A song loan (or song lang or song lan) is a

percussion instrument A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Ex ...

(

idiophone An idiophone is any musical instrument that creates sound primarily by the vibration of the instrument itself, without the use of air flow (as with aerophones), strings (chordophones), membranes (membranophones) or electricity ( electroph ...

) used in Vietnamese traditional music.''Experimental musical instruments'' Volumes 12-13 1996 - Page 15 "The nhac tien (Example 5) is a variation on the traditional song loan and senh tien."

Construction

The song loan consists of a hollow wooden body about 7 cm in diameter attached to a flexible curved metal piece ended with a wooden ball.

Playing

It is put on the ground and can be played by using the foot to force the ball to beat the body of the instrument.

Performance

The song loan is mostly used to keep the

beat Beat, beats or beating may refer to: Common uses * Patrol, or beat, a group of personnel assigned to monitor a specific area ** Beat (police), the territory that a police officer patrols ** Gay beat, an area frequented by gay men * Battery (c ...

in Vietnamese traditional chamber music such as ca Huế), and theatrical music such as nhạc tài tử and

cải lương ''Tuồng cải lương'' (, Hán-Nôm: 從改良) often referred to as cải lương ( Chữ Hán: 改良), roughly "reformed theater") is a form of modern folk opera in Vietnam. It blends southern Vietnamese folk songs, classical music, '' há ...

References

Vietnamese musical instruments Asian percussion instruments Idiophones {{Vietnam-stub

Construction

Playing

Performance

See also

References