Domesticated Noise: The Musical Reformation of Identity in Urban Vietnam

Lonán Ó Briain

Noise is a weapon and music, primordially, is the formation, domestication, and ritualization of that weapon as a simulacrum of ritual murder. (Attali 2003: 24)

In my research on the music and sound associated with the Hmong ethnic group in Vietnam between 2007 and 2015, the most common minority-themed recording that I encountered was “Xuân Trên Bản Mông” (Spring in a Hmong Village)[1]: the authorities used it as an accompaniment to daily government propaganda broadcasts in mountainous areas where many ethnic minorities reside; it was played on repeat for passengers on trains from Hanoi arriving into Lào Cai station, a stop-off point for tourists to visit the minorities in Sapa (see Ó Briain 2014); Voice of Vietnam radio used it in their online language education programme to set the scene for an ethnic minority market in the mountains; a fashion show in Hanoi looped a section of the recording to accompany the models’ catwalks – the minorities are often associated with femininity in urban Vietnam; in Sapa, restaurants, bars, cafes and hotels catering to minority-hungry tourists and an art gallery featuring ethnic minority art used the recording as ambient background music; at initial meetings with many interviewees, I was asked if I was aware of this recording and told it was a standard-bearer; both Viet (Kinh) majority and Hmong minority peoples save this recording on their phones as an MP3, and some even set it as their ringtone. This recording of “Xuân Trên Bản Mông” is so widely disseminated today that it has become an audio icon for the minorities in Vietnam even though it was composed and performed by a Viet man, the renowned flautist Lương Kim Vĩnh (1937-2011), on a reed pipe (sáo mèo) constructed by Viet musical instrument makers.

VideoObject 1: “Xuân Trên Bản Mông” recorded by Lương Kim Vĩnh. Published on Youtube by AMiTuoFo - ADiDaPhay on March 17, 2014.

The aural saturation of the airwaves in Vietnam with this recording encouraged many professional wind players to incorporate the music or variations on it into their repertoire. At performances for tourists in Hanoi this piece was commonly played as a token example of minority music. Bamboo flute (sáo trúc) performers tended to carry reed pipes with them for this very purpose. The unusual timbre of the instrument contributed an element of exoticism to their performances at which the music of the reed pipe was commonly marketed to tourists as minority or ‘tribal’ music from the mountains. The limited range of the instrument makes melodic variation difficult. Only a handful of compositions have been written for the reed pipe, and “Xuân Trên Bản Mông” is by far the most popular of these. But Kim Vĩnh’s music is typically learned by ear by musicians in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. As the music is passed from player to player and the reed pipe is physically altered from a regional minority instrument for individual entertainment to one suitable for use in major staged performances, Kim Vĩnh’s appropriation of the Hmong reed pipe and the Hmong musical elements of his fusion have been gradually forgotten.[2]

To many urban Vietnamese, traditional Hmong reed pipe (raj nplaim) performances are incomprehensible because their pitch organizations and semantic meanings are based on the Hmong language. They hear a nonsensical arrangement of pitches which are experienced as akin to noise, aside from the timbre of the instrument, which is recognizable due to the popularity of recordings such as “Xuân Trên Bản Mông”. Modified reed pipe performers in the concert halls and clubs of urban Vietnam have domesticated this sound by “improving” (cải tiến) the instrument and incorporating it into their more familiar compositional outputs, transforming it into minority- or ethnic-themed music. This sound is now used creatively by urban musicians to conjure the soundscapes of the mountains and all of northern Vietnam’s ethnic minorities for their urban-based audiences. By examining a contemporary example of its use, this research shows how the sound of the reed pipe contributes to the conceptualization of new economically-endowed social classes in urban Vietnam.

