Legend has it that a poor young man named Lo went missing from his village. After some time his friends went to look for him and finally found him, dead by a stream with a Khen Be in his hand. In his memory, his friends made copies of his Khen Be. Since that time, young Thai men have carried theses…
The Dan Ty Ba is a four-string instrument which is frequently present in a traditional orchestra. Its sound box is shaped like a pear cut in half lengthwise. Its soundboard is made of unvarnished light wood, and its back is made of hard wood with a slightly convex surface. The neck is short and tightly fixed to the sound-box. Originally the…
The Dan Tranh is also known as Dan Thap Luc or sixteen-stringed zither. Its shape resembles a bamboo tube that has been sliced vertically in half. The Dan Tranh has mostly been seen performed by female musicians in Vietnamese traditional dress (Ao Dai).
This three-stringed lute is used by several ethnic groups in Vietnam. The Viet call it Dan Tam, whereas the Ha Nhi call it Ta in. This instrument exists in three sizes: large, medium, and small. The small is the most popular. The sound box is oval-shaped, and the soundboard is pierced with sound holes. A bridge is fixed on the…
Sao truc, the bamboo flute, which is made from a stem of fine bamboo pierced with finger holes, has long been attached to Vietnamese culture. A vertically-held bamboo flute is made from the very bottom of a bamboo tree. Bamboo is hollow except for the nodes which are spaced at intervals along the pipe. These nodes are knocked out to form…
T'rung is one of the popular musical instruments closely associated with the spiritual life of the Bahnar, TSedan, Giarai, Ede and other ethnic minority groups in the Central Highlands of Vietnam. This traditional folk-musical instrument is made of short bamboo tubes differing in size, with a notch at one end and a beveled edge at the other. The long big…
The trong com (rice drum) gets its name from the practice of placing a pinch of hot steamed rice in the middle of the drum skin to "tune" the instrument. The trong com onsists of a hollow cylinder or hemisphere with a membrane stretched tightly over one or both ends, played by beating with sticks. The player, when standing, has the…
The K'Ni is a stringed musical instrument, sawing bow branch and is popular among many ethnic minority groups living in northern highlands (central Vietnam) such as Bahnar, Gia Rai, E De, Se Dang, Pako, and Hre... The most notable particularity of K'Ni is that it has no resonator. The whole K'Ni is a round or straight branch of bamboo section…
Dan Day is a special instrument of Vietnamese origin. This three-stringed lute is used incorporate the peculiarities of the two-stringed lute (dan Nguyet), the four-stringed pear-shaped lute (dan Ty Ba), and the three-stringed lute (dan Tam). In the past, the dan day was an accompanying instrument used only for one genre of songs, which later divided in two variants known…
The Klong put is the Xe Dang language name of a musical instrument of the wind family, air driving-in branch. It is played by ethnic groups in Tay Nguyen (Central Highlands) such as the Xe Dang, Bahnar, Gia Rai, Hre, etc. A traditional Klong put consists of many large empty hornless bamboo sections. The length of each section ranges from…
