The sound remains

In the world of singing, Ngo Nhat Tang is a rather special name. Not because this young man from the early 8X generation is a musician or a musician, but because he spent nearly 20 years collecting and digitizing a huge collection of singing cassette tapes. This contributes a small part to the effort to preserve folk art in general, and singing art in particular.

Ngo Nhat Tang and singer Hoang Trong Kha.

Hat Van originated in the Northern Delta region, is a traditional art form in the "Practice of the Vietnamese Mother Goddess Worship" and has been recognized by the United Nations Educational , Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) as an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity since 2016.

Collection Journey

In the small room in the new Dai Kim urban area, Hanoi , where Tang works, I saw old tapes from the early 90s, when our generation used to listen to them all day long with a Sony cassette player. Letting me look closely and recall old memories, Tang opened the tape door, inserted a tape and pressed the “play” button.

The sound from the speaker was a mix of the singer's voice, the moon lute, the clappers and the drums. Yet for nearly 20 years, Tang has always liked to listen to that simple sound, recorded from cassette tapes himself, instead of the kind produced by record stores. And not just one 90-minute tape, but he has listened to it dozens, hundreds of times.

Although not a musician, producer or DJ, but simply with a passion for singing, Tang spent time meeting, listening and chatting with famous names in the Tu Phu religion, masters of the art of singing after hearing artists like Xuan Hinh and Van Chuong sing for the first time in 2007.

At first, he joined forums to search for cassette tapes about hat van, then interacted and shared, then delved deeper into researching the art of hat van. Thanks to that, in May 2024, when author Le Y Linh, daughter of musician Hoang Van, organized the launch of the book "Pham Van Kiem and a hundred years of hau bong-nhac-van" about the role of music-van in the hau bong belief, a collection of hundreds of songs by artist Pham Van Kiem, I learned that Tang also participated in the role of organizing detailed annotations of nearly 200 ancient texts by the artist.

That is enough to show how large Tang's valuable collection of documents on music and literature in the Mother Goddess worship is after many years of fieldwork in provinces and cities from north to south, in exchange for months of meeting artists, chatting, watching, and listening to their performances...

Later, as Tang said, pursuing singing and musical instruments, obtaining valuable sources of information about hat van was probably due to his fate, not luck, but thanks to the blessings and favors (if any) of his elders and teachers for a junior to have such a passion. It was truly fate because until now, Tang is still attached to hat van as he was when he worked at the Hanoi Department of Culture and Sports , and the information technology major that he studied at Hanoi University of Science and Technology has become a part of the past for nearly 20 years.

What surprised me about the young man from Thai Binh (now Hung Yen) was the thought that, over time, living witnesses will gradually pass away. The instruments, the melodies, the rhythms will also gradually become sparse and disappear, only the seemingly lifeless cassette tapes still retain the emotions, the artistic skills, and the voices of the artists.

And the trips and meetings have helped Tang gradually collect and digitize singing documents until now.

Documentary and heritage value

The 800 pages of the book "Pham Van Kiem and a hundred years of spirit mediumship-music-literature" can tell the story of a hundred years of the spirit mediumship belief and the art of singing literature, but that is only a part of the process of preserving folk art in general and the art of singing literature in particular.

According to Tang, he is not a professional, nor can he play a whole set of instruments, or beat a whole set of clappers, but seeing the heritage of singing left by his ancestors changing, developing and gradually moving away from the original, he sometimes feels a little sad. Therefore, the digital audio documents that he has made since 2007 will be a valuable data warehouse for anyone interested in learning about singing, or most recently, the musicians and musicians who pursue performance forms such as singing for worship, singing for competitions, singing for serving and singing at temples and communal houses.

Tang confided that behind each cassette tape or each singing artist are many interesting stories and he was fortunate to own their manuscripts and self-recorded texts. For example, during his field trips, he had the opportunity to meet many artists such as Le Ba Cao (Thuong Tin commune, Hanoi).

