Join me this weekend for the first of three launch events of the book and album Overtone Singing. The first one will be most suitable for people on Asian time (Saturday 7 January at 12 AM for Taipei/Hong Kong) and LA time (US) on Friday 6 January at 8 PM). The second one takes place in NYC (Saturday 14, evening) and Asia (Sunday 15, morning). A third launch in European time will happen on February 4.
I will look back on 30 years of research as a singer and musicologist, tell stories, sing some demos and pieces and there will be one or more special guests to say a word about this book or their own experiences in the field of overtone singing. There will be a short Q&A at the end too.
Please celebrate this occasion with me. We will braodcast on the Fusica YouTube channel. If you would like to receive a notice or subscribe to other notifications, write an email to Jane Tsai by clicking here: jame79522@gmail.com.
A few days ago, Overtone Singing – Hidden Dimensions of the Human Voice has arrived at its distribution centers in the US (NY), Europe (Haarlem) and Taiwan (Longtan). Publisher David Rothenberg produced a beautiful midway solution between paperback and hardcover book, called ‘flexibound.’
That was the signal to also let the Anthology of Overtone Singing go public. First of all on Bandcamp, where the audio is now available for streaming or purchasing. I also submitted all tracks to Apple Music, Spotify etc. etc. 25 Artists that are not featured on Apple Music and Spotify yet now will be represented there. It took me about a year of preparations and it meant not a small thing to press that ‘SUBMIT’ button to me.
So book and music are available now from Terra Nova Press, from me and next week also from a European address. We are still working out the best solution to offer the music and the book in one go. For the moment, the book is available through Terra Nova Press and by writing to me directly, while the Anthology is available in Bandcamp. Possibly we offer both in one package very soon.
There is a limited number of books available with a CD that is nearly identical with the streaming version from Bandcamp: just two tracks have been shortened a bit to fit onto the CD format. Details will soon be published on Bandcamp; you can also write to me if that is what you need.
The major platforms will start selling and shipping the book in December or January.
After three years of editing (text), drawing, scanning (illustrations), mastering (audio) and revising under the guidance of very capable editors, Overtone Singing – Hidden Dimensions of the Human Voice is now getting ready for printing and distributing. It was nearly 20 years ago when I first met the new publisher, David Rothenberg, in his upstate New York village, after attending the Small Publisher’s Fair in New York City. We became friends, met here and there every once in a while and kept up a correspondence about many issues, such as the music of birds and other creatures, which is his special theme. Some years ago he launched his own press and so we came to talk about my book Overtone Singing, which needed a thorough update and revision.
Pre-order Overtone Singing on Book Depository – free world-wide delivery
Many things have been changed compared to the original book, so much so that I think this is the definitive version. Why? Because the contents became more and more integrated, my views more balanced, I dared to speak out criticisms more clearly, I updated myself about aspects that I thought were poorly represented (such as the healing and therapeutic aspects of overtones). Not to mention the development of the field itself in these 20 years: female overtone singers are once again well-established instead of marginal, the khöömei ‘traditions’ have developed in many directions and become modern in many ways, and they have popped up in new places where we did not really expect them (such as China, to mention one controversial case I discuss).
I also had the great fortune to do research about the ‘multi-part’ (that is, choral) traditions of overtone singing (Tibet, South Africa, Sardinia) and to make recordings there. I am quite proud about the accompanying audio guide, which is now called The Anthology of Overtone Singing and will be available in many places soon. I have been to nearly every place with an overtone singing tradition and keep on investigating these fascinating traditions in person, wherever I can. I think my new Physics chapter sets a good standard for what is possible technically, with updated drawings by own hand. The lessons learnt from several projects for which I have created new works for overtone singers have been really important for that: the Paraphony Laboratory and the Parafonia group, the Superstringtrio, and now IUooUI in Taiwan. In another way this book finally got the form I had always wanted it to be. Despite the help of several capable readers and editors in previous versions, there were still quite some mistakes in terms of English usage. Thanks to a thorough review process, there is no more engrish now!