Deformation and Reformation

At present over one million Hmong people live in Vietnam, where they are classified as one of 53 officially recognized ethnic minority (dân tộc thiểu số) groups; the majority group, the Viet people, comprise approximately 86% of the entire population of over ninety million people (see the CIA’s factbook). There are also sizeable Hmong populations in China, Laos, Thailand and the United States, and their global population is estimated to be around five million people. Typically, the Hmong are divided into subgroups that are based on the traditional clothing style worn by Hmong women. These subgroups include Black Hmong (Hmoob Dub), Flowery or Red Hmong (Hmoob Quas Npab), Green Hmong (Hmoob Ntsuab) and White Hmong (Hmoob Dawb). Geographically, the Hmong are predominantly located in the mountainous borderlands of northern Vietnam. They are also situated on the socioeconomic periphery of this rapidly industrializing country. In comparison with the rest of the Hmong transnational community and with Vietnam’s other ethnic minority groups, the Vietnamese Hmong are among the least integrated into the nation-state in which they reside.[3]

The Hmong have a rich and diverse musical heritage which has been studied by scholars in Vietnam since the late 1950s.[4] Several recordings featuring their traditional music have also been produced by the Vietnamese Institute for Musicology (e.g. 2004) and foreign labels such as Caprice (1995) and Sublime Frequencies (2007). Three of the main instruments that repeatedly feature in these studies and recordings are the mouth harp (ncas), the reed pipe (raj nplaim) and the iconic mouth organ (qeej). The sound source of all three instruments is the same: a vibrating metal reed. The mouth harp uses the mouth of the player as a sound chamber for the reed, the reed pipe uses a bamboo pipe as a sound chamber and the qeej has a large wooden sound chamber with six protruding reed pipes tuned to distinct pitches. For Hmong players and audiences, the sound of the vibrating reed lacks significance. The sounds must be organized into meaningful musical structures based on the Hmong language and the kwv txhiaj vocal recitation style for Hmong listeners to identify with the performance (Ó Briain 2012). For non-Hmong listeners in urban Vietnam, however, the raw timbre of this vibrating reed has been imbued with new meaning by Viet performers such as Kim Vĩnh who have presented the sound in a new context.[5]

Video Object 2 Raj nplaim played by Sùng A Tsìng, Lào Cai province, 18 july 2010.

Homi Bhabha describes identity formation as the splitting point between Self and Other. He defines the moment of enunciating this splitting point as the Third Space which “carries the burden of the meaning of culture” (1994: 56). Stuart Hall argues that the creation of this splitting point involves a form of stereotyping that “reduces, essentializes, naturalizes and fixes ‘difference’ [...] It symbolically fixes boundaries, and excludes everything which does not belong” (1997: 258-9). These practices often occur where gross inequalities of power exist. Following independence from the French in 1954, Viet musicians were encouraged to appropriate certain aspects of the various musical traditions, specifically those of the ethnic minorities (the Others) who happened to live within the boundaries of the nascent state. In a process of inventing national tradition (see Hobsbawm and Ranger 1983), they reformed these sonic fragments as part of Vietnam’s multi-ethnic musical heritage. This ideological movement influenced the research produced by Vietnamese musicologists of the time. The traditional musical cultures of the ethnic minority groups were compartmentalized and differentiated from each other and from the music of the Viet majority. The process demanded a simplification of the musical cultures so that they could be clearly distinguished from each other. Fusion music compositions were then encouraged which combined elements of these ethnic-themed sounds of the rural-based Other with those of the Viet majority. During this period a handful of compositions for the reed pipe were produced and advertised as representative of the Hmong in Vietnam.[6] As the continued popularity of Kim Vĩnh’s “Xuân Trên Bản Mông” indicates, these sonic representations of the Hmong and other minorities are now widely accepted by Vietnamese audiences as part of local (Hmong/minority), regional (mountainous parts of the north)[7] and national (Vietnamese) identity. This process of appropriation can be understood in two stages: the reduction of a minority musical culture to an iconic sound followed by the reformation of that sound as part of a distinct Vietnamese musical culture.

[3] Despite this observation, and contrary to many portrayals of their cultural in the national media, they are not uniformly culturally distinct from those around them.

[4] The first major study on Hmong music in Vietnam was carried out by the Vietnamese musicologist Hồng Thao in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The results of his study were published posthumously (Hồng 1997). Since then, many scholars have built on Hồng’s research but few have challenged the veracity of his findings.