The artist's family has a tradition of Confucianism, many generations of teaching, he himself has pedagogical skills, so his analysis of the rules, clappers, and playing of the instrument is very clear and easy to understand when demonstrating. The artist was famous at the time for his Tho Dong singing voice and his unique style of reciting poetry. The Chau texts for worshiping Mau Thoai, Nhi Vi Bo Tat... are outstanding works of art in the singing world of artist Le Ba Cao.

And speaking of contributions to the profession, there are many artists such as Hong Tinh, Pham Van Ty, Vinh Do, Ngoc Chau, Van Chung, Trong Quynh, Cong Manh, Duc Bang, Thanh Long... whom he has met and demonstrated the traditional melodies and styles of hat van.

If meeting the masters of singing is fate and luck, then the opportunity to own ancient texts and self-recorded recordings of them is especially rare. The reason is partly due to beliefs, partly due to listening tastes leaning towards young music and international music at that time, while the musicians themselves did not think of recording them as souvenirs.

Therefore, Tang said, in addition to a few artists who recorded some commemorative pieces, it is necessary to mention the great contributions of the master Trang Cong Thinh at Dau temple, 64 Hang Quat (Hanoi). Mr. Thinh is a researcher who collects and disseminates the folk culture of the capital, from folk performing arts to the application of folk songs and proverbs in life and preserves many video tapes and cassette tapes recording the sessions of worshiping the saints and the sessions of offering literature to the gods in the 80s and 90s of the last century.

When talking about Chau Van worship materials, we cannot fail to mention the late Head of the Tay Ho Palace Relic Management Board, Mr. Truong Cong Duc. When Mr. Duc was still alive, famous Chau Van worship pieces such as Mau Thoai, Canh Thu Duong, Giang Tien Ky Luc, Van Huong Su Tich Van, Tien Chua Bat Nan,... were all carefully requested by him from the master artists of the time and recorded and preserved.

And in addition to the self-recorded tapes of artisans Pham Van Kiem, Doan Duc Dan, Chu Duc Duyet, Mr. Khiet, Mr. Su (Saigon) recorded sporadically, we must mention the set of 5 cassette tapes that the head of the incense house Tran An Duc Hanh recorded and kept. According to Tang, this set of 5 tapes is said to have lost one tape, the remaining four tapes are currently kept by a collector.

Thanks to his studies in information technology, when he started digitizing Hat Van documents in 2007, Tang worked day and night for 5 consecutive years. Accessing documents was inherently difficult, and the process of building a digital library was not easy due to poor quality cassette tapes, not to mention the broken parts that had to be reconnected, the long listening time and effort required because he had to listen over and over again to determine whose voice and specific lyrics. Hundreds of such cassette tapes took away not only his time and money but also his family's happiness, showing that nearly 20 years of digitization was a long journey of perseverance and dedication.

Tang worked day and night for 5 consecutive years. Accessing documents was inherently difficult, and the process of building a digital library was not easy due to poor quality cassette tapes, not to mention the broken parts that had to be reconnected, the long listening time and effort required to listen over and over again to determine whose voice and specific text. Hundreds of such cassette tapes took away not only his time and money but also his family's happiness, showing that nearly 20 years of digitization was a long journey of perseverance and dedication.

Tang also studied Chinese characters to understand the lyrics and allusions. He also hired a Sino-Vietnamese expert to help interpret and proofread. Therefore, the collection of song literature in the book “Pham Van Kiem and a Hundred Years of Song-Music-Van” is only a part of the material that Tang has annotated, as he revealed that he has completed the manuscript of another book on singing literature materials.

In an era where everything can be stored with a few clicks of a mouse, the cassette tapes of singing that Tang cherishes are not just a means of preserving sound. They are memories, reminiscences, and echoes of voices from the past. Each time he “presses play”, the sound of the instrument and the singing, though distorted and noisy, is still enough to evoke a sacred world at the door of the communal house, the door of the temple, where the voices no longer exist but are present through each loop of the tape.

With rare perseverance, unprejudiced dedication and a pure love for Hat Van, Ngo Nhat Tang is quietly doing the work of a custodian: preserving not only the sound, but also the spirit of a national heritage.

That sound is still there. And will be forever!

STRONG

Source: https://nhandan.vn/thanh-am-o-lai-post904781.html