Love song in the highlands...

Love song

When the girl Bhling Canh and a Co Tu boy stepped onto the stage and sang, the atmosphere at the Thanh My commune stadium exploded with cheers.

ALang Thi Trang, a girl with a pretty face, looked at me shyly and said something that sounded very shy: "They love each other!".

I didn't know a single word of Co Tu, but I vaguely understood that the couple was expressing their love through the lyrics of a love song, one of the traditional musical forms of the Co Tu people in the highlands of Quang Nam.

Interestingly, with this love song, right from the first verses, the singer received warm sympathy from the audience.

Below the stage, applause, cheers and shy smiles… continuously echoed along with the songs, gestures and movements of the two actors.

With beautiful traditional costumes, especially with very sweet voices, plus youthful looks..., the couple on stage created an attractive "yeast" for the song.

The setting where these love songs take place is probably a forest, and the couple may have had feelings for each other before.

The boy in the story is an orphan who works hard in the forest every day to make a living.

This made the Co Tu girl feel compassion.

So she raised her voice, sounding distant as if she wanted to express something:

"Oh… I feel so sorry for that person, in this wild mountain forest, all alone, like the Agat bird, all alone… I feel so sorry for that person.

Where is your lover that you are sitting there alone? I kept calling but no one answered, I only heard the sound of the Agat bird calling back.

I kept calling but only heard the langur's echo. Now I won't follow you anymore, I'm going home, my friend...".

The girl's lyrics are both words of love and sympathy for the boy's situation, and also reproach for his indifference.

Now the young man opened his mouth to express his feelings, the feelings of a young man who, although he already knew that he loved the girl, was afraid of all the obstacles ahead:

"Oh... my love, it's not that I didn't take you with me because the forest was too tall.

It's not that I didn't bring you along because the stream was deep.

I love, love that girl so much.

It's not that I don't want to take you with me, but because I see that you already have a place.

It's not that I don't need you, but because I'm afraid you already have a deposit somewhere...".

This means that Co Tu boys and girls were "paired" by their parents when they were young.

Because he knew the girl already had a place, the boy in the story, although "in love, it was already there", was "still shy on the outside".

But, when she heard the young man confess his feelings like that, the girl became stronger, she sang:

"Even though I had a previous appointment.

Although there was a place before, my dear, those are things of the past...".

Passionate love and desire

When the Co Tu boy sang, it seemed to sow in the hearts of his secret lovers a readiness, perhaps, they had begun to decide their own fate.

So, the girl once again made up her mind through the lyrics:

"I still accept to marry you, even though I see you are poor and work hard, traveling deep into the mountains all year round.

I still accept to marry you, even though I see many thorny challenges ahead...".

The young man seemed to be advising his lover and also talking to himself:

"Once you've overcome and come together… then try to stay faithful to each other."

Then the boy and girl held hands and walked across the stage as if they were walking in the middle of their homeland forest, filled with joy and happiness:

"If we come together, let's preserve the good things for our children and grandchildren in the future...".

When they sang the last verse, I looked at A Lang Thi Trang, the girl still standing next to me, and felt her eyes welling up with tears.

Music has such a strange appeal…

Moving away from the content of the story in this love song, nowadays in the villages of ethnic minorities, including the Co Tu people in the western region of Quang Nam, although they have approached many advances in modern life, although they have gradually abandoned the backward customs and practices that have existed for a long time, there are still many customs that are not suitable for the new life, like the story of the couple in this love song.

However, what makes listeners feel surprised and interested is that in those remote villages, there is a young generation growing up day by day and constantly absorbing new things, actively preserving the old things to gradually improve both material and spiritual life.

The courage to overcome obstacles and old rules to dream of a bright horizon in love through the story of the Co Tu couple in this love song is truly worthy of our admiration.

That is in terms of the content contained in the song, and in terms of music, the love song of the Co Tu people is truly a unique spiritual food, with the ability to spread widely to many listeners.

In addition, the sound of the panpipe, a musical instrument used to accompany love songs, also contributes to increasing the charm and uniqueness of Co Tu music.

Therefore, preserving and promoting the good values of this art form is extremely necessary.

Thereby, it both consolidates and shapes a rich spiritual dish of the Co Tu ethnic group, and supplements and enriches the music and art garden of Quang region.

Source: https://baodanang.vn/dieu-hat-giao-duyen-noi-reo-cao-3299256.html