What we are hoping for now, is to get enough backers for the crowdfunding campaign. OK, let me explain, for those who get confused. Crowdfunding is when you buy and pay for something that does not yet exist, but which you hope and wish will go into production: a book or music project, or a new model electric toothbrush – it can be anything, really. A backer is internet lingo for a supporter, which is simply a client who buys something, or someone who pays more to support a project and receives something extra on top. So without further ado, please check out the campaign for the Overtone Singing book on indiegogo.com, and order a book by clicking on the link below.
You will be among the first to receive the book and I will be eternally grateful to you! If you have any questions or problems with Indiegogo, you can always write to me directly.
You will find all the details about the book on this page.
Pictured from top to bottom: Sainkho Namtchylak with guitarist Kazuhisa Uchihashi; singers from Castelsardo, Sardinia; Musicians from Nqoko, South Africa; Khöömei Day in Tuva, 2018;Andreï Öpei and Valeriy Mongush from Tuva; the author with Trân Quang Hai, renowned overtone singing researcher, onstage in Kyzyl, Tuva, 1995.
A new group called IUooUI is going to give its first series of full performances. Most of us know each other for many years now and share a deep passion for overtone singing, throat singing and improvising with voices and instruments, as well as work on the body-mind relationship. We decided to take it a step further and create surprising performances based on all those amazing sessions we had during workshops throughout the years. We all have dreams and desires to bring the music in our heads alive, for others to hear. This is a challenge. We leave the intimate comfort zone of a workshop space. We are ready to confront an audience of curious listeners in unusual settings, and to envelop them with our resonances, overtones, mantras, syllables, shrieks, assisted by drums, Jew’s Harps, shruti boxes and more.
The name UIooUI stands for the mantra-and sutra-like phrases that we often use, inspired by the okyo of Michael Vetter (1943-2013). Michael transformed these traditional Japanese sutras to expand his own musical language, and this has become part of my own language now. IuooUI also stands for:
Of course, the syllables i-u-o-o-u-i make a small overtone piece in themselves.
The name was proposed by our in-house poet, Amang, whose Chinese name is Yü, which is the last part of IUooUI when it is pronounced as a three-character Mandarin syllabe, yiwoyu.
Our in-house designer JiJi Liu created the logo for us.
The name TWEAKS refers to the process of tweaking, adjusting, making things better by smaller or sometimes bigger changes. It is my hope that next week we can really tweak all the musical elements so that they keep on growing, changing and move towards a more refined shape. This week, at least, some of us were still busy tweaking, like JiJi and Sky, who came up with this after the dress rehearsal:
It has been inspiring to see how busy all members got in recent months to prepare for this first complete performance. They have been working diligently on their sounds and pieces, of which more than half is composed by themselves in smaller units. They took care of sound and light, finding equipment and personnel to handle it, costumes …
Earlier this year we have done some smaller performance, to warm up, and as teasers for our bigger program.
DATES and TIMES
Sunday August 21 – 19:30
Wednesday August 24 – 19:30
Friday August 26 – 15:00 and 19:30
Sunday August 28 – 19:30
The performances will be held at VENUE, on its 5F space, No. 10, Lane 107, Linsen North Road. This is a bustling area and if you have the time, you can have diner before at a nice Japanese restaurant, Umeko, right next door to VENUE (no. 8)!
This weekend a new work by Chinese-German composer Yang Song in which my voice and Jew’s harp are featured, will have its world premiere: In Einem Moment – 须臾. The piece features orchestra and tape, as it is often still called, meaning pre-recorded audio played back during the live performance. Yang Song studied electro-acoustic composition and created an 8-channel version with spatial and some digital effects superimposed on the voice and instrument recordings. Among the recordings are not just pieces of throat singing (khöömii or khöömei), but also vocalisations inspired by a special genre of folk song I have practiced in a free style for many years: Mongolian long song or urtyn duu.
The timing of the invitation, some four months ago, was auspicious, because I had just began to delve deeper into the Mongolian long song genre with the intention to include it in my live repertoire. So a month or so earlier I picked up a book plus CD I had bought in Mongolia but never properly studied: Alain Desjaques’s Dix-Huit Chants Mongols Dzahtchin et Ourianhai. (If this sounds familiar to some readers, I wrote more about that in this recent blogpost.)*
While I was working on that material, Yang Song got in touch with me through a common friend, Frank Kouwenhoven, of CHIME in Leiden. Song grew up in Inner-Mongolia, part of the PRC, from partial Mongolian parentage, but in a Chinese-language environment. In the program notes to her piece, she admits that she is familiar with traditional Mongol music and yet not really used to them. “In my family Mongolian blood flows; I was used to be surrounded by Mongolian music in various formats, even though I did not understand the lyrics.”
