I met artist Le Hung Phong by chance, but I was not surprised when I heard him share about the project "Chien Si Guitar", because with his personality and unlimited passion for guitar, it is completely understandable.
 |
| Artist Le Hung Phong. (Photo: NVCC) |
In the early days of Spring Giap Thin, the weather was dry and cool, we and some artists had a truly memorable trip and exchange at Sang Loa farm near K9 Da Chong relic site (Ba Vi, Hanoi).
In the really enthusiastic, humorous, but also very professional performances of everyone, I was really impressed by the top-notch and passionate guitar playing of artist Le Hung Phong. During a Spring trip, I not only got to listen to him play, but his guitar teaching and his project The Soldier's Guitar were even more overwhelming.
Passion has no borders
Seeing me tapping my fingers on the table to the sound of Le Hung Phong's guitar, guitarist Bui Thien An (a leading guitarist in Ho Chi Minh City) quietly shared: "I admire Mr. Phong for his dedication to his career of cultivating people in the field of guitar, especially his passion for sowing the seeds of love for guitar in children. I know that Phong's previous guitar teaching projects, for students and working people, were very successful. I hope that one day he will implement such projects in the South. At that time, I would like to support him to the best of my ability."
The sharing gave me a different perspective on the guitarist with a simple appearance who was performing attentively and meticulously up there. Waiting for him to finish playing the song and return to his seat, I sat down next to him and started a conversation. Hung Phong was simple and gentle from his voice to the way he thought about art, professional and rational.
Le Hung Phong was born in 1974. He graduated with a degree in electric guitar from Hanoi College of Culture and Arts, then continued studying classical guitar at Hanoi Conservatory of Music and was given the stage name "Phong guitar", specializing in flamenco and pop.
He said: “Teaching guitar came to me very naturally. I studied and performed at the same time. After about ten years, one day I came up with the idea of teaching guitar for free at my friend's coffee shop on Nguyen Chi Thanh Street. At that time, seeing that my friend's shop was deserted, I thought that if I taught guitar for free, I would kill two birds with one stone: I would have a place to convey my passion for music in general and guitar in particular to everyone, and my friend's shop would have more customers. It was said to be free, but after that course, I found myself making a huge profit because of the things the students brought. They asked all sorts of questions about guitar. There were some questions that were too difficult, I had to search and read this, ask that person to get the answer. But I made a profit because after the course, I understood everyone's need for a basic guitar course and the "guitar literacy" curriculum was formed from there."
Journey to popularize guitar
Phong's music teaching and performing career continued to be busy until 2002, when he organized the first guitar festival in Vietnam. After the resounding success of the event, Le Hung Phong founded the Le Nguyen Tran Guitar Club and has since been busy with a tight guitar teaching schedule at universities, from Construction to Polytechnic, Architecture, Transport, Foreign Languages, Commerce... He said: "Since graduating from university, with my teaching career, I have successfully built and developed models to bring the guitar closer to the public. I was successful with the Student Guitar program, popularizing guitar for clubs in nearly 20 universities in Hanoi with the slogan "Each dormitory room - each guitar".
The number of students studying up to now has reached nearly 20,000 people. After that, I brought the guitar to offices in the Office Culture through Guitar program with the slogan "Each office - Each guitar". Guitar courses for employees of corporations such as VNPT, FPT, Fecon... are considered to have brought spiritual values to each department and each family of the employees working here".
For about ten years now, Le Hung Phong has been compiling a guitar teaching curriculum using computer software called Guitar Pro, which allows learners to shorten the time it takes to “play guitar proficiently” to just two months.
There are many of his students in the showbiz world, including singers Dong Lan, Song Tu, Duy Tung... There are students who are so poor that Hung Phong proactively waives tuition fees as a way to provide scholarships, on the condition that the students must be diligent and make progress, otherwise the scholarship will be "cut".
Professor Ngo Bao Chau was also a student of Le Hung Phong when his teaching condition was to collect tuition for all the classes that the professor “skipped”. However, although the online teaching time between the teacher in Vietnam and the student in the US was 12 time zones apart, Professor Ngo Bao Chau did not miss any class. Mrs. Watanabe, the wife of a former leader of a company under Honda Vietnam, was also a diligent student of Mr. Phong on guitar for five years…
People say “food and clothing are no joke for poets”, but with Phong the guitar is different, even though he doesn’t have much money and has many dreams of providing his wife and children with a more comfortable life, and is still waiting in line, he still gives away… music. When a producer asks to buy his music, he “lends” it because “he doesn’t want to hold a few coins and be “tortured” by the producer”. He lends it to… reduce work.
 |
| From left to right, artists Tran Viet Anh, Kim Dung, Bui Thien An and Phong guitar interact on Spring Day. (Photo: NVCC) |
Warming the hearts of the army and people
Le Hung Phong shared: “Last July, after a trip to Vi Xuyen to visit the soldiers who died defending our homeland, I suddenly felt the need to contribute more value to help the soldiers who are working hard day and night to guard the Fatherland's border to have mental health, spreading joy to you with the program Soldier's Guitar with the slogan "Each post of the Fatherland - Each guitar".
Artist Le Hung Phong said he really hopes to receive support and facilitation from the leaders of the Border Guard Command and the Political Department of the Border Guard Command to carry out this mission.
According to him, the Soldier's Guitar project aims to help officers and soldiers have a richer spiritual life, and have the opportunity to learn and practice guitar playing skills. This is not only an entertainment activity but also helps create an interactive environment and build solidarity in the army, strengthening the relationship between the army and the people. The project will provide basic guitar accompaniment courses and online instructions to each officer and soldier at the border posts of the homeland.
Le Hung Phong confided: “The goal of the project is to develop guitar playing skills for officers and soldiers, while creating an interesting and interactive environment to enhance solidarity within the units. The project targets officers and soldiers, including both beginners and experienced ones. Accordingly, the project will provide learning materials, tabs and chords for popular songs praising love for the homeland, people and the souls of soldiers.”
According to artist Le Hung Phong, within the framework of the project, there will be events such as guitar performances and exchanges to improve musical skills and create creative opportunities as well as improve the spiritual life of officers and soldiers in the unit, thereby promoting solidarity among soldiers. Each course will include 20 free lessons (one lesson per week, time arranged by the units themselves) and finally guitar-related events.
Listening to him share, witnessing his passion for popularizing guitars to everyone, I believe that the Soldier's Guitar project will bring many benefits to the army and contribute to creating a united and creative environment. I believe that Phong guitar's heart will make the project a great success. That is because Phong not only brings his strength but also his heart to help everyone spread love through songs and guitar sounds, contributing to beautifying the image of Vietnamese soldiers.
Source
Comment (0)