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Directing the heavy wooden mallets to the shiny playing areas I tried to honor the many generations of ancestors, although I couldn't help wondering about the diplomatic consequences if I broke one of the stones.ĭuring an interview on Voice of Vietnam Radio I was prepared to give in-depth reactions to my experiences of Vietnamese music. This is the world's second oldest instrument (the oldest is an identical pile now in Paris) and sounds just as it sounded long ago (D-F-G-A-C-D), six ringing tones perfectly tuned in pure pentatonic ratios. Recurrent questions included: Is it really so easy to make a living in America as a musician? What is the American tradition? What is a non-profit organization? How do we stop the Michael Jackson invasion? Once at the end of a long afternoon in Hue I received a carefully scrawled question out of the blue: "Please tell about LaMonte Young, John Adams, and Post Modernism." And I thought my thesis defense was over.Īt the Research Institute in Saigon I accepted an offer to play the pile of rocks lying in the corner, a 6,000 year old stone xylophone (the Dan Da).
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Before speaking engagements I would be introduced to suppressed amazement as an American "of the people, who gets around by bicycle, stays in a cheap hotel, and eats vegetarian food from the street stalls." Through the Musicians' Association, an arm of the Ministry of Culture, I was given unprecedented access to their more than four hundred composer, performer, and musicologist members, allowed to travel freely, and had privileged access to the extensive (but decaying) musical research archives.įew Vietnamese had ever had a chance to speak to an American (certainly not without fear of reprisal) and fewer with one not connected to the militia or business, so many that I met were curious about how my lifestyle fit their image.
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music organization to establish connections with its Vietnamese counterparts.
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The Asian Cultural Council was supporting my mission to spend four months in Vietnam representing the Minnesota Composers Forum as the first U.S. On the other hand, some reactions were more positive: excerpts of Bobby McFerrin, Aretha Franklin, David Hykes, Lou Harrison, and Aaron Copland all received spontaneous rounds of applause. ("But that's too easy," exclaimed one when I tried to explain minimalism to him.) Computer music set them in fits of derisive laughter as did Varese's Ionization until they realized the caterwaulings were actually air raid sirens. Riley's In C and Reich's Come Out left them aghast, waiting for some music to emerge from the repetitions. Charles Ives' Fourth Symphony with its interfering marching bands disturbed this audience in a way Ives might originally have intended but has since been lost on clash-happy Americans.
Red orchestra vietnam song professional#
The first time American experimental music was introduced to the professional and student musicians of Hanoi, Hue, and Saigon, it created a similar stir no contingency plans had been laid for that either. His charge? Not fitting any known human or vehicular category. I met him on his release from a four-hour detention where he had been helping police with their inquiries. With a geometrically-shaved design on his head and apparently frictionless motion through the busy boulevards he caused a Red Sea parting wherever he went and left the crowd agape in his wake. The first pair of rollerblades entered Saigon in December, 1993 attached to the feet of one Victor, a Brooklyn teen.