Anthropological Research on Bronze Drums and/or Origins of Vietnamese Music
From: Diane Fox
Date: Wed, Sep 29, 2010 at 2:30 PM
Hi--
A former student of mine, now in a psychology of music class, would love to do her research on the origins of music in Vietnam.... or transmission of folk songs across generations, or.... She is at that point of having a lot of ideas and not knowing what if any resources might be available, and so waiting to settle until she sees what is possible. Her first thoughts are the bronze drums, or perhaps work songs from the fields.... but really, she is exploring.
I've pointed her to the work of Phong Nguyen, asked her to check VSJ, and found a couple of pieces in the old Vietnam Forum journals, and the Bronze Age of SEA -- but if anyone out there has other suggestions, I'd like to know, for my own interest as well as hers.
She's a good researcher -- been a research assistant here -- and speaks Vietnamese but needs long pieces to be in English (I assume but do not know for sure that Tran Van Khe's work is in French?) In my class, the poem recited by Minh in "Thuong Nho Dong Que" caught her passionate interest -- she stayed up til 5 in the morning transcribing and translating, wanting her classmates to have a better version than the subtitles.
So... any help would be appreciated and well-used!
with thanks,
Diane
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From: Jason Gibbs
Date: Wed, Sep 29, 2010 at 4:20 PM
Dear Diane,
Much of the research is in French and German:
Franz Heger did some of the first systematic work: Alte metalltrommeln aus Südost-Asien: Mit unterstützung der Gesellschaft zur Förderung deutscher Wissenschaft (Leipzig, K. W. Hiersemann, 1902).
Victor Goloubew wrote a number of articles:
1929. "L' âge du bronze au Tonkin et dans le Nord-Annam," Bulletin de L'Ecole Francaise d'Extreme Orient , 1-43.
1930. "Report on the making and diffusion of metallic drums through Tonking and Northern Annam," Proceedings of the 4th Pacific Science Congress, 449-451.
1932. "Sur l' origine et la diffusion des tambours métalliques," Pre-historica Asiae Orientalis 1, 137 ff.
1937. L' archéologie du Tonkin et les fouilles de Dong-Sõn. (Hanoi: Imprimerie d'Extreme Orient).
1941. "Le tambour métallique de Hoang-Ha," Bulletin de l'Ecole Francaise de L' Extreme Orient 40, 383 -409.
F. Parmentier wrote an article: "Anciens tambours de bronze," Bulletin de l'Ecole Francaise d'Extreme Orient 18/1, 1-30.
There’s also Helmut Loofs-Wissowa. 1991. "Dongson drums: Instruments of shamanism or regalia?" Arts Asiatiques 46, 39-49.
Volume one of Mantle Hood’s The Evolution of Javanese Gamelan (New York : C.F. Peters, 1980) has some information as well.
Jason Gibbs
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From: Mike High
Date: Wed, Sep 29, 2010 at 5:10 PM
As it happens, I just stopped at a bronzecasting workshop in Dong Son district last night run by a gentleman who is involved with the provincial museum and local cultural associations and is trying to replicate the ancient techniques of bronzecasting. (He believes that the older techniques were replaced by Chinese methods during the Ming occupation.)
There is an interesting article (in English, available online) that summarizes some of the research about the drums:
The Present Echoes of the Ancient Bronze Drum:
Nationalism and Archeology in Modern Vietnam and China
http://www.hawaii.edu/cseas/pubs/explore/han.html
Reporting from Thanh Hoa,
:: MIke High
Great Falls, USA
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From: Tai, Hue-Tam Ho
Date: Wed, Sep 29, 2010 at 5:21 PM
Diane:
Your student should also consider the article by Haydon Cherry on the politics of archeology in JVS.
Regarding Tran van Khe, he speaks English fluently (I brought a group of k-12 teachers to meet him last July and he gave a one-hour talk on singing and on various instruments). But his writings are all in French. However, he has just published his memoirs in Vietnamese. I have a copy if you are interested.
His son, Tran Quang Hai,who is also a musician, has posted many youtube videos of himself and of his father that your student might enjoy watching.
Hue-Tam Ho Tai
Kenneth T. Young Professor
of Sino-Vietnamese History
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From: Liam C. Kelley <liam@hawaii.edu>
Date: Wed, Sep 29, 2010 at 5:58 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
I was in a bookstore in Bangkok recently and saw a book in Thai on "the origins of Tai music." What caught my attention was the cover illustration. It was a picture taken from a bronze drum of a person playing a khene, an instrument which as far as I know is not played by the Kinh, but which is very common among people like the Lao. My point is that going back to the Dong Son bronze drums to talk about "the origins of music in Vietnam" might not be the best perspective from which to view what was happening back then. There was music then, and there is a Vietnam today, but as for the connection between the two. . .
Liam Kelley
University of Hawaii
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From: Geoffrey Wade
Date: Wed, Sep 29, 2010 at 6:36 PM
The best study of the bronze drums so far, which sees them as a pan-Southeast Asian cultural legacy, rather than being owned by any modern polity or culture, is:
Ambra Calo, The Distribution of Bronze Drums in Early Southeast Asia: Trade Routes and Cultural Spheres, Oxford BAR , Archaeopress, 2009.
best wishes
Geoff Wade
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From: Kleinen, John
Date: Thu, Sep 30, 2010 at 12:22 AM
I wonder how Calo deals with Bernet Kempers book on the same topic.
A.J. Bernet Kempers (7 October 1906 - 2 May 1992),
The kettledrums of Southeast Asia; A bronze age world and its after- math. Rotterdam, Brookfield: Balkema, xxxiv+599 p., 204 ills. [Modern Quaternary Research in Southeast Asia 10.].
best wishes,
John Kleinen