Instruments
The lute Dan Tam

This picture clearly shows the relation to equal Asian lutes like the Chinese San Xian or the famous Japanese Shamisen. The three strings are tuned in a fifth/fourth and an octave, and most playing traditions play the melodies on the highest string. The Dan Tam is played with a fingerpluck made of stone, jade or metal. Sometimes a normal plectrum is used to pluck the strings, as well as the fingers alone or even a Japanese "bachi". The fretless long neck provides various sliding, bending and other ornamentation techniques for the left hand, while the right hand sometimes uses tremoli and rapid repetitions. The body of the instrument reminds us of the idea of a possible mixture between a long neck and a drum in ancient times, resulting in the first long neck lutes as we can find it described for the Chinese Pipa lute. The Nguyet is getting more and more famous and will not take long to enter the Vietnamese pop music market, like it happened with the Japanese Shamisen. The very rhythmical playing of the short-in-sound notes is also attractive to modern rock bands.

 * Sample (MP3, 577 KB) *

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