Vietnamese harp - such a strange tuning...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLvs9dR4ULk

It seems to be almost 7-limit, rather than the "standard" pentatonic or 5-from-7 diatonic that is more typical of this kind of instrument. Anyone know more of this particular scale, or who can tell something i don't?

They're Kotos or some kind of Zithers, not harps. I can't tell you much about the tuning. I once read that 7 note equal temperament is a traditional Vietnamese tuning, but that the tuning is wandering towards 12 note equal temperament under the influence of foreign music.

It's called a "dan tranh". There are a variety of tunings used on this
instrument; check out this link
<http://scitation.aip.org/getabs/servlet/GetabsServlet?prog=normal&id=JA\
SMAN0000840000S100S178000001&idtype=cvips&gifs=yes&bypassSSO=1> .
East-Southeast Asian music is rife with all sorts of interesting
microtonality. I briefly studied Chinese guqin, a bridgeless 7-string
zither that juxtaposes the harmonic series with a pythagorean pentatonic
and lots of microtonal inflection. The dan tranh is no exception, and
seems to be more overtly microtonal than its cousins the koto and
guzheng.
-Igs
--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, "oljare" <oljare@...> wrote:
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLvs9dR4ULk
>
> It seems to be almost 7-limit, rather than the "standard" pentatonic
or 5-from-7 diatonic that is more typical of this kind of instrument.
Anyone know more of this particular scale, or who can tell something i
don't?
>

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

I know koto well, as I live in Japan, play often with koto performers at concerts, have two kotos at home and study it, and compose for it. Right now we are preparing with my friends small Czech tour for this May where we will play Japanese traditional and contemporary music, and my new works (also flute, shamisen, biwa, drums and singer will take part in it}.

Koto is excellent instrument for microtonal music because of its moving tuning bridges, Usually it has 13 strings, but also 17 (big bass koto), 21 or more. Tuning depends on the work performed, it can be Japanese hemitonic pentatonic scale hirajoshi in various shapes, Okinawa pentatonics, Chinese major pentatonics, Western or Near East diatonics, or anything (contemporary music uses often modality). What's interesting - until now I didn't hear about any Japanese composer who would use microtonality... (with the one exception - tones on the left side of the bridges are out of tune randomly, not used for normal play, just for the sound effect in some works). So of course this is in my plans for future.

Concerning temperament - performers usually use digital tuners and tune in 12ET. Small deviations are tolerated, if there are some, then just by chance, randomly, or because of bad setting or so. Not intentional.

Daniel Forro

On 30 Mar 2010, at 2:49 AM, markallanbarnes wrote:

>
>
> They're Kotos or some kind of Zithers, not harps. I can't tell you > much about the tuning. I once read that 7 note equal temperament is > a traditional Vietnamese tuning, but that the tuning is wandering > towards 12 note equal temperament under the influence of foreign > music.
>