[5] This information is drawn from interviews with Kim Vĩnh (2009 and 2010), a senior flute teacher at the National Academy of Music in Hanoi named Triệu Tiến Vượng (2009), informal conversations with other flute players in Hanoi, the observation of performances in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City between 2007 and 2015 and the analysis of recordings, videos and advertisements that have been posted online by Viet performers.

[6] In addition to Kim Vĩnh, other notable flautists who recorded popular hits on the sáo mèo include Đinh Thìn (1940-2000) and Triệu Tiến Vượng (born 1959).

Sound and Social Identity

My research traces the circulation of sounds that are associated with the Hmong ethnic minority group to examine how ethnicity is made socially meaningful for the people of Vietnam. Sound is an ideal medium for this study because it liberates the concept of ethnicity from fixed boundaries and categories to a consideration of temporal sound structures and sociocultural groups. The circulation of these symbolically loaded sounds contribute to social definitions of ethnicity and minority identity. When understood in these terms, ethnicity becomes a malleable, fluid concept that exists as one of many possible social identities. In thinking about sound I’m also attempting to move beyond fixed conceptions of music, with all the semiotic baggage that comes with the term, and introduce the concept of noise as a possible alternative within the frame of ethnic-themed sounds. Noise and music are subjective categories of sound that can be interchangeable, depending on perspective, when considering the sounds identified with the Vietnamese minorities. This research examines how sounds associated with the ethnic minorities, and the Hmong in particular, are used to define emerging social identities for the urban populations of contemporary Vietnam.

Humanly organized sounds have long been viewed as reflective of social dynamics, and recently scholars have reversed the formulation to see how musical performance can be generative of individual subjectivities, collective identities, and wider social structures (e.g. Feld 1984; Frith 1996; DeNora 2000; Turino 2008). In “Music and the Materialization of Identities” (2011), Georgina Born proposes a topological metaphor of four planes of distinct socialities that are mediated by music and sound: performance socialites, imagined communities, social identity formations, and institutions. The planes should be viewed as autonomous and interrelated, Born argues, to avoid the simplification or reification of sociomusical formations. Borrowing from genre and scene theories (Straw 1991; Negus 1999), Born seeks to identify the “point of contingent convergence between musical formations and social formations” (2011: 385), without preferring one or the other. The place of ethnicity and other social identities can be identified by separating and examining the interrelationships between these four planes of socialities. Musical performance contexts (staged, recorded, private, etc.), imagined communities (Hmong, Vietnamese, Khmer, etc.), social identity formations (class, age, gender, etc.) and institutions (political, economic, academic, etc.) all contribute to the definition of ethnicity through sound. My research takes ethnicity, a wider social identity formation, as a vantage or pivot point to examine the ways that social identities shape and are shaped by musical assemblages.

Meanwhile in Saigon

Ladies and gentlemen, I’m going to play this instrument from Hmong, the Hmong minority people, people living in the north of Vietnam [...] The north of Vietnam has a market day once a month where all the minority people come from over the mountains to be close together. And this is the very instrument – I love this one – this is not only for playing, but it’s also for calling beautiful girls. So, it’s early morning and instead of calling by name, the Hmong men use this instrument to call their loved ones [...] So I’ll try to call a beautiful girl’s name now.

This spoken tale was heard in Vietnam’s largest metropolis, Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon), over 2,000km southward from the sparsely populated mountainous provinces where most of the Vietnamese Hmong reside. In his popular jazz club Sax n’ Art, the renowned saxophonist, Trần Mạnh Tuấn (Figure 1), introduced his tune “New Moon” (Trăng non) to the accompaniment of a light piano vamp and drum kit played with brushes. His romantic explanation for the use of the reed pipe in its typical cultural context echoed the tales told by ethnographers and world music producers (e.g. Hmong... Musique et Chants du Séduction [Kersalé 2009]). But this particular representation was much more relevant to the social lives of the musicians and audiences in Tuấn’s club than for the Hmong living in the northern mountains. Tuấn’s performance deployed this minority-themed sound as a means of constructing part of a new cosmopolitan identity for his nouveau riche clientele through the fusion of international jazz with local minority-themed sounds.

