It
seems becoming a musician in Vietnam is very easy these days since apparently
the only skills needed are choosing notes and rhythms from a selection on the
internet.

A clutch of sites such as Music Publisher 6, MuseScore,
Virtual Music Composer 4.0, GarageBand, and NoteFlight offers music composition
ranging from basic chord-based lead sheet-oriented programs to very
sophisticated compositional and scoring programs.

And there are programs that score your performance from an
instrument, even your vocal, automatically and without you needing to know how
to notate music.

All a wannabe musician has to do is look for the basic time
unit of music, or the beat, which is created by combining sound loops in a
particular sequence.

The created loops should be integrated in the correct manner
to create music.

There are inbuilt loops available with the software. The
composer should choose the loops that will blend together and compose it with
rhythm in the appropriate time gaps.

The software also has a studio control interface that
enables the composer to adjust the time, pitch and rhythm.

Recent songs like “Thuc Tinh” (Disillusionment) by Nguyen
Hai Phong have become extremely popular thanks to their modern and unusual
rhythms.

This gives the impression that the Vietnamese music market
is getting a new look but it is not exactly true. A closer look will reveal
many of them are similar.

“O nha mot minh” (Home Alone) performed by girl band May Trang
is not unlike “Ngoc Ngech” (Silly) by Bao Thy, while Phuc Tuong’s “Mot lan
thoi” (Just one time) reminds one of several other songs including one composed
later by himself.

However, since they are not exact clones of one another,
they do not fall foul of copyright laws.

Musician Huy Tuan is not amused: “Surely, creating songs
based on available rhythms makes all of them similar to listen to. It is
unacceptable. Working in this field means to be creative.

“Composers who have self-respect will not do such a thing
because they know working like this will never bring them true satisfaction.”

Demand for new songs has been skyrocketing, causing
youngsters to flock into the industry. Thus, at 15 and 16 they are already
composers who can boast of hit songs.

“Without writing their lyrics, I can compose 20 songs a
month,” admits young musician and singer who wished to remain unnamed.

But by writing melodies from the available background music,
they risk making their composition a mass-produced product rather than one born
of creativity.

Source: Tuoi Tre/Nguoi
Lao Dong