O.C. Music : Preparing for a Future Together

Outsiders got a glimpse of the creative chaos and ferment that goes into writing a new piece when the Pacific Symphony on Tuesday brought Vietnamese traditional musicians and singers together with orchestra members and composer Elliot Goldenthal.

The idea was to provide a musical workshop and improvisation session to help fuel Goldenthal’s composition of a large-scale work to commemorate the suffering of the Vietnam War. The hourlong piece, commissioned by the orchestra and as yet untitled, is scheduled to be played by the Pacific under Carl St.Clair’s direction next April at the Orange County Performing Arts Center.

Goldenthal took an active part in the proceedings, held at South Coast Repertory’s Second Stage theater, but initially the program was dominated by Khoa Le, a composer, TV producer and member of the Pacific’s Vietnamese Advisory Committee. Under Le’s infectious and knowledgeable enthusiasm, revelations came fast for the audience of about 60 people, predominantly from the Vietnamese community.

When the bright-voiced Ngai Khoi Children’s Chorus sang the jaunty “Sticky Rice Drum” folk song, for instance, Le explained that it had double meanings, which is characteristic of many Vietnamese songs.

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On the surface, the tune is literally about a drum and its distinctive sound, caused by rice stuck to the inner sides of its drum heads (much as snares are used to modify the sound of a small side drum).

But because the barrel-shaped drum is carried in front of the body as it’s played and the song is sung by a young woman, the lyrics can also cynically suggest something else--an unwanted pregnancy, he said.

“And where is the father?” Le said. “That is a sticky situation,” Goldenthal added.

Le’s point was that Westerners not expecting double meanings might not easily grasp the song’s complexity. Yet the music wouldn’t sound completely foreign because, he noted, certain characteristics of Vietnamese music are universal. The music is based on the pentatonic scale, which you can hear by playing just the black notes on a piano.

“The pentatonic scale belongs to the world,” Le said. “The music of this country before white people came is very similar.”

And, apparently, after they came. Goldenthal pointed out that the melodies of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” and “Amazing Grace” are also based on the pentatonic scale.

The Vietnamese have invented two instruments unique to their culture, Le said. These are the dan nhi (or double-stringed fiddle) and the dan doc huyen (a one-stringed monochord).

Older Vietnamese people, he added, would warn their young daughters not to listen to this one-stringed instrument because it was too seductive. And it was pretty irresistible. Le drew parallels between its sweet, pulsing tones and those created by bowing a musical saw.

In Vietnam, incidentally, a professional musician typically would be an expert player of at least three instruments and usually of as many as five, he said. Dong Tran shifted easily between two--the dan doc huyen and the dan tranh (a 16-string zither).

The others Vietnamese players were Tri Le ( dan nhi ), Trong Nguyen (electric guitar) and Xinh Tran (dan xen , an octagonal lute).

The Pacific players were violinists Norm Hughes and Amy Sims, bassist Steven Edelman, woodwind player Allen Savedoff (saxophone and flute), and percussionist Robert Slack.

As noted, the 20th Century has already made an impact on traditional Vietnamese music. Not only was there an electric guitar in the ensemble (tuned to conform to Vietnamese modes, however), but all the instruments were amplified. As in some rock concerts, there were problems with feedback.

The amplification might be necessary, however. When someone in the audience asked to hear what the dan doc huyen sounded like without it, the tones turned out to be too weak and pale to carry very far.

On the other hand, the two vocal soloists--Hung Nguyen and Hong Nguyen--who sang separately, were often overpowered by the ensemble sound. Hung Nguyen, however, brought several people to their feet in response to his expressive artistry.

Goldenthal, dressed in jeans, cowboy boots, a black shirt and a trendy, oversize black sport coat, listened actively throughout, asking questions about the traditional instruments and their ranges, videotaping the instrumentalists as they played and bringing back the children to sing along with the instrumentalists.

After the break, he became even more involved in orchestrating the proceedings, asking various musicians from both cultures to play together and slowly building up an ensemble sound.

His goal, he explained at one point, is “from a technical standpoint, I want to see if I can give future orchestras a chance to play Vietnamese-oriented music but with Western instruments. . . . It would be be wonderful to have Vietnamese musicians always play in an orchestral setting, if I chose to go that way.

“But what if I don’t? What if (the work) is done somewhere after I’m dead, (where) there aren’t these musicians available? I want to know if there’s a way I can orchestrate it so that it doesn’t necessitate having Vietnamese musicians. . . . But I definitely want to evoke that sound.”

The composer also had said he’s written about 20 minutes of the planned hourlong piece so far, picked out all the lyrics and worked out the structure of the piece, although he was allowing himself “a chance for a surprise.”

The riskiness of the two cultures interacting--and the whole project--was perhaps best demonstrated not by the occasional missed communications (on both sides) or the difficulties of matching two very different musical worlds. It occurred when Tri Le, who played the dan nhi , offered to show Hughes how to play his violin in the Vietnamese style.

“Be careful,” Hughes said nervously as he handed it over. “My life savings are in that instrument.”

Since the goal of the commissioned piece is to promote “healing,” in the words of Pacific Symphony executive director Louis G. Spisto, perhaps there was more to “Amazing Grace” recurring toward the end of the session than just to illustrate another tune based on the pentatonic scale.

First alone and then with Barbara Johnson, a volunteer from the audience, Goldenthal sang the first verse of the hymn, as various instrumentalists joined in.

“This is a musical handshake,” Goldenthal said. “This is the very first beginnings of not only a musical dialogue with our musicians here but also a cultural beginning as far as the community is concerned, which is the most important thing. . . . We got to have more than one of these.”