The Wanderer with the Guitar (Final Episode)

“A true artist does not just inherit, arrange and benefit from the achievements of the previous generation” – that point of view has made artist Viet Anh choose a different path for himself. Creativity with the guitar.

21-string guitar and the romantic playing of the romantic guy Viet Anh. (Photo: MH)

Stopping his teacup, Viet Anh said: "Having to work hard to raise 6 of us, she doesn't have much time to pay attention to each of our children, but she always approves and supports me."

Stopping the story, he asked permission to run in to take care of his old mother. He said: “My mother has worked hard all her life, doing small business. I am most grateful to her for the blessing I have received from her kindness, benevolence, and absolute honesty in business.”

Wandering with New Flamenco

Talking about the name Lang Du that he chose for his band, as well as the flamenco style as the main theme, Viet Anh shared: “Actually, the name has expressed my personality and life. I believe that life and career are just a temporary walk. So try to play well, beautifully, honestly, kindly and joyfully. “Lang” is romantic, “Du” is play - a romantic play.

Second, before forming the band, I used to wander around a lot, join many bands, play different genres of music… As long as there was a program, a living wage, I would participate, like a mercenary. So the name Lang Du already has the image of a wanderer in it.

"The reason I chose Flamenco as the main role is first of all my strong feelings and emotions when I heard this music for a long time but had not had the opportunity to perform it. Besides that, I was aware that I participated in many programs like a mercenary, feeling like those successes, no matter how resounding, would not leave anything behind, nothing of mine.

Influenced by the guitar tradition of Uncle Pham Ngu's family, a king of classical guitar in Vietnam, I want to maintain and develop this tradition. I want to find the deep roots, the soul of the guitar, which is Flamenco music. But even though I want to continue the guitar tradition of my family, I still decided to take a separate path to develop, which is the New Flamenco genre that I have chosen" - he added.

Viet Anh shared that he was very shy when many audiences as well as many colleagues called him number 1 in Flamenco music. He said that perhaps he was loved for his enthusiastic and dedicated playing style. Although he modestly said so, in reality, it cannot be denied that he and Lang Du raised the flag to breathe life into a new trend for many young people to look towards and play flamenco quite widely today.

He confided: “I don’t need anyone to acknowledge anything. I feel happy because I can contemplate and test my thinking and choices to see if they are right or wrong... My father always taught me that in all matters, don’t put on a big shirt and then try to stretch it out to make it fit. Just wander around the world. Whatever will come will come. Good wine needs no bush.”

Always be yourself

It can be seen that Lang Du's enthusiasm and innocence, although not boisterous, Heaven does not disappoint those who try. Lang Du has many opportunities to interact and perform at very formal programs, but not ostentatious, but is a place where many things that Viet Anh considers "interesting and pure" converge...

Hue Festival is an example. This is an international cultural and artistic festival, held every two years, with the participation of art troupes from many countries. The large and small programs of Hue Festival take place everywhere and are completely free. The event takes place at An Dinh Palace, the only place that sells tickets, where only international artists and A-list Vietnamese artists perform. And, Lang Du is very honored to have performed here many times.

Viet Anh shared: “During performances and exchanges with international friends, I don’t have much to say because music is the common language of humanity, through music we can feel and understand each other. The genre of music we play is not strange to international friends. They sympathize with us and frankly share that, in Vietnam, if we dare to play the music we like, not following the trend of the majority, it is very admirable, but we have to accept the disadvantages."

Once again interrupting the story to take care of his mother, Viet Anh brought out a 21-string guitar from the house and placed it next to the coffee table. Seeing it, I was truly overwhelmed. If in the picture, I was partially overwhelmed, in reality, I was 10 times ecstatic.

He said: “In my personal opinion, a true artist does not just inherit, arrange and benefit from the achievements of the previous generation. We must go to the end to grasp and exploit the good things that already exist and find out what is lacking or what can be done to develop further, leaving the next generation with more complete and suitable knowledge.”

In addition to the artist's sense of responsibility, according to artist Viet Anh, a normal guitar also has certain limitations, not satisfying his musical needs. He said that his intuition felt like he was entrusted, guided and had a mission to find what he wanted. Therefore, over the years, Viet Anh has always been searching, exploring, and learning to make guitars that can satisfy his passion.

Get creative with guitar

Lifting the 21-string guitar carefully, he said, its sound is hard to describe in words. In music, there are so-called complete musical forms and incomplete musical forms, which we often call monophonic and polyphonic, monophonic and melodic.

In complete music, there are always three basic and solid elements: melody, harmony and rhythm. Whether playing solo, trio, or orchestra of a few dozen or a few hundred people... it still has to revolve around these three elements. For music to be good, it also depends on the sound, with three elements being the frequency range Bass, Mid, Treb (low, middle, high).

He analyzed: “Among the countless ways and styles of playing the guitar, there are only two ways: playing in an ensemble and playing solo. If you only play in an ensemble as mentioned above, the traditional guitar is already perfect enough to do that. So what about solo? The traditional guitar, since its inception, has always been played solo because it creates all three elements: melody, harmony and rhythm. However, the traditional guitar is limited in range. That is what I want to change.”

Before stopping at the 21-string guitar, Viet Anh experimented with dozens of guitars, from 24 strings to 28 strings with different shapes. (Photo: MH)

Before stopping at the 21-string guitar, Viet Anh experimented with dozens of guitars, from 24 strings to 28 strings with different shapes. He learned and imitated similar guitars of artists around the world that I admire for their pioneering and talent.

“At first, I was also overwhelmed by these instruments, and after experiencing them, I realized that, besides the great things for performing a number of musical genres, specifically suitable. However, these instruments do not satisfy me when playing for other musical forms (because of the lack of combativeness),” he said.

“It’s not about having a lot of strings to be rich, what I want is just enough and importantly how they are distributed to always adapt to other musical genres. Moreover, the instrument does not simply have many strings to expand the range, but it needs to be divided into many different sound zones with different, contrasting timbres, like there are many musicians with different instruments in this 21-string instrument of mine. That’s why I decided to create it,” he analyzed.

While explaining to me the new function of the 21-string guitar, artist Viet Anh played a few pieces of music to demonstrate. Thanks to his little knowledge of music, I found it really different and impressive.

He confided: “I don’t know if I’m being too greedy, but I still don’t want to stop there. I want to give it the functionality of a keyboard to have thousands of tones of almost every musical instrument in the world.

It can become an acoustic instrument, not only for solo performance but also to simulate a band of about four players, with music and sound always guaranteed in quality and quantity, diverse performance, rich sound, rich timbre and color. It must achieve all those criteria before I stop.

The story just kept going on and on, I was pulled along by the passion of this talented artist, while Viet Anh was being pulled along by his passion for music on an endless road. That is understandable because true artists, rich in creativity, all choose the difficult and often lonely path.

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