The question was if I could provide a number of different techniques of throat singing / overtone singing, Mongolian long song, and Jew’s harp, to use as the ground material for her electronic composition and the orchestral piece. I wanted to oblige, as her music immediately appealed to me and our first conversation made clear we had many things in common aesthetically. At the same time I was a bit confused: Why Me? Wouldn’t it be easier and more logical to ask a musician from Inner-Mongolia to provide the basic tracks for her piece? Even though I am a Dutchman living in Taiwan, and she is a Chinese Mongol in Germany, we had a similar proximity, or rather: distance to the music that inspired her. Noticing that this was apparently what she wanted (someone with a certain distance to the living source of Mongol traditional music) I put the question aside and started to work.
I sent her my updated and expanded Anthology of Overtone Singing: a selection of my field recordings from traditional of overtone singing plus several of my own pieces and demonstrations (and which will be published soon as the 2022 version of my book Overtone Singing is in its final stages of publication). She sent me back samples of it and of recordings she found on the web. We agreed to work on 7 short pieces of about 30 to 90 seconds. Although initially it seemed she wanted to let me improvise, over time her ideas became more fixed. She wanted to let the orchestra sing or recite some of the long song syllables, so she ended up needing fixed lyrics. I then wrote lyrics inspired by Mongolian phonemes (I only speak a few words of Mongolian and do not want to make a fool of myself pretending I can sings ongs in fluently Mongolian). She also set out the rhythmical structure, fundamental notes and durations for my parts, all of which I recorded in a studio.
I am curious about the result but will not be able to hear it in its full 8-channel form with live orchestra. If you are near Saarbrücken, please go and listen for me – at least Frank Kouwenhoven will be there to give his account of how it sounded! Since this is a radio concert, I think it will be live on the radio too this Friday.
May 20, 2022, 19:00
Benjamin Britten
Variationen über ein Thema von Frank Bridge für Streicher op. 10
Yang Song
„In einem Moment – 须臾“
Uraufführung / World Premiere
Benjamin Britten
Violinkonzert d-Moll op. 15
German Radio Philharmonic. Conductor: Martyn Brabbins.
* Alain Desjaques’ book title is a reference to an earlier collection of songs and poems assembled by a Mongolian princess, Dix-huit chants et poèmes mongols, published 1937.
On 12/12/2021 we started the founding of the TOSA, or Taiwan Overtone Singing Association. It was an old dream of mine to have a more solid vehicle for my work and that of others in the field of overtone singing. But lacking reading and writing skills in Chinese I was unable to give that wish a concrete form. But then my close collaborators Sunny Chen and Jackal Mei began to question me about this and make suggestions about how to let this community grow and organise some bigger events. By now there are quite some people who have studied overtone singing with me or with other local practitioners, or with foreign teachers (often from Inner Mongolia or Tuva). There are several skilled performers and others who are improving their skills rapidly. I tend to be a bit of a loner in my work in overtone singing, but I think the time has come to really help others flower if they wish to become good overtone singers. And to show more people the beauty of this technique in all its forms, whether artistic or therapeutic, traditional or modern.
TOSA members performing on January 1 at Mei Garden Restaurant, Taipei
In the end it was Sunny Chen who has done endless amounts of paperwork to have the first small meeting of founders last December. My heartfelt thanks to her and all those who signed up as founders. The next step is to go public, and this will happen right after Chinese New Year, on February 19. On that day our chairman Sky Tseng will tell more about bigger and smaller events we are going to host every year; about a practising group to brush up your overtone singing and chanting; about concerts we will jointly attend or important books and pieces or CDs we will discuss. Professor Chung Minder, or taimu as he is known to many, will look back to twenty years of overtone singing in Taiwan, and perhaps look forward too. My old friends, and long-time overtone singing lovers (and love-couple in the first place) Wei-Lin and Qi-Chung will do a presentation, and so do I: this serves as the upbeat to a full concert we are preparing for later this year.
