Look At Vietnam - The conical-shaped zither, an original and new musical instrument imbued with Vietnamese identities, introduced in the last days of 2008, can be considered a new advance of the Vietnamese music.

The conical zither and its creator, Pham Chi Bich.

Its creator, artisan-musician Phạm Chi Bich, said that he adopted the idea of creating this musical instrument when he watching a performance of conical hat dancing five years ago.

He transformed shape, sound and principle of playing of the traditional 16-chord zither into a conical hat-shaped musical instrument of which the top is a symbol of convergence.

After six months, Bich successfully created the first and only conical hat-shaped zither ever seen in Vietnam.

Standing 1.65m high, the zither has 170 chords vertically arranged into five equal sections. Its sound-box is 1m in diameter at the bottom. The surface is made of white wootung wood, looking really similar to a traditional Vietnamese conical hat.

The instrument requires five players, or even ten, who control 34 chords each. The players can perform a solo or in concert.

The creation of the conical zither, Musician Thao Giang, Vice Director of the Vietnam Research Center for Musical Development, quoted as saying, “marks a new advance in the development of the Vietnamese music. This is the brilliant outcome of creativity of a renovation-era Vietnamese artisan”.

VietNamNet/VGP