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SHINO MIDORI
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The number of tourists going to Vietnam has lately increased. Many of them enjoy the music played in Vietnamese restaurants while eating. One popular music instrument used, together with Koto and Vietnamese Biwa or the Chinese Fiddle, is the traditional Vietnamese "Dan Bau." Foreign tourists are much attracted by this music instrument that could hardly be found outside Vietnam. It is such a special ethnic instrument that if you had heard it once you would never forget it. You can find in many parts of the world one-chord music instruments. Most of those instruments use a bow and fingers or a pallet to draw music sounds, usually not more than 2 or 3 different sounds in the musical scale. That is the limit for one-chord instruments and in order to play more sounds one needs music instruments with two or more chords, like samisen, violin or a guitar. Although the Vietnamese "Dan Bau" has only one chord it can play sounds of 2 octave and sometimes even of 3. By adjusting the chord it can play high and low sounds and create a special timbre. Most traditional music instruments have a history of their own. Dan Bau is one of the traditional instruments of Vietnamese music and I looked carefully for its historical origin, but all I could find out was that it is a genuine Vietnamese instrument that has been in use for more than one thousand years. Professor Trang Van Khe, a worldwide music figure and honorary member of UNESCO, under whom I made research on the subject, told me that there is only oral tradition concerning the origin of Dan Bau and the content varies according to persons and regions. Thus, he transmits what he has received from others. The story goes like this: (gothic start) Once upon the time, there was a warrior called Trung Vien. He had to leave his home to fight against the invasion army and asked his wife: "if the enemy comes bring my mother to the country side".
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That day came and the wife brought the mother to the countryside, as the husband had demanded. In their way, they had to pass through a village where they had the custom of offering human eyeballs, once a year, as sacrifice to the gods. In case a woman from a village would enter that village, by chance, they will offer her eyeballs to the gods. When the villagers saw the 2 women, mother and daughter, passing by their village they invited them to eat and during the meal informed them about their custom. As a result, the mother had to offer her eyes as a sacrifice, but the daughter feeling pity for her offered her own eyes to the gods. Thus, she became blind. The road back home was long and there were no stores in the way. The mother fell sick and the daughter afraid of not finding meat cut herself in pieces to cook a meal for her mother, so that she would not die of starvation. The divinities in heaven, full of compassion, gave one-chord musical instrument to the girl so that she could continue the journey playing music and support her mother. The war came to an end and the warrior hurried home looking for her mother and wife. Then, he overheard somebody saying that people have seen a mendicant blind girl playing music with a one-chord instrument and bringing along her mother. He had the impression that maybe those persons were his mother and his wife and he continued searching for them. One day he meets with them in the marketplace but his wife blind cannot see anything. In sadness she cries full of tears and even blood flows from her eyes, but she recovers sight again. That was the work of the gods. According to the tradition Dan Bau is a gift from the gods.(gothic end)
Vietnamese scholars could not find a written historical record concerning this instrument, but maybe it is as old as from the 11th century.
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