Learn about "Wallet" and "Giam"

Singing Vi

Singing Vi is usually free-form singing, without a rhythm or beat, the singer can improvise. The high and low tones sometimes depend on the lyrics (even or odd), few or many words. Vi belongs to the genre of reciting poems, using the method of popularizing folk poetry (luc bat, song that luc bat, luc bat variations...)

According to Professor Dinh Gia Khanh: “People call it hat vi, perhaps hat vi or use metaphors to exchange feelings with each other. The metaphorical tone is very close to the poetic tone, scale and rhythm”.

There is also an opinion that: "vi" is "vôi" meaning that the men stand outside the alley, on the street to sing vôi into the yard and house with the women, or the girls planting rice in this field "sing vôi" into the other field with the boys pulling up the seedlings.

The expressiveness of the Vi singing depends on the environment, time and space and the singer's temperament. The range of the Vi is usually no more than an octave. The Vi melody sounds vast, deep, wistful, and passionate. However, there are still Vi Gheo and Vi Muc Dong types that sound humorous, mischievous, innocent and youthful.

The Vi singing genre has many melodies such as Vi do dua, Vi phuong vai, Vi phuong cay, Vi phuong hammock, Vi phuong tea, Vi dong ruong, Vi leo non, Vi muc dong, Vi chuoi, Vi gheo...

Giam singing

Giam is understood as adding (giam rice). According to the Vietnamese Dictionary (Institute of Language, Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences, 1992), "giam" has 2 meanings: 1. To patch up a broken place (giam non, giam troi); 2. giam is to add to a blank place (giam seedlings in the field, eat gim in the middle of the day).

There are many ways to understand “giam”. Musician Vinh Long in the songNghe Tinh Giam singinghas presented two ways of understanding: The word "giam" refers to the phenomenon of repeating the last sentence, and "giam" is the rhyme of the question. There is also an understanding that "giam" means filling in the blank in a song.

Unlike Ví, Giặm is a singing form with a clear rhythm, with strong and weak beats, internal and external rhythms. Normally, a Giầm song has many stanzas, each stanza has 5 sentences (sentence 5 often repeats verse 4), each sentence has 5 words. However, there are also Giầm and Vê songs that are not clearly divided into stanzas, but are sung in one go, sometimes up to dozens or hundreds of sentences, and each sentence does not have exactly 5 words but can have 4 or 6,7 words (due to variations in the lyrics).

Giau is very rich in narrative, sentimental, telling, advising, explaining, and expressing. There are also humorous, satirical, and lyrical types of Giam.

Hat giam is a genre of spoken singing using fables. The accompanying music is usually beat. Hat giam melodies such as: giam xam, giam noi, giam ve, giam ke… There are rhythms of strong beat, light beat, internal and external beats.

References:

1. International scientific conference: "Preserving and promoting the value of folk songs in contemporary society (the case of Nghe Tinh Vi and Giam folk songs)"Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, 2014.
2. Vinh City Local Language, Author Duong Xuan Hong (compiler), Vinh University Publishing House.
3. About Nghe Tinh folk literature, Associate Professor Ninh Viet Giao, Nghe Tinh Publishing House, 1982.
4. Article:“The Vitality Value of Nghe Tinh Vi and Giam Folk Songs”, Tu Thi Loan, Nghe An Culture magazine, May 29, 2015.