rank, conclusion of a business deal, etc, purchased a number of bamboo tally cards (trù) upon entry. At the conclusion of each song they gave some of these to the singer, the number of trù depending on how much they liked the song.  When the inn closed for the night the proprietor paid the girls according to the number of trù they received.  The singing genre then acquired another name—ca trù (songs of the tally card)—that today is used interchangeably with hát ả đào.

playing the phách for a ca trù song

       Usually the set began with a song the first line of which was, “Now that the evening is falling, whoever wants to buy sadness in handfuls, I shall sell it to him.”  Their repertoire included old folk songs, boatmen’s ballads, antiphonal singing (quan họ), the compositions of scholars, and tunes from neighboring countries, and later on from France.  Nowadays the inns have disappeared, but the ca trù tradition has enjoyed a revival in recent decades.  Besides regular shows at Đình Kim Ngân in Hanoi’s Hàng Bạc Street, ca trù is now part of many festival programs.  And the songs and presentation have not differed since classical times.

        The singer herself sets the basic rhythm playing the phách.  A small cylindrical drum adds extra percussion.  Providing the melody is an indigenous three-stringed instrument peculiar to Vietnamese music called the đàn dáy, invented for this genre and played exclusively by men.  The đàn dáy player has to fit a melody into the framework provided by the beating of the phách.  The drummer uses his instrument less for the rhythm than to make his own comments on the singing.  If he likes it he plays a quick roll on the drum several times, as a kind of applause.  If he doesn’t like it he merely raps the side of the drum twice.

       Cylindrical drums of various sizes are part of the orchestras backing other forms of traditional entertainment, such as water-puppet shows, chèo and tuồng theater.  In addition to providing rhythm for the music, drums also serve to heighten the atmosphere of selected scenes in the drama being staged, and to enhance the excitement during festival contests.  Temples also have needs for drums, with large ones installed inside to accompany rituals and smaller ones stored fur use in festival processions.

the "thunder drum" for Hanoi's millennium

drum-making at Đọi Tam's festival

       The religious and cultural revival characteristic of 21^st century Vietnam has been a real boon to the economy of Đọi Tam, a village in Hà Nam province south of Hanoi.  Đọi Tam is one of the country’s hundreds of craft villages and its specialty is making drums.  It supplies drums to temples and theater groups all over Vietnam and its craftsmen also made the huge drum, 2.3 meters in diameter, installed in the Hanoi Citadel for the city’s millennium celebrations in 2010.

       The tradition began with the visit of the Vietnamese sovereign Lê Hoàn in 986 to perform a royal plowing ceremony.  For the occasion, two Đọi Tam villagers presented the king with a 1.4 meter-tall drum they’d made, nicknamed the “thunder drum” for the deep sound the size of it produced.  Ever since then Đọi Tam has been producing “thunder drums” and others of various sizes.

fitting the staves in place

       The village today holds about 2200 residents, with around 600 engaged in drum production.  Craftsmen pass on the skills to their sons and their sons’ wives, but not to the daughters, since they will marry out.  Children become aware of the trade and its tradition from an early age, while apprenticeship, when they learn how to make and repair drums, starts at around age 14.  The village also has a drum troupe, of 12 males and 48 females, who play at other village festivals or for government-sponsored shows.

       Two small hills lie just outside Đọi Tam.  At the top of one of these is Chùa Long Đọi Sơn, originally built in 1118 and more or less in continuous use since.  On the 19^th day of the 3^rd lunar month the temple is one of the venues for celebrating Đọi Tam’s annual festival.  Devotees come to make offerings, including messages to the gods written by scribes seated in the courtyard, and watch the dancers performing rituals honoring the Holy Mothers.

testing the drumhead

       Meanwhile, at the village communal house (đình) at the edge of Đọi Tam, male elders in silk robes and tall miters conduct rituals honoring the 10^th century founders of the drum-making tradition.  Following this comes a kind of ceremonial demonstration of the final stages of putting together a drum, performed by a pair of young men costumed in red headbands and bright red and yellow sleeveless tunics.  The wood for the staves, which comes from the jackfruit tree, is already cut into its curved shapes, but has to be filed down along the edges for the staves to fit together perfectly.  When the staves are ready the workers use a hoop to hold the staves and put them in the proper barrel shape.

       The last step is to attach the drumhead, made of buffalo hide, shaved thin and sun-dried in preparation.  While a fastening hoop keeps the hide in place, workers use a hammer and a small stake, constantly sharpened, to make little indentations in the hide against the wood of the rim.  The penultimate step is to test the drumhead by dancing on it.  With final tightening and a last inspection by the elders, the task is completed.  The past has been honored and the present blessed.  As for the future, drums are still a feature of life in Vietnam.  And Đọi Tam will continue to produce them.

"thunder drum" in a Hanoi temple

                                                                              * * *

       

SILVER STREET’S NEW TEMPLE

                                                               by Jim Goodman

Hàng Bạc decorations

     Hanoi’s Old Quarter originated with the establishment of the city as the national capital just over a thousand years ago.  Between the Red River and the royal citadel, this was the part of the city where the commoners lived, providing craft products and other services for the royal court, and in time for the expanding city’s residents.  By the 15th century the Old Quarter was organized into 36 guilds, each specializing in a single product, divided into wards about two blocks long, named after the item produced there, and featured gates at each end, locked and manned by sentries at dark. 

