nhạc cụ

noun  

• Musical instrument
  • đàn t'rưng (tơ rưng)
    stringed instrument

• VIETNAMESE TRADITIONAL MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS: Vietnamese traditional instruments have a rich capacity for expression and are unique. This is shown in many ways. In general, Vietnamese traditional instruments are of simple structure. Sometimes too simple to be called instruments. For example, the leaf-horn has only two requirements: The surface of the leaf should be smooth and the leaf itself not thick. A girl holds the "horn" by the edge in her mouth and begins to produce a shrill sound. After a "performance," the instrument can be thrown away. The jew's harp is only a piece of kouniak or ear of rice. Pitot, another flute, has only two holes - one for blowing and the other for fingering - but it can produce music written from the five-note scale. Castanets are simply two bamboo pieces; a bamboo end can become a split drum; a set of kouniak sticks of various lengths serves as a t'rung. Materials for making these instruments are available at home. The worm's silk will make strings and bamboo, kouniak and gourd covering is available in the garden. Further afield can be found bamboo, kouniak, wood, clay, leather, stonẹ.. Only the parts of instruments are difficult to make. For example, with an organ the trick is to stick a reed into one end for blowing. But simple or not, these instruments are so skilfully made as to be works of art. Their sizes are also unique. Clappers can be as small as a longan kernel; the jew's harp is exactly like an ear of rice; a certain drum is no bigger than a lemon. Other instruments are huge. The lithophone, or Ndut Lieng Krak, is 01.7cm long and the Khánh Sơn 103cm while lithophones found in other parts of the world are only 80cm long. The Qui Dien bell, cast in 1080 in the times of Nhà Hậu Lý and Nhà Trần, needed a 26 meter-high bell tower to house it. Another bell of the same period was cast in about 4,200 tonnes of bronze. The Van Ban bell with 180 tons in weight, made under Nhà Trần, is 127cm high and has a diameter 74 cm. The bronze drum, especially the Son Dong drum, is huge, imposing and beautiful. The Thunder drum, which sounds like thunder, has a 148 cm diameter and is 170 cm high Some drums have a circumference of two metres and are made from the trunk of a banyan tree. Gongs and cymbals range from saucer-size to a plate 90cm in diameter. The different sizes mean that Vietnamese traditional instruments all carry characteristics stemming from the artistic creativity of the people.=The đàn nguyệt, moon-shaped lute, and đàn dây, lute, both have high+frets and strings which are never too tight - and not without reason. The strings must be made from worm's thread and the strings and frets are made longer and higher so that the musician can use luring and stressing techniques. The traverse flute, the end-blown flute, the Vietnamese trumpet, the pi-let, the xa-ra-nai- traditional instruments of various ethnic groups-all have plain finger holes without finger devices so that the musician is free to use luring and stressing techniques. The Sing Tien-a type of clapper- is a very simple instrument, but a really creative combination of three well-known instruments: The guiro, the maracas and castanets. All these instruments have made their contributions to traditional Vietnamese music. But the instruments designed so long ago suffer some limitations. One of these is low volume. With the exception of idiophones, membranophones and some wind instruments, almost all traditional instruments make a low sound with short vibrations

• Nevertheless, their capacity is both abundant and unique. On the đàn nguyệt, the musician is able to "stress" a note making it a triple-interval higher note or vice versa. The đàn dây, a type of lute, also has available a "loose stress" and on the đàn bầu, monocord, a half-note, a third of a note, a quarter of a note and perhaps even less than a quarter of a note can be created. An even more subtle characteristic of the monocord is that the fingered string, touched, can produce a note lower than that made by the unfingered string. This cannot be done on any other instruments. The one-stringed monocord has a three-octave range, although some improved monocords have a four-octave range. The klongput makes sound without being touched by the musician Another technique worthy of study is that which allows musicians to play such horns as pile and xaranai to make a continuous sound without pausing or stopping. Vietnamese traditional instruments are close to the lives of the people and their activities. Vietnamese instruments - particularly primitive instruments - are part of their activities.=The Thái make the tang bu from bamboo poles and water bags; from pestal and mortar the Mường make the Duong; from sticks to make holes in the ground for sowing, the Khơmu make the Kle Kla; others are the ding pa, klong put of the highlanders; the stones hung over a waterfall to make a sound when struck together and used to drive off beasts gave these groups the inspiration to make the very ancient lithophone; an elevated wicker string above a plank-covered hole is called rong Quan and was the prototype for the fantastic monocord; the Phong Tiêu, a type of flute, which reminds the listener of a kite flute and the To diep, Ky pa are not remote from the highland hunters' beast-calling horn; the never-ending sound of the wind in caves and caverns, or on hills where kouniaks have been felled, served as tangible models for highlanders voong to be hung before the Nhà Rông, or village hall, so that the wind makes a concert throughout the year. The lithophone is both musical instrument and a holy object. The gong and the cymbal are both musical instruments and precious and religious objects. Vietnam's musical instruments spring from real life and were made by creative laborers. The instruments were, and are, crucial to cultural life