A Folk Arts Study

Vietnamese Folk Music

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: Long-Me_Melody
for Vietnamese 16-string zither
by Teacher Phan Gia Anh-Thư & Teacher Ngô Thanh Nhàn
Apr 02, 2025 20:38:02
m12_Long-Me

1 – Long-Me
Long-Me • Melody • YWCM •

Tablature to Click and Print: tablatures/m12_Long-Me_Melody_YWCM.pdf

T H E S T O R Y:Lòng Mẹ [Mother's Love], by Y Vân [Trần Tấn Hậu (1933-1992)] in 1955. It was about Y Vân's mother, who went to a public water fountain to wash his shirt after the curfew at 2:00am, and was chased by the police. She went home to dry his shirt by incense. He was so moved and wrote this song, with these words:

Lòng mẹ bao la như biển Thái Bình, dạt dào
Tình mẹ tha thiết như dòng suối hiền, ngọt ngào
Lời mẹ êm ái như đồng lúa chiều, rì rào
Tiếng ru êm đềm trăng tà soi bóng, mẹ yêu...

Mother's love is like the Pacific Ocean, boundless
Her devotion is like a spring stream, sweet and gentle
Her words are like the breeze playing over ripe rice fields, soothing
Etched into my memory:
Her lullaby on the front porch...
and her image shining under the waning moon...

Vietnam has always praised mothers, from Bà Âu Cơ who built the 18 dynasties of Hùng Kings, yet people did not see the appearance of Lạc Long Quân after that. The first appearance of mothers was in the Buddhist sutra Phật thuyết Đại báo Phụ Mẫu ân trọng kinh of the 8th Century.

Y Vân's Lòng Mẹ is the most moving song about mother, coming from ancestral worshipping, where mother is placed the highest. There are imaginative connections between a mother's love, which seeps into and becomes part the child's entire existence.

The song has two bendings from A to B and G to G#. Vibratos rung for southern air hơi on higher C and G.

Consult YouTube examples:
— Tài Kibo 2020
— NS Ngọc Huyền 2021
— Thương Huyền 2016
— Nghệ Sĩ Hương Đức 2019
— Hướng dẫn đàn tranh bài Lòng Mẹ. Hd Tài Linh Trương phần 2. hotboy đàn tranh 2019.