To make all of this happen, we need to reach a minimum of 45 members by January 28 (and not by February 19, as we thought before). We hope you will consider to sign up this month and give our association a flying start. A little extra support at this point is much needed since only a small inner circle of people knows about this initiative. Once we get started in February we can reach out to more people.
By popular demand, the workshop to sing your heart is back, in the same place in Central Taiwan where we have plenty of space to sing to and with and from the mountains, and a unique chance to go to the Bunun from XinYi and sing with them!
In three days we dive deep into the Ocean of Sound, Mark’s equivalent for the repository for musical sounds and spoken words humanity has produced across time and space. We uncover unknown traditions from around the globe, listen to examples and try out our own versions. You also learn how to create a traditional song (A lullaby? An invocation? A cheerful greeting song?) by yourself, or together, on the go. You already love to sing and already know your voice has so many shades. But only some of these shades find expression in everyday life, and now we expand this creative, sonic potential.
Join us for a celebration of the power of the human voice and of creative imagination lurking underneath the surface. Surely your ancestors knew folk songs, religious hymns, ceremonial chants: let them come back to the surface again, in a new guise. As the highlight of our exploration, the Bunun from XinYi are so kind to welcome us during their weekly singing session. You will have a chance to sing with them, up-close, and in this way you learn how they create their polyphonic songs and can try to join in with them. A first-hand immersion in one of the many living traditions of this beautiful island and a unique chance very few people have ever had!
DATES AND TIMES
Friday evening January 27 (6/8 PM) – Monday January 30 (2 PM).
Launch of a new series of performances I have been thinking about for some years already. It will be me plus one local musician each time, alternating our own music and looking on the spot for overlaps in our pieces or creating a new improvised bridge. I call it Two in One.
Due to all the uncertainties in Hong Kong, the Soundtherapy Hong Kong team decided it is not a good time to run my regular Hong Kong workshop Outer Voice – Inner Voice. So we cancel the workshop. Here is the original post with announcement and some photos from the workshops 2014-2018.
If you want to learn overtone singing with me but do not need a Chinese translation, then the workshops in Hong Kong may be something for you. Most workshops in Taiwan are with translation, which means we lose some time for interpretation. This November workshop in Hong Kong is the next opportunity to do an English-only workshop, other opportunities in Winter and Spring 2020 will be announced here soon.
I have had such fantastic experiences during the Hong Kong workshops over the past six years and would like to look back through some photos. The first workshop I did was during the Umbrella Revolution in 2014 – though the umbrellas you see in the first photo were not related to the protest. The previous visit (late 2018) was just days after a violent typhoon struck Hong Kong, locking people in their homes with the wind bashing on their windows and rains creeping in through the windowposts. On the beach (last photo) we found the remains of shops that were completely destroyed. In between you will find mostly happier moments shared with students and Jennifer and Jasmine. And at the bottom my ‘Courage!’ statement for the many friends in Hong Kong.
With Jasmine Hui of Soundtherapy Hong Kong at the workshop location, a comix and animation center.
The fantastic Soundtherapy Hong Kong team and me have revamped the annual Outer Voice ~ Inner Voice workshop to make it a bit more accessible and diverse. At the same time old students will find some new themes to progress further in their exploration of overtone singing and the endless possibilities of the colours of the human voice.
The general idea is for starters to come to Part One ~ Outer Voice (day one) and from there to continue with Part Two ~ Inner Voice (day two and three). Old students can directly come to Part Two ~ Inner Voice, if they wish. Within these two blocks there are still six themes to chose from – or you can do them all.
PART I ~ OUTER VOICE
THE RESONATING BODY
DAY 1. SOUND IS MOVEMENT
Session 1. Breath, Prana & Movement
Breath is one process in the totality of prana / life force, and the one that drives our vocal sound too. We slowly build up our vocal practise from the breath and from movements. From relaxation we start a journey to learn new ways of sounding and moving. Familiar, everyday patterns become tools for transformation. Plenty of group chanting and toning, too.
Session 2. Sounds and music to lose and find yourself
We continue our exploration by shaking up things a bit more. Going wild and extreme one moment, contemplating sound and self another. Focus and un-focus. By doing less than we normally do, we notice more. We return to a primary knowledge that sits at the centre of the body-mind-division: sonic phenomenology. Musical games/meditations/dances. Serious fun. Anything is possible, and nothing too!
