The Drastic Changes of Vietnamese Music

Yen Nguyen

Dr. Charles Lejeun

ENGL 101 W

Jun 21st, 2013

The Drastic Changes of Vietnamese Music

Music plays an important role in the spiritual life of man in Vietnam. Vietnamese music, also known as V-Pop, in the early 90s decade was loved by so many music listeners in the country and therefore achieved a certain foothold in the hearts of those that were Vietnamese music’s lovers at that time. However, there are significant elements that make the current V-Pop drastically change, especially the nuances of the lyrics, the current singers’ quality, and the value of musical products.

While the Vietnamese culture among young people is getting more open and modern than it used to be, the lyrics of most Vietnamese songs nowadays tend to have a nuance inclined towards the pessimistic view of love. Music means so much to the life of human soul since it makes people susceptible towards the aesthetic value of life. But now, many of the Vietnamese love songs usually have the lyrics written about a sad love story to make most of listeners feel pessimistic, and even depressed. Phat Nguyen, my older brother, told me that he seemed to easily sympathetic toward those sad songs just like they talked about his own love story. He almost all day repeat the chorus of those sad songs “Maybe unexpectedly, one day suddenly we will be apart/ Who will stand in the rain singing for me?” or “Love, please let me love just once, give me a cry to remember, so I could feel the pain and happiness.”.

As the audience starts to pay more attention to singers’ appearances than their real voices, most current popular Vietnamese singers seem to focus too much on their outfits, therefore, forget to improve and practice their voices for better vocal quality. Recently, V-Pop has a growing number of cases in which singers lip-synch and dress offensively on stage. Trang Truong, a friend of mine who works at a recording studio, shared that there were many singers who came to the studio and got help a lot from sounds technology to fix their voices perfect, some of them even did not know how to process the songs themselves. Although V-Pop does have those singers who actually were trained and graduated from musical schools in Vietnam, some of them still cannot live well on stage. An interview from Qui Do, a male singer that I know who is going to a college of art and culture, showed that most of singers gradually lose their skills of live on stage, though they are still professional enough to record good songs and the reason for that was that they usually have to lip-synch due to request of the director of the event they perform for to guarantee its safety and perfect. Therefore, singers lacked confidence and experience whenever living on stage.

The fact that current Vietnamese composers working for money more than their passion of music and arts makes most Vietnamese musical products nowadays being served for business purposes rather than artistic value. Young people today in Vietnam are supposed to give their aspiration to a new social community. Therefore, the composers today should have written those songs that give the rhythm into songs and that also meet the aspirations of modern soul of youth for younger generation. However, many young people are interested in and transmit to each other many songs lately which have low quality and even offensive content. Vien Tan Dieu, the New Musician Member, Society of Literature - Art provincial, shared that current status of young people were affected by the current music market, poor quality in terms of content and artistic value. He said that the majority of today 's youth songs were more about familiarly boring love stories, or meaningless dance floor melody. Many music productions today in Vietnam request their composers just keep making those new songs that have easy understanding lyrics and nice melody without considering if their contents are meaningful or appropriate for the listeners, especially the young generation.

Music affects human’s consciousness, soul and action. Perhaps the genre of music has never flourished as strong as today in Vietnam. V-Pop, along with the life, the heart of every family, school and society, shapes people’s music. It is important to understand the drastic changes of V-Pop currently, especially the current status of music nuance, singers, and music products’ value, in order to give and share opinions, therefore, help improving the music of this country better.

Work Cited

Nguyen, Phat. Personal interview. 20th Jun 2013.

Truong, Trang. Personal interview. 20th Jun 2013.

Do, Qui. Peronal interview. 20th Jun 2013.

Dieu, Vien. Personal interview. 20th Jun 2013.

Cited: Nguyen, Phat. Personal interview. 20th Jun 2013. Truong, Trang. Personal interview. 20th Jun 2013. Do, Qui. Peronal interview. 20th Jun 2013. Dieu, Vien. Personal interview. 20th Jun 2013.