LookAtVietnam – Traditional quan ho (folk love duet) melodies have become available online thanks to a group of students from Bac Ninh province, the birthplace of this singing style.

Trinh Van Tinh started a quan ho club as part of the province’s youth union after he came up with the idea of bringing quan ho to the public through the internet and making the idea a reality.

“We’ve lived and studied far away from our homeland, and we miss very much the quan ho songs that we grew up with. We couldn’t find many quan ho songs on the internet, so my friends and I thought of setting up the website where we can present to other friends the sweet melodies,” Tinh said.

The group’s two websites www.dancavietnam.net and www.quanhobacninh.vn now have posted more than 400 traditional and arranged quan ho songs, along with nearly 100 research texts on quan ho. Club members and others, who help contribute songs and research texts, now number about 200.

“Our websites specialise in old quan ho. It can please quan ho lovers, because it has the explanation of the specific words, clear information on the name of the singers, along with research texts.

Let’s sing

On weekends, club members often meet up to learn to sing quan ho. Their teacher is Nguyen Huu Duy, who works at the Viet Nam Music Development Centre and is also an active member of the club. He patiently teaches people to sing the songs with the old lyrics and the ancient style, without the traditional musical accompaniment.

Duy’s passion for quan ho began in his childhood because of his grandmother. “Every night I lay beside her listening to the same quan ho songs again and again on the radio,” he said, adding that “quan ho songs are a part of people’s lives starting at birth in my province”.

After high school, Duy studied at the Bac Ninh Culture and Arts College, and specialised in researching quan ho. When he had free time, he met with famed quan ho singers living in Tien Du and Yen Phong districts and requested that they teach him more.

“To understand the soul of quan ho, we need to know by heart the lyrics and be able to sing them well. We also have to understand the classic references in the lyrics. The lyrics of old quan ho are simple and modest, but they are very profound and subtle. We cannot understand them immediately,” Duy said.

Preserving the art

Two years ago, Viet Nam submitted to UNESCO an application for quan ho to be recognised as an intangible cultural heritage of humanity.

This style of song was created in the 13th century and consists of verses of songs alternately sung by different singers, either in pairs or groups

It grew from its humble origins in small villages to an original form of folk song popular all over Viet Nam. The Bac Ninh Quan Ho Troupe, established in 1969, has performed numerous times in Viet Nam and abroad, and increased media coverage has begun to develop an appetite for quan ho worldwide.

However, some worry that as quan ho enters the global consciousness and is played away from the communal houses, courtyard and pagodas, it will lose its simple and traditional beauty and cease to exist in its original form.

Sources of traditional quan ho music are disappearing as the singers are now in their 70’s and 80’s. The current trend of adding electronic and unconventional instruments to quan ho is effecting the art’s durability and folk status.

Officials hope that UNESCO recognition will help preserve the art form, as it has for Hue city Court music and the Central Highlands’ gong culture.

If Viet Nam is successful in winning UNESCO recognition for its unique northern art, there is a chance this national cultural treasure won’t be lost forever.

VietNamNet/Viet Nam News