Figure 1: Tuấn plays reed pipe in his club, Sax n’Art, 31 March 2014. Photo: Louis Allen.

Following the spoken introduction over a backing vamp, Tuấn begins with an ad-lib solo on reed pipe lightly accompanied by piano and cymbals played with drum brushes. The melody he outlines is heavily ornamented and shaped in a style reminiscent of Gershwin’s “Summertime” through his prioritization of the pitches of a minor triad. The head (1:32) includes sleigh bells in the accompanying ensemble, a sonic feature associated with the Red Dao (Zao) who reside in close proximity to the Hmong in Lao Cài province, northern Vietnam. After the harmonic support has been established on piano, drums and bass guitar, the melody on reed pipe drops out (2:28) and Tuấn changes instruments. The alto saxophone (2:40) enables Tuấn to greatly expand the pitch, the technical and the timbral range of his playing. The sound of this instrument, also produced by a vibrating reed, provides a seamless transition from the minority reed instrument. His improvised solo is supported by the full rhythm section and includes frequent dialogue with the electric keyboard. The volume and energy of the ensemble is dramatically enhanced. A brief bridge passage (4:32) features a meandering bass solo which brings the energy levels down before a recapitulation of the head, this time played on saxophone (4:43). The first repeat of the head (5:00) is played at a lower volume in preparation for the second repeat (5:18) on the softer reed pipe. Another minority-themed sound is then introduced to the accompaniment (5:37). A Laotian khene, a mouth organ closely related to the Hmong qeej although much more portable and widely available in southern Vietnam – one would have to travel to rural northern Vietnam to purchase a Hmong qeej, and this instrument would be impractical, due to its size and fragility, for a gigging musician to carry for a one-minute feature – is used to play a single repeated chord decorated by piano and sleigh bells played at a quiet dynamic. The performance concludes with a reed pipe and khene duet followed by a cadence with the full ensemble.

AudioObject 1: Tuấn performs “New Moon” at Sax n’Art on 8 August 2013.

Tuấn describes this composition as a fusion of local Vietnamese musical traditions and transnational or American jazz; when applied to his performance, Born’s theoretical formulation offers a more nuanced picture of the musical and social significance of “New Moon.” The first of the four planes of distinct socialities mediated by sound, “the intimate socialities of musical performance and practice” (2011: 378), focus on the immediate setting. The performers are playing in a standard jazz club arrangement. Formal routines of jazz solo and ensemble playing are enacted on stage in a live “presentational performance” (Turino 2008: 28-9) that includes clear divisions between performers and audience. The audience remains silent during the tunes and occasionally applauds solos while sipping expensive cocktails.

The second plane of analysis, imagined communities conjured by the performance, is largely related to those present in the club too. The unity of the Vietnamese nation is alluded to by Tuấn in his co-optation of minority sounds as part of his own musical and social identities. His presentation of Vietnamese music within a jazz framework to a mixed audience of locals, expats and foreign tourists positions him as a representative of the nation. Although their musical cultures are fundamental (sonic) reference points for the composition, the northern minorities in the mountains are not physically present in the club. In fact, they could hardly be further from Tuấn’s club and still remain within the boundaries of mainland Southeast Asia. But their presence is felt through sound. The imagined community of the state is constructed in the club by these performers through their redeployment of minority sounds as part of their uniquely Vietnamese popular music.