    Even today the Old Quarter still retains much of its ancient organization.  Most streets begin with word Hàng, which translates as goods or merchandise.  Many of them are still dominated by shops selling the product the street was named for, such as Hàng Thiềc, named after its tinsmiths, while on some streets only a few shops still market the designated product.  Others have switched products.  No cooking oil (dầu) can be found on Hàng Dầu, but now all the shops there sell footwear.  You can’t find any Chinese medicine on Thuốc Bắc, but that’s where you go to buy locks and other hardware.  No bamboo is for sale on Bamboo Street (Hàng Tre).  Now you find it on Cloth Street (Hàng Vải).  So the system more or less remains.  Hanoi residents buy products street by street, rather than at a big shopping mall, which is anyway several kilometers from the Old Quarter and a relatively recent addition to the city.

Hàng Bạc decorations

    One of the best known and most typical of the Old Quarter streets is Hang Bạc, or Silver Street, still full of jewelry shops and money changers.  It got its name in the late 15th century when a Court mandarin secured a royal commission to set up a silver bullion workshop in this ward.  He then invited his fellow villagers from Châu Khê, in Hải Dương province, to settle and work there.  They were later joined by migrants from Định Công, near the capital, and goldsmiths from Đồng Sâm, in Thái Binh province.

    As was the norm elsewhere in the Old Quarter wards, when villagers moved into the capital to live and work they maintained relations with their original villages by erecting a communal house (đình) in the ward, just like in their villages, to honor the tutelary god of their former village.  The village đình was the focus of religious and social activities for the people, where village elders adjudicated disputes, organized the periodic redistribution of land and managed the annual festivals.  The tutelary god, the village protector, was often a military hero who fought Chinese invaders, but could also be, in craft villages, the person who introduced the craft.
      Silver Street residents built a đình in honor of Hiên Viên, the legendary father of all crafts, and located it first around the corner in a side alley, then moved it to the upper part of Hàng Bạc, calling it Đình Kim Ngân.  When Huế became the capital after 1802 the ward lost its bullion-making contract, so the residents got into the jewelry business, if they weren’t already, and currency exchange, which continued throughout the colonial period.  And Đình Kim Ngân remained the cultural focus of the ward.

Hàng Bạc procession

    After 1954, though, the government, faced with a severe housing shortage in the capital, allowed several families to take up residence in the đình’s compound.  It had already lost its spiritual significance, for during the anti-French struggle Đình Kim Ngân was used by the Việt Minh to teach people quốc ngũ, the Romanized alphabet for the Vietnamese language, and to organize resistance campaigns.  For the next fifty years the number of people residing in the compound continued to increase. 
    Then in 2009, as part of the official attention to the country’s heritage, with Hanoi’s 1000 years anniversary due the following year, the government put Đình Kim Ngân on the list of places to renovate and restore to their original functions.  And so 83 people from 25 families had to move out.  The work was finally finished in 2012 and the compound employed to host thrice-weekly performances of ca trù, a traditional singing style that originated in the early 15th century and has recently been recognized as part of the world’s intangible heritage.
    The actual dedication and official re-opening of the đình, however, did not happen until the last week of March, 2013.  During these days large yellow paper lanterns and Buddhist flags lined both sides of Hàng Bạc, silver and white silk floss flowers were attached to tree branches and utility poles and Đình Kim Ngân’s compound was turned into an exhibition of traditional Vietnamese culture. In the front courtyard stood six huge gilt guardian statues, three to a side, with a chandelier of crescent-shaped metal gongs, oversized old square-holed coins and streamers of golden thread suspended above the yard.  Flanking the entrance to the sanctuary were outstanding examples of carved wooden panels and cabinets lavishly inlaid with mother-of-pearl.

lacquer ware display

carved lamp housing

     Just inside the sanctuary were a collection of old coins on the right and of silver jewelry, still a Hàng Bạc specialty, on the left.  Next to the coins were samples of outstanding ceramic wares, while next to the opposite wall were lacquered tumblers, goblets and vases, beneath a low-relief, gilt carving of a classical lute player.  In front of the altar was a carved wooden platform holding silver mugs, candlesticks and sculptures of phoenixes.  Yellow silk lanterns flanked the altar, the same kind that hung along each side of the street outside.  The walls behind the sanctuary displayed more handicraft art—carved wooden lanterns hanging from dragons and low relief carvings of traditional domestic life.

lion dancers

    At dusk on the last Friday of March participants from the three associated villages assembled for a grand procession to and past the đình.  Dressed in traditional silk festival garments, in ranks of men, women or school children, under their village banners, the participants advanced slowly down Hàng Bạc towards the đình.  They carried elaborately carved palanquins bearing traditional offerings like fruits and nuts and more recent products like canned soft drinks and packaged noodles.  Behind them came the huge drum and big metal gong, both mounted on wheeled carts.  The people in the procession flanked them and made their way forward to the đình entrance.  Just as they got close a dragon dance team emerged from within the compound and cavorted up and down the street between the procession lines. 

   Three lion dancers followed them and both entertained the participants, as well as the hordes of spectators hemmed in on both sides of the street, for about twenty minutes.  Then they marched to the front of the ranks and the procession continued to the end of Hàng Bạc.

    The displays inside the compound stayed in place over the weekend, but on Monday folks began dismantling them and returning them to their place of origin.  The guardian statues went back to Sơn Đồng village in Hoái Đức district, about twenty km west, the silver or coin collections back to their owners, etc The decorations on Hàng Bạc remained up a few more days.  Then, stripped down to its essentials, Đình Kim Ngân returned to its new role as the venue for ca trù music performances, thus continuing to play its part in the preservation of traditional Vietnamese culture. 

traditional handicrafts workshop