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folk arts studies    F O L K · A R T S · S T U D I E S
A research project in the Vietnamese folk arts heritage
Mekong NYC hosts a music class to teach students how to play the đàn tranh (Vietnamese zither). The class is infused with storytelling, especially Vietnamese folk tales and culture, community building through group playing and listening, and group theory, examining traditional Vietnamese and Cambodian songs and pop music.

Lesson: 18_Trong-Com_Tranh_Multiple-Levels
for Vietnamese 16-string zither
by Teacher Phan Gia Anh-Thư & Teacher Ngô Thanh Nhàn
Apr 02, 2025 20:58:31
18_Trong-Com
Tablature to Click and Print:
T H E   S T O R Y:
Trống Cơm [The Rice Drum], is a folk song of Quan Họ tradition since the Lý Dynasty of the Xth Century. The drum is 50-60cm long, and each face 15-16cm in diameter. Before playing, people used to paste hot cooked ground sweet rice on the 2 faces of the drum to tune and to make the sounds clear and distinct. It was mentioned in Vietnamese text of the XIIIth Century, that the Mridangam drum was imported into Vietnam from south India.

This Trống cơm rendition has one female and 4 male voices, in Quan họ dialect, accompanied by trống cơm [rice drums], sáo [flute], and đàn nguyệt [moon lute]. We use freeware, vocalremover.org and vocali.se to separate the voices from the accompanied instruments. We then fed the mp3 singing voices into Anthemscore, Sonic Visualiser and Vista Voce to pick out the best voice separation algorithm. Our aim is to find the best rendition of spectrographic data to transcribe into a tablature. This is the output tablature, where all acute sắc accents are marked by a suddent jump in spectrogram and can be mimed on đàn tranh by mổ [taps], ... the concave tones hỏi ngã are rendered as nhấn [bend] followed by vuốt [release], the level tones ngang [high level] and huyền [low level] can be rendered as rung [vibratos]. Thus, the tones are the sources of hoa lá cành, and lòng bản is a performed piece without tonal influence on the melody nor the standard Á glissandos, nor song thanh octave blocks or arpeggios and three string plugs, nor national or regional dialectal variations of string patterns of rung [vibratos].

Pòng pong, there is a rice drum
Praise the one who plays it flowery pòng pong,
Which prompted a bunch of eager kids,
wading and swimming across the rivers, looking for
the one who fancies your heart and turns your eyes dreamy
It's a band of intoxicated spiders, pòng pong,
the band of drunk spiders, pòng pong.
They spin confusing webs hoping to catch
the one who fancies your heart and turns your eyes dreamy
It's your sweet fate with a handsome vagabond.

It is a fast song, with standard vibration rung on the high strings A and E.

\nTrống CơmQuan Họ Bắc Ninh • beads = G:red, A:blue, E:greenQuan Họ Bắc Ninh • beads = G:red, A:blue, E:greenA VIETNAMESE FOLK MUSIC STUDY • Ngô Thanh Nhàn • Apr 02, 2025MusicXML source: — MuseScore 3.6.21–E32–G33–A34–C45–D46–E47–G48–A49–C510–D5TablatureTrống Cơm • Phrase #1G2G7G2G7C4C9C4C9C4C9G2G71–E32–G33–A34–C45–D46–E47–G48–A49–C510–D5khenaikhéovỗTablatureTrống Cơm • Phrase #2G7G2G7C4C9G71–E32–G33–A34–C45–D46–E47–G48–A49–C510–D5ấymấybôngnênTablatureTrống Cơm • Phrase #3C4C9G7G76F6G2G71–E32–G33–A34–C45–D46–E47–G48–A49–C510–D5ấymấybôngnênTablatureTrống Cơm • Phrase #4C4C9G7G76F6G2G73–A34–C45–D46–E47–G48–A49–C510–D511–E512–G5MộtbầytangtìnhconxítTablatureTrống Cơm • Phrase #5C9C4C9D10C4C9D5D10E6E11E63–A34–C45–D46–E47–G48–A49–C510–D511–E5mộtbầytangtìnhconxítTablatureTrống Cơm • Phrase #6C9C4C9D10C4C9D5D10E61–E32–G33–A34–C45–D46–E47–G48–A49–C510–D511–E512–G5ốmấylộilộilộiTablatureTrống Cơm • Phrase #7E6E11G2A3G2A3G2A3G2A3C4C91–E32–G33–A34–C45–D46–E47–G48–A49–C510–D5ốmấyđitìmTablatureTrống Cơm • Phrase #8C4C9A8G7A8C9G2G71–E32–G33–A34–C45–D46–E47–G48–A49–C510–D5emnhớthươngaiTablatureTrống Cơm • Phrase #9A3A8C4C9A3A8G2G7ॐ1–E32–G33–A34–C45–D46–E47–G48–A49–C510–D5ĐôiconmắtấymấylimdimTablatureTrống Cơm • Phrase #10G2G7C4C4C9G7A8G7A8C4C9ॐ3–A34–C45–D46–E47–G48–A49–C510–D5đôiconmắtấymấylimdimTablatureTrống Cơm • Phrase #11C4C9C4C4C9G7A8G7A8C4C9ॐ3–A34–C45–D46–E47–G48–A49–C510–D511–E5tangtìnhconnhệnTablatureTrống Cơm • Phrase #12C4C9C4C9D10C4D5C4D5G7G75–D46–E47–G48–A49–C510–D511–E512–G513–A514–C6ôốôấymấygiăngtơTablatureTrống Cơm • Phrase #13G12A13G7G12G12G7G12E11D10E6E11ॐ3–A34–C45–D46–E47–G48–A49–C510–D511–E512–G513–A5giăngtơấymấyđitìmTablatureTrống Cơm • Phrase #14E11D10E6E11G7G12E11D10C4C91–E32–G33–A34–C45–D46–E47–G48–A49–C510–D5emnhớthươngaiTablatureTrống Cơm • Phrase #15A3A8C4C9A3A8G2G73–A34–C45–D46–E47–G48–A49–C510–D511–E512–G513–A514–C6DuyênnợkháchtangbồngTablatureTrống Cơm • Phrase #16A13G12E11G12E11G12E11D10C4C9C48–A49–C510–D511–E512–G513–A514–C6DuyênnợkháchtangbồngTablatureTrống Cơm • Phrase #17A13G12E11G12E11G12E11D10C9C9ॐ Circle of FifthsRange: G3 G4 C4 C5 F4 D5 D4 E4 E5 A3 A4 G5 A5 \n\nA\nA\nA\n\nE\nE\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nF\n\nC\nC\n\nG\nG\nG\n\nD\nDPitch Classes: 0,1,2,3,4,11Circle of Chromatics\n\n\nE\nE\n\nF\n\n\nG\nG\nG\n\n\nA\nA\nA\n\n\n\nC\nC\n\n\nD\nDPitch Classes: 7,0,5,2,4,9