At the third plane of analysis, which Born describes as “music’s refraction of the hierarchical and stratified relations of class and age, race and ethnicity, gender and sexuality” (2011: 378), these ethnic and social divisions are more conspicuous. The 54 ethnic identities were formally inscribed on 2 March 1979 as part of the Vietnamese nation (Ito 2013: 1); conceptualizations of these identities are now renewed by proxy through cultural outputs such as Tuấn’s composition. In urban Vietnam, the 53 minorities are often described in these artistic portrayals using female pronouns as younger siblings to the Viet majority – Tuấn, for instance, was ostensibly trying to call a minority girl with his instrument. But beyond basic classification, infantilization and feminization of the ethnic minorities – issues that have been dealt with extensively elsewhere (see Taylor 2011) – the reification of these minority identities by the urban-dwelling populations is motivated by the materialization of new class identities for themselves. This event constructs hierarchical boundaries between the privileged few who are present in the room listening to Tuấn’s tales, the minorities in the northern mountains who have been conjured and controlled by the sound of the reed pipe and the global popular music styles that provide the musical foundation to the performance.

The fourth plane of Born’s theoretical formulation, the social and institutional models that support the musical activities, offers additional context here. The club Sax n’Art is an important hub for the independent popular music scenes of the city. The space also serves as a well-known tourist destination for engaging with the musical cultures of Vietnam in a comfortable and familiar setting. Tuấn contributes to teaching at the National Academy of Music, and Academy students often gain vital experience as backing musicians in his band. Nevertheless, the key institutional feature that has permitted these performances to thrive is Vietnam’s shift from a planned economy to a socialist-oriented market economy. In 1986, the government initiated a series of market reforms (đổi mới) which contributed to rapid economic growth over the subsequent three decades. The effects of these changes have been most noticeable in the country’s financial center, Ho Chi Minh City, which has become the nucleus of Vietnam’s fledgling popular music industry.

Jazz music has circulated throughout Vietnam since French colonial times, but an unprecedented number of local practitioners of international standard have appeared on the scene since the 1990s. The recent proliferation of jazz musicians and fans occurred in tandem with the emergence of a new upper middle class in the urban centers of Vietnam. In addition to their newly found financial wealth, these urban elite are distinguishing themselves from their predecessors through the cultivation of cosmopolitan cultural sensibilities. The fusion of international art musics such as jazz with local musical traditions offers an attractive musical reconceptualization of their cultural heritage which helps to identify them as global citizens. The sounds and stories of the reed pipe and other minority instruments[8] have been reduced to basic building blocks for appropriation by urban musicians. Their reformation of these sounds as local flavors in the urban styles of Ho Chi Minh City’s music scenes contributes to the formation of new social identities for the performers and audiences. Their tendencies towards internationalization are legitimized with these minority-themed sounds by being anchored in the ‘natural’ soundscape of Vietnam.

Sound Matters

Many subjective choices have been made in this deployment of Born’s theoretical framework. Other interpretations might foreground the influence of foreign clientele in the club, elaborate on Tuấn’s studies in the US or consider the performers’ musical dialogue on stage in greater detail. The model itself also has its failings. For instance, the passage of time is not explicitly taken into account unless the user chooses to emphasize that in the analysis. As a researcher focusing on ethnic-themed sounds, my tendency to give preference to those features of the sounds can limit the scope for understanding other aspects of the performance. Born provides a word of caution in this regard, “there is a risk of privileging a singular and micro-social conception of mediation, neglecting other dimensions of the social in music” (2012: 265). In using this model to analyze a performance that was introduced as minority music fused with contemporary jazz, the social relevance of the music and sound for the participants is brought to the fore. Yet beyond the benefits of providing perspective to the researcher, a key question concerning the results of this experiment remains: why does this analysis of ethnic-themed sounds matter?

The Hmong are among the poorest of the ethnic groups in Vietnam.[9] The economic reforms initiated by the government in the 1980s that revitalized the Vietnamese economy have had mixed effects on minorities living at the periphery of the country. Prior to these reforms, the Hmong were well-known for their opium production, and the Chinese, Vietnamese and French governments all took advantage of this. In 1992 the Vietnamese government banned opium production, thus eliminating the Hmong’s principal source of external income. Replacing that crop with equally profitable alternatives has been a challenge: “It [takes] about twenty tons of cabbage to replace one kilogram of opium, exclusive of transportation costs” (Corlin 2004: 317). This has resulted in a difficult period of transition that has been compounded by the fact that transportation routes in areas populated by the Hmong are among the least developed in Vietnam. Since then, their traditional slash-and-burn agricultural techniques and high birth rates have led to serious food shortages (Vương 2002). Hmong children also have disproportionately low progression rates at school,[10] which impedes their access to many of the benefits of Vietnam’s growing economy.

