Saturday, July 24, 2004mep essay
i did this in one hour fifteen. vera. bow to me. wahahahah. and in cast i(by some miracle) forget to bring this on monday. here's what i've got. you are at liberty to read it but
plagarism will not be forgiven!! leave my work alone and go write your own essay on mep. thankyouverymuch.
my essay on vietnamese terminology and notation. word count does not include title. because there is none. (words: 1184; time 1 hour 15 min)
Vietnamese music, while unified to a great extent, varies as you travel from north to south Vietnam, and widely indeed. So widely that there is no single theory that can encompass all the kinds of music heard throughout the country. As such, Vietnamese music has been generalized under three geographical sections: north, central, and south. Each section has its own set of rules regarding their music, and in terminology, these differences are obvious indeed.
A word that the Vietnamese use in equivalence to 'mode' is dieu, which means 'fashion, way, manner, melody, song, piece, rhythm', among other meanings. There are 46 different dieu in ca tru, the word for chamber music in the north; 20 in ca hue, central; and 80 in nhac tai tu, south. The difference in the number of modes, or dieu, is certainly evident in the central and southern chamber musics. There are five recognized modes: nam, for 'south, soft'; bac, for 'north, rigid'; huynh, for 'yellow, bright'; pha, for 'mixture, uncertain'; and nao, for 'slanting, happy variance'. This agreement of terminology, however few, shows the unity in the music.
Because of the vagueness of dieu, the Vietnamese usually prefer to use hoi, meaning 'breath, air, nuance'. This term helps to distinguish one particular mode from another through specific ornamentation. In this way, a musician who plays the wrong ornament specific to a certain mode may destroy the mode all together.
There are four basic skills a Vietnamese musician must know: one, how to organize tonal materials in a hierarchical pattern; two, to be able to display any and all kinds of ornamentation specific to their region and modes; three, be able to use specific melodic patterns in their playing; and four, to be able to prepare modal sentiments for a given song or piece. This last skill is the most important of all four skills, in that the musician must shape the sentiment before realizing it through the appropriate expressive mode.
Scales are the basis for any music, be it western or eastern. The same rule applies for Vietnamese music. In Vietnamese music, there is no such thing as absolute pitch. The fundamental tone of a scale may be chosen to fit a singer, or an instrument, to tailor to individual needs. A total number of tones is considered to be twelve, but Vietnamese scales use less than twelve in almost all cases. Many tones in Vietnamese music do not have western equivalents, but they can be compared to other Southeast Asian music. Whole-tone intervals, according to the Vietnamese, are usually between 165 to 175 cents. The tones, or number of tones, have sociocultural implications. For example, lullabies and ritualistic songs have two- or three-tone scales. Chamber music and theatrical music has five to seven tones. This permits the transmigration of scalar units.
There are three kinds of tones. First is the obligatory tones, which are fundamental and provide the basis for a scale and subsequently, the song. Secondly are the additional tones. These are merely added to the scalar unit, and do not affect whether the scale will transmigrate later on in the song. The last kind is the passing tones, which are heard rarely, and are appropriate in songs with a clear pentatonic or hexatonic scale.
Pentatonic scales are a trait often seen in Chinese music, from which the Vietnamese music originated. But traditional Vietnamese music is not restricted by pentatonicism. It can be expanded by pressing down on the strings of the instruments, creating additional tones. And in this, the southern and central areas are unified, whereas the northern region has it’s own system in which each song defines a mode. These two systems share common territory, but do not agree in terms of terminology.
Notation has been an intriguing topic, especially so for olden forms of notation. Vietnamese music originated from China; as such, their notation is somewhat similar to that of China's. Vietnamese do not necessarily favor notation. Some use notations as a means of memorizing, especially amongst the students. Other than that, everything is taught orally, and notation is usually sparse. In Vietnam, some old scores are written in gongche pu, the olden chinese form of notation. 'Words' are read from right to left, and top to bottom. Chinese characters are used, creating a complex pattern that the musicians would understand, but would provide immense difficulty for a western-trained player. Now, notation is in the form of roman numerals, but the segregation between western and Viet is still noticeable.
Comparing the olden form of notation to China's gongche pu, one can see the differences - and similarities - between the two. Even though Vietnamese music and chinese music share the same, or similar, roots, Vietnamese notation has deviated from its original, and become unique in its own right. In China, there are three kinds of notation: gongche pu, jianzipu and banzi pu. There are also specific means of notation for some instruments. For example, notation for the sanxian comes in the form of characters from the 'ten heavenly stems' and has figures for fingerings and duration of notes. It is also read from right to left and top to bottom. However, instead of being written in columns, these days chinese notation is written horizontally. Contrasting that with Vietnamese notation, you would realise that they’re really quite similar. Their use of chinese characters and symbols prove that they indeed have the same roots.
Vietnamese and Japanese, however, have much less in common. Even though Japanese notation, like chinese and Vietnamese, use, to a certain extent, chinese characters, they have more symbols denoting prescribed tuning and tablature for the primary instrument, amongst other things. Whilst Vietnamese uses a general score and notation, Japanese goes more 'personal', writing for first the primary instrument then for the other accompanying instruments.
Korean and Vietnamese notation are basically 'worlds apart'. For Korean notation, each note and pitch has a specific name. For example, hung refers to A-flat, tung to B-flat, and so on. It also has a set of notation called 'the five-tone simplified notation', which specifies notes and describes them in terms of their positions up or down the scale. However, Korean music notation does include the gongche pu notation. Therefore, we can see that they do share the same roots, as with China, even though Korea has gone on to develop it’s own style of music notation.
The similarities and differences between these four countries could be endless. While China standardizes the way instruments are played and notation is written, Vietnam has nothing of that sort, just a few simple, all-encompassing rules to keep everything together. In Vietnam, each musician creates his or her own mode that means something to him or herself. As such, music has become very diverse, especially when it is ranged from North to South Vietnam. The possibilities are endless. Terminology is another form of music in which Vietnam has deviated from its original roots. However similar Vietnamese music notation and terminology may be as compared to China, Korea or Japan, it has become unique in its own way, and should be respected as such.
copyright Nathasha Tam, 4e9 2004. created on the 24th of July 2004, 8:30 pm
i shall do other stuff now. i have to do math homework. and i swear i will not touch relative velocity.
good night.
* s w e e t heart`x @ [[10:06 PM]]