Projecting vowels into the body
PART II. INNER VOICE
INTO THE HEART OF SOUND
DAY 2. THE HARMONIC UNIVERSE
Session 3. Cosmic Listening
After some energising Voice Yoga we dive into the subtler realms of vowels, resonance and overtones. You take your first steps in The Art of Listening 2.0. Break through your habitual patterns of sounding and hearing. Expand your awareness of voice physiology. Cosmic listening to overtone singing with the sruti box and hear your own harmonics. Getting back to the more vigorous shake-ups of the day before whenever needed.
Session 4. Your Voice, Your Resonance, Your life
Overtone singing is not easy and pursuing mere technique in itself can be a burden. Armed with new understandings and experiences of the hidden dimensions of the human voice, we ask ourselves where we want to go with it. How do you resonate? What makes your voice unique? Love it or hate it? Every voice and every path is different. Pushing our vocal limits, we collectively embrace failure. And return to soothing vibrant sonic meditations.
Holland Street
DAY 3. CREATIVE IMAGINATION as a SOURCE OF LIFE
Session 5. Mantras, Chants and Sound poems
In an age of media technologies we have silenced ourselves and forgotten our ancestors’ songs. Mantras are among the most ancient sound tools around and we can still learn from them. The repetitive vibrations of chants also awake slumbering resonances in our body-mind. Add to that 21st century Sound Poems flavored with overtones and we have a complete palette of tools to revive the lost sonic core of our selves.
Session 6. Paraphony
Paraphony means: there is no such thing as objective sounds. Sound is shaped by your ears, your awareness, your mood … always in flux. In our last session, we throw ourselves into the creative process of making music by and for ourselves and each other. The more we live by our creative impulses—be they noisy and chaotic or contemplative and balanced—the deeper we get to know ourselves and the world around is. Resonating together, we attune ourselves to ever subtler sounds of tones, overtones and elusive acoustic realms. Grasping these phenomena, we manifest our own voice, bring it out in its own unique glory.
PART II ~ Session 3 /4 and 5/6: 23-24 Nov 2019 (Sat – Sun), Time: 10am – 5:30pm
To register Session 3-6 (Part II), you’re required to register for either Session 1 or 2 first. Past students can directly register for Part II without taking Session 1 or 2.
Venue (All Sessions): Sound Therapy Hong Kong
For registration go to the Soundtherapy Hong Kong website here and on Facebook.
Awaken your potential:
– > to listen better
– > to hear and sing the natural overtones in your voice
– > to understand your inner drives better
– > to diversify your voice
After this 3 days workshop, you will go home with a renewed sense of self through a fresh look and ‘a fresh ear’ at your voice. You will have a fuller understanding of its complex vibratory mechanisms, and get many new ideas how these operate at the point where body and mind are merged in a greater whole. You learn techniques to better hear the world around you and inside you. These tools help you to gradually increase your musical/sound awareness, to know what needs to be healed and how to do that.
For whom?
No previous musical or vocal experience is required. Just bring a healthy dosage of curiosity and willingness to explore. The starting point is your own path as a speaker, as a communicator, as a person who enjoys music. Or simply as a human being. This workshop is beneficial for musicians and artists, for healers and therapists, and for anyone looking for more direction, meaning and depth in their lives.
Improvising theatre director Ho Ying Fung and Wu Wentsui brought me to this fantastic streetperformance in January 2018
Courage, Hong Kong!
It is my sincere wish that Hong Kong remains as much as possible as it isnow:
a relatively free space within the larger Chinese boundaries
a place where Cantonese people with a democratic inclination determine the political, economic, cultural course of their unique region
a peaceful and culturally diverse hotspot where people from around the world live and work together without an over-active state apparatus encroaching upon their lives
My prayers go out to my Hong Kong friends and everyone else suffering from the human violence and psychological pressure. I pray too for the perpretators because it is, in my point of view, them who need to find peace of mind more than anyone else.