Despite these challenges, the one million Hmong in Vietnam are not entirely isolated from the changes taking place in the rest of the country. Over the past century they have gradually acquiesced to state systems of control, albeit with notable exceptions (see Turner, Bonnin and Michaud 2015); local scholars and cultural agents are also facilitating their assimilation into the national cultural heritage. Increasing numbers are developing literacy in Hmong, Vietnamese and English, and exchanges taking place in what was once solely an oral culture are now frequently transmitted through print and electronic media. Technological advancements have also led to the intensification of mediated interactions with members of the Hmong transnational community (Ó Briain 2013).

These so-called minorities have been in contact with a cosmopolitan array of peoples for decades. For instance, in Sapa the French built over 200 villas in town during the early twentieth century (Michaud 1999). Hmong living in Sapa also had regular contact with the other ethnic groups of the district prior to that time. In the 1990s the first backpackers started to arrive in the town, and by 2015 the town was equipped to host a full range of economically endowed tourists. In opposition to these vibrant cultural lives and their complex histories of migration, portrayals of Hmong culture in the popular media have persistently emphasized a simpler life uncontaminated by interactions with foreign cultures. Cases of Hmong and Viet musicians collaborating together on musical fusions challenge perceptions of animosity between minority and majority. But these cases are rare exceptions to the rule. More dialogue on this issue is needed to temper the increasing circulation of these potentially provocative and antagonistic artistic portrayals.

Popular urban musics have been particularly effective in perpetuating these myths through the circulation of ethnic-themed sonic identities. The ephemeral nature of sound permits the subtle communication, repetition and widespread circulation of these messages. Performing artists creatively manipulate the stereotypes generated by musicological studies on the minority cultures that accentuate difference through their implicit focus on tradition. The artists employ extended vocal and instrumental techniques to foreground the supposedly eccentric behaviors of their mythical minority figures. The most pervasive themes in these portrayals allude to the femininity, youth, purity and the ancient traditions of the minorities. The minorities are depicted as simple, untouched and living a way of life from the historical past which is juxtaposed against the fast-paced lifestyles of urban Vietnam. The ability of music performance to engage multiple senses and for the listener to recreate songs following repeated exposure make it unique among the creative arts as a medium for communicating these cultural, social and political messages. The lack of a serious critique has permitted these racist discourses on the minorities to thrive in urban Vietnam.

Conclusions

Born’s four planes of distinct socialities that are mediated by sound make us aware that ethnicity is just one of many social formulations that give meaning to these musical outputs. Minority identities are embedded in a web of cultural productions over which they have little or no control. The resulting musical phenomena are used to shape new social identities for urban Vietnamese, identities that are largely irrelevant for the minorities living in the northern mountains. However, the process of materializing these cosmopolitan identities does involve an appropriation of exceptional fragments of their musical cultures. Urban-based performers and audiences use these cultural artifacts to differentiate themselves from the mountain-dwelling people of Vietnam, whom they refer to as ethnic minorities or tribes. These folkloric constructions of minority life do not demand the inclusion of minority musics or even musicians. The sound or timbre of the instruments suffice.

Attali refers to noise as a weapon and music as a means of harnessing the power of that weapon. These Vietnamese fusion artists are taking abstract “noises” from the minority cultures, disarming them by removing any “resonance that interferes with the audition of a message in the process of emission” (Attali 2003: 24) and creating musical performances that appeal to their urban audiences precisely because they present a domesticated and controlled representation of the minorities. This reductive approach creates a space for making music and myths that symbolically distance the minorities from opportunities afforded to others by romanticizing their ethnic identities and locating them passive citizens of the State.

Acknowledgements

The author gratefully acknowledges the financial support of the British Academy and the Leverhulme Trust.

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