People with a passion for Turkish culture...
His small house is filled with bamboo, reeds, meters, steel wires, saws, chisels... which are the raw materials for making musical instruments. His love for the musical instruments of his people and his concern about the fading of the nation's folk culture have urged him to find ways to preserve and maintain...
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Mr. Truong Song Huong performs the guitar |
He decided to take the trouble to search and restore the lost culture. It took him years of climbing mountains, wading through streams, cycling from village to village, asking all the elders in the commune and district before he could find a way to make the Tang instrument. Having found a way, he went back to the forest to cut bamboo and saw it to make the instrument, then sawed it, then chiseled it...
The difficulty of making a Tinh Tang is knowing how to choose materials of different thicknesses. The most elaborate part is using a sharp knife to separate the strings, meticulously balancing the two strings to match... It took him a whole month to finish making a Tinh Tang.
But unlike the original single-piece Tang Tinh, he created a complete set of 9 pieces with many different tones that can be used to play solo Tho folk songs, or can be used in an orchestra as a main instrument. His passion has pushed him into arduous searches.
He still remembers, once heard that Thanh Hoa sold foot-beating sets. While clearing the fields, he quickly left, called someone to come to his house, scooped up the drums in his wife's jar to sell and got money to go to Thanh Hoa. There was also a time, just because he wanted to collect a Tho folk song, he left his farming work for months, climbed mountains, waded through streams, and wandered everywhere...
"At first, I was annoyed because he neglected his housework and only worried about distant matters... Later, seeing his passion, I had to indulge him. Besides, what he did was meaningful for an entire ethnic group..." Mrs. Phuong, his wife, confided.
He is currently the Chairman of the Tho ethnic folklore club in Tho Hop commune. As a leader, he always finds ways to enrich activities with diverse content to attract young people to participate. His house has become an address for members to visit. The club has no operating budget, so he "mobilizes" his wife to cook water, buy wine, medicine... to serve the members.
Up to now, he has collected, crafted and skillfully performed musical instruments such as: monochord, zither, quartet, erhu, mandolin, foot percussion... Collected and composed dozens of unique folk songs and dances of the Tho ethnic group. In addition, he also composed plays with strong current events, effective in propagating the policies and laws of the Party and State...
During festivals, Tet, longevity celebrations, wedding parties... at any fun event in the district or commune, he always brings his musical instruments and singing to serve the people. He searched far and wide, researched, spent a lot of effort and money collecting and creating "not to buy fame or make money" but also not simply to serve his passion and personal pleasure, but more noblely, "the conscience and responsibility of a son before the beauty of national culture that is being lost and forgotten".
In the hustle and bustle of life, he still diligently and quietly travels from village to village, through this district and that commune to find the precious heritage of his ancestors to preserve, protect, and pass on... Because to him: "Being of the Tho ethnic group but not knowing Tho culture is like a tree without roots, a bird without a nest, a river without a source."
Thanh Phuc
