Song of the coastal people

(Baonghean) - The singing voices of coastal people are deep and powerful, simple and profound. Each melody is sung from their simple love for the folk songs and folk songs of their homeland. From that love, for 47 years now, they have joined hands to build and preserve a folk song club, which has now been selected by the Provincial Cultural Center as a model of the province's folk song club.

Members of Huong Xuan Folk Song Club during practice.

That is the Huong Xuan Folk Song Club in Quynh Xuan Ward, Hoang Mai Town. When we arrived, the club members were attentively practicing a folk song play, preparing to participate in the Nghe An Province Short Drama and Comedy Festival in 2015. The amateur singers were middle-aged, but their voices were still fresh and strong, imbued with the humor and wit of the skit.

Mr. Nguyen Dinh Tuu - Chairman of the Club, who is 70 years old this year, talks about his "brainchild" with unconcealed pride: "The people of Quynh Xuan love folk songs very much. In the past, there were fierce bombs and bullets, fighting during the day and working at night, but whenever we had a break, we sang. The whole village sang, the whole commune sang. In 1968, in response to the actual needs of the locality, the people discussed, asked for opinions from the Party Committee and the commune government, and then established a singing and dancing team specializing in serving large and small events in the commune, at that time called the Quynh Xuan Performing Arts Team."

There are still memories of moonlit nights, when families would sit together around a pot of green tea, chatting and singing folk songs to each other. Folk songs from the coastal areas are very generous, fishermen who are used to “eating the waves and talking to the wind”, a life of drifting boats, sing as if confiding in each other, as if pouring out their hearts. Mr. Nguyen Dinh Tuu reminisced about the past, then sang a song far away:

Ho ho ho

From the sea to the sea

The rhythm of the song is exciting in the heart

Ho do ho do drill drill drill is drill drill

The dawn has broken

We cast our nets and cast our nets.

Catch lots of fresh fish and shrimp

Make life more beautiful

Make your homeland more beautiful and rich...

Unlike the folk songs Vi and Giam in the plains and midlands, Vi and Giam in the salty coastal region have their own appeal, both energetic with boat rowing songs, describing the scenery and stimulating the working spirit, and also being songs of the feelings of those who drift on the waves.

Mr. Tuu shared that, with nearly half a century of dedication to the local art troupe, elders like him have wholeheartedly encouraged the people to persistently preserve the musical source of the coastal people. Despite many difficulties in economic and social life, people's income is mostly based on the fields and on their wandering trips, but as if it were inevitable, that source still flows forever in the spiritual life of Quynh Xuan people. The art troupe has no operating budget, the members voluntarily contribute, some a little, some a lot, to build a fund. The art troupe also assigns people to pick up and drop off the main singers, who are women and mothers. The troupe even agrees to use the fund to buy phones and give them to members in difficulty for convenient communication and practice...

In 2011, the Quynh Xuan art troupe was renamed the Huong Xuan Folk Song Club, with a larger scale and more systematic form of operation. The 35 core members of the club were carefully selected, and the happiest thing about traditional core members like Mr. Tuu is that more and more young people and teenagers are coming to the club.

Ms. Nguyen Thi Lieu (53 years old), the main "tree" of the club, shared: "At first, when hearing about the folk music club, the young people refused to join because they did not like traditional music. The club members are mainly older people, the generation gap makes them hesitate. But "slow and steady wins the race", from trying a few times to know, now many children love folk music more than the old people".

Mr. Nguyen Dinh Tuu continued: “Activities in the club are both a useful spiritual food and help children stay away from social evils. In recent years, the songs performed by the club have been composed by the members themselves or adapted from old melodies, with the content promoting cultural lifestyles, praising love for the homeland and country, educating the law, etc. When performing, the children themselves have absorbed and spread those good messages to everyone.”

With a long tradition of activities and a passion for folk music, Huong Xuan Folk Club has won many awards at festivals and performances at all levels. In 2015, Huong Xuan Folk Club was selected by the Provincial Cultural Center as a model club, aiming to expand to other localities. This folk art movement is a way to multiply the good values ​​in the culture of coastal villages past and present...

Phuoc Anh