The most prolific researcher in the field of overtone singing is a man with many faces. His name is Tran Quang Hai and you can call him (and all options are correct): Vietnamese or French; a professional musician or a professional musicologist; an instrumentalist or a singer; an improviser or a composer; a traditional, a popular or an experimental musician (all three will do); an expert in Vietnamese traditional musics and an astute chronicler of its year-to-year development in the past decades.* Tran Quang Hai has a new book out celebrating his 50 years of music research in many different areas. We recently met in Paris, where he shared some interesting facts about the Vietnamese Jew’s harp (dan moi) I did not know before. On the trip back to Amsterdam I read most of the articles in his book that I had not seen before, so more on that too. Before talking about our meeting, his book and the origin of the word dan moi (Jew’s harp), some historical background. Since Hai is Tran Quang Hai’s first name I will refer to him as Hai.
I learned of Hai’s work on overtone singing in the early 1990s. When I got to know him personally, I was astounded and (I will admit) a bit intimidated by his unbridled energy. He loves to share what he does, and he is in fact overflowing with enthusiasm: for overtone singing, for Vietnamese music, for playing the Jew’s harp and spoons, for ethnomusicology, for his constant travels as a performer and teacher. After my visits I was usually exhilirated (about all the new things I had learned or shared with him) and at the same time exhausted (feeling my life was a mess with no progress at all).
In fact, going to Paris has been almost synonymous with visiting Hai and his lovely wife Bach Yen (whose singing carreer goes way way back). And these visits became almost synonymous with absolutely great Vietnamese food. Bach Yen often spent hours and hours to buy fine ingredients like all kinds of fresh leaves, vegetables, seafood and meat and prepare them the Vietnamese way. We would have excellent diners, drank nice wine, as the couple made an annual ‘pilgrimage’ to different regions in France to stock up on boxes of quality wine to share with friends at home.
After moving to Taiwan, my encounters with Tran Quang Hai were scarce, and visits to both of them even more. In 2019, it has been around ten years since we last met in Paris. So I was delighted to see them again some weeks ago. Tran Quang Hai retired a decade ago from the ethnomusicology department at the Musée de L’Homme in Paris, but has remained an active performer and workshop leader for all these years. Bach Yen is a famous singer of popular songs and entertainment music, as well as a singer of many different genres of traditional music. Together they have given hundreds of concerts in Europe and elsewhere, and they continue to do so. Here is a photo of their appearance in Genoa, Italy, a week or so after I met them.
Late August, when I walked down the platform of Gare de Lyon, Hai and Bach Yen were waiting for me. Once again I was overwhelmed to be in their buzzing, energetic presence. The first thing they did, was to get out their cameras and make many photos together. Then we strolled to their car, and their warm hands and arms embraced my arms. I sometimes think of myself as someone who easily touches people, but this time I thought I am quite distant compared to them. It was really (excusez le mot) touching to stroll down the platform chatting and to be ‘wrapped’ by their tender hands and arms on both sides. Hai told me once about using his hands to heal people and showed me some methods. But it seems the couple just radiates warmth and energy naturally, even without using a special method.
For our Vietnamese food, this time we drove to a place called Pho Bida, pronounced Fo Beeyaa. Pho is the famous Vietnamese noodle soup, but what about Bida? It turns out to be derived from ‘billiard’, as the former location of this restaurant housed a popular billiard room as well. The place is not very spacious but we were early and could chose any seat. By the time we left lots of people waited outside. The food was great and loved by Vietnamese and non-Vietnamese alike: highly recommended! (Pho Bida Vietnam, 36 rue Nationale, 75013 Paris)
Tran Quang Hai’s New Book
When we sat down, Hai gave me his new book, a thick volume with many of his articles and listst of all his achievements, titles, appearances, etc. organized in a single volume. Some articles I have known for a long time. So I particularly enjoyed reading those things I did not know in detail.
First, an article about Vietnamese music and its historical background, very helpful for understanding the relationship to Chinese music and culture. It also covers many of the recent developments in Vietnamese music, making it in effect a kind of encyclopaedic entry into Vietnam and all its music. With this work Hai most clearly follows in the footsteps of his late father Tran Van Khe, also a well-known musician and musicologist.
“Tran Quang Hai. 50 Years of Research in Vietnamese Traditional Music and Overtone Singing.”
