The đàn bầu (; "gourd zither"; chữ Nôm: ), also called độc huyền cầm (獨絃琴, "one-string zither") is a Vietnamese stringed instrument, in the form of a monochord (one-string) zither.

History

While the earliest written records of the dan bau date its origin to 1770, scholars estimate its age to be up to one thousand years older than that. A popular legend of its beginning tells of a blind woman playing it in the market to earn a living for her family while her husband was at war. Whether this tale is based in fact or not, it remains true that the dan bau has historically been played by blind musicians. Until recent times, its soft volume limited the musical contexts in which it could be used. The dan bau, played solo, is central to

Vietnamese folk music Traditional Vietnamese music encompasses a large umbrella of Vietnamese music from antiquity to present times, and can also encompass multiple groups, such as those from Vietnam's ethnic minority tribes. History Traditional Vietnamese music has ...

, a genre still popular today in the country. Its other traditional application is as an accompaniment to poetry readings. With the invention of the

magnetic pickup A pickup is a transducer that captures or senses mechanical vibrations produced by musical instruments, particularly stringed instruments such as the electric guitar, and converts these to an electrical signal that is amplified using an instru ...

, the usage of the dan bau spread to ensembles and also to contemporary Asian pop and rock music. Now, electronics designed for the electric guitar are sometimes employed with the dan bau to further expand its tonal palette.

Construction

Originally, the dan bau was a tube zither, made of just four parts: a bamboo tube, a wooden rod, a coconut shell half, and a silk string. The string was strung across the bamboo, tied on one end to the rod, which is perpendicularly attached to the bamboo. The coconut shell was attached to the rod, serving as a resonator. In present days, the bamboo has been replaced by a wooden soundboard, with hardwood as the sides and softwood as the middle. An electric guitar string has replaced the traditional silk string. While the gourd is still present, it is now generally made of wood, acting only as a decorative feature. Also, most dan bau now have modern tuning machines, so the base pitch of the string can be adjusted. Usually the instrument is tuned to one octave below

middle C C or Do is the first note and semitone of the C major scale, the third note of the A minor scale (the relative minor of C major), and the fourth note (G, A, B, C) of the Guidonian hand, commonly pitched around 261.63 Hz. The actual frequen ...

, about 131 Hz, but it can be tuned to other notes to make it easier to play in keys distant from C. Musicians from Hanoi

Playing

The dan bau technique appears relatively simple at first glance, but actually requires a great deal of precision. The fifth finger of the musician's right hand rests lightly on the string at one of seven commonly used nodes, while the thumb and index finger pluck the string using a long plectrum. The nodes are the notes of the first seven overtones, or

flageolet The flageolet is a woodwind instrument and a member of the fipple flute family which includes recorders and tin whistles. Its invention was erroneously ascribed to the 16th-century Sieur Juvigny in 1581. There are two basic forms of the instrume ...

s, similar to guitar harmonics at the string positions above the

octave In music, an octave ( la, octavus: eighth) or perfect octave (sometimes called the diapason) is the interval between one musical pitch and another with double its frequency. The octave relationship is a natural phenomenon that has been refer ...

(1/2), the

perfect fifth In music theory, a perfect fifth is the Interval (music), musical interval corresponding to a pair of pitch (music), pitches with a frequency ratio of 3:2, or very nearly so. In classical music from Western culture, a fifth is the interval fro ...

(2/3), the perfect fourth (3/4), the just major third (4/5), the just minor third (5/6) and two tones not present on the Western musical scale: the septimal minor third (6/7) and the septimal whole tone (7/8). With the left hand, the player pushes the flexible rod toward the instrument with the index finger to lower the pitch of the note, or pushes it away from the instrument with the thumb to raise the pitch. This technique is used to play notes not available at a node, or to add vibrato to any note.

Related instruments

The '' duxianqin'' is essentially the same instrument but given a Mandarin name, played by the Gin people in China, who are ethnically Vietnamese. The instrument was brought over when the Jing Islands off the coast of Dongxing, Guangxi were ceded to China by France. The Muong people play an instrument called "Đàn Máng" or "Tàn Máng", which is virtually identical to acoustic dan bau forms.

References

External links

Dan bau page

Video

Dan bau instructional video
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dan bau Box zithers Just tuning and intervals Monochords Vietnamese musical instruments Vietnamese inventions Tube zithers