Second, an article that accompanied a double CD issued in France in 1997, dedicated to the absolutely fascinating world of mountain tribe musics in Vietnam. There is a dazzling array of types of instruments and ways of playing, and these liner notes give a good overview of this field.
If you are interested in overtone singing and still love printed matter, as I do myself, then this is a good way to get your (physical) hands on several key articles on this technique by Dr. Tran Quang Hai and understand the background of his research. (Note for academic readers: for research purposes it is better to consult online pdfs of the articles in their original format). Available here.
Tran Quang Hai and the Dan Moi
During our lunch I also learned where the common name of the Vietnamese brass Jew’s harp comes from. It is usually referred to as dan moi, which is a Vietnamese word (compare for example dan tranh/đàn tranh, the plucked zither, or the unique one-string zither dan bau/đàn bầu). However, the thin, finely crafted Jew’s harp, probably smaller than any other type of Jew’s harp, originates from the mountain tribes who live close to Yunnan in South China. The Hmong’s native language and culture has little to do with that of the dominant Viet or Kinh ethnic group, who are historically tied to China. When travelling in the mountains in North Vietnam (around Sapa), I encountered the Hmong people who play this instrument and managed to get one made locally by their craftsmen. They referred to it as gya, phonetically speaking, though in writing it is referred to as djam. A personal note from Tran Quang Hai shortly after publishing this post: the Hmong name of the Jew’s harp is ncas (pronounced ncha).
The djam I bought in Sapa from girls who played the instrument along the mountain road. (photo by the author).
So I asked Hai how the name dan moi came about. He explained: there is no Jew’s harp in the music of the ethnic Vietnamese. So when he learned about the traditions of the mountain people around 50 years ago, he had to make up a new name himself in order to accommodate the minorities’ instrument in the system and language of Vietnam. To use ‘dan’ (meaning ‘instrument’) was an obvious beginning point. Hai decided to add ‘moi’ for lips, to designate it is played between the lips. Most brass or metal Jew’s harps are held against the teeth, with the lamella vibrating between the teeth; the dan moi is held between the lips and vibrates there. In this sense it is more like a type of wooden or bamboo Jew’s harp, particularly the ones vibrated by a string attached to one side.
A Hmong girl playing the djam for me in 2003 (photo by the author).
The dan moi went on to become a very popular instrument around the world once non-Vietnamese musicians discovered them, at the turn of the millenium. Many people asked me for it when I brought them back in 2003. I remember giving one to Tuvan throat singer Sainkho around 2004. She immediately fell for its bright sound and expressive qualities, and asked for more several times after (and so did other people). At the same time, a German company saw the potential of this cheap instrument to reach a huge audience and set up (web)shop, calling it www.danmoi.com. It has a become a one-stop shop to buy all kinds of Jew’s harps. So dan moi, Hai’s new name for the djham, a minority instrument, and for Jew’s harps in general, now has become sort of a symbol of 21st century global Jew’s harp culture. And it seems to be growing year by year: here in Taiwan I have seen many new Jew’s harp enthusiasts taking the stages recently, often sporting a collection of world Jew’s harps, including, of course, the dan moi.
Here is a video where you see the movement of the dan moi lamella in slow motion, played by Hai’s student Dang Khai Nguyen.
Learn more about Tran Quang Hai
Hai is still actively teaching, find out where his next workshops are by going to his blog:
(the blog itself amounts to a ‘wikipedia’ of sorts for throat/overtone singing, where you will find a huge amount o copies of scientific and popular articles, videos, and indeed copies of wikipedia entries, as well as some original posts about Hai’s workshops and travels).
Go here to find more entries in English and in Vietnamese:
And for more news from Fusica and Mark van Tongeren subscribe to these blogposts here.
Finally, back to some Asian flavour, but East-Asian instead of the South-East Asian of Hai’s origins. Here is a hilarious video from the time Hai was flown into Japan to demonstrate overtone/throat singing in a hypertheatrical popular entertainment program.
TRAN QUANG HAI on JAPANESE TELEVISION, part 2, December 26, 2012
* OK, for this one I have no way to tell if it is true, but Hai does mention in his new book (page 32) that he wrote “more than 500 articles in Vietnamese for 30 Vietnamese magazines in America, Europe, Asia and Australia.”
