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The musical childhoods of Vietnamese and Vietnamese American elders raised in Vietnam between 1931-1975

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The musical childhoods of Vietnamese and Vietnamese American elders raised in Vietnam between 1931-1975

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Content The Musical Childhoods of Vietnamese and Vietnamese American Elders Raised in Vietnam
Between 1931-1975
by
Tina Agnelli Huynh
A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Musical Arts (Music Education)
at the
Thornton School of Music
University of Southern California
December 18, 2019
Advisory Committee:
Dr. Beatriz Ilari, Chair
Dr. Peter Webster
Dr. Scott Spencer

ii
Dedication

To my parents.

iii
Acknowledgements

The research and work compiled in this dissertation were possible because of the
inclusion and efforts of several people. I would like to acknowledge and thank all my
participants for their sincerity in sharing their childhood stories, which have helped me
understand how a person’s earliest intimate and complex memories shape their musical identity.
Their willingness to engage me in their past joys and sorrows in and through music has opened
my eyes to how the past enlivens the present. There is a nostalgic beauty in reconstructing one’s
childhood, and I am honored to have been able to engage in that with these participants.
I wish to thank Kim Nguyen, who helped me recruit participants, and Billy Le, Duke Ho,
Minh Pham, and Khanh Doan, who served as translation checkers for my transcripts.
This research benefited from the insight and alacrity offered by Dr. Beatriz Ilari, Dr.
Peter Webster, and Dr. Scott Spencer. Their guidance, encouragement, compassion, and wisdom
have instilled in me a path to follow as a future educator.
I thank my family, friends, and colleagues for their support and understanding throughout
this journey. Our many discussions and their valuable feedback have served to deepen my
appreciation for my community, my culture, and the research process. I want to thank my
parents, who have fostered a love for education in me. Their strength, courage, and love guide
me. I also wish to thank Michael Reznick for his constant support and for being my champion.

iv
Table of Contents
Dedication ....................................................................................................................................... ii
Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................................ iii
List of Tables ............................................................................................................................... viii
List of Figures ................................................................................................................................ ix
Abstract ........................................................................................................................................... x
Chapter 1: Introduction ................................................................................................................... 1
The Historical, Political, and Cultural Background of the Vietnamese .................................... 2
Vietnamese American Children’s Musical Experiences ..................................................... 5
Vietnamese Children’s Music in American Classrooms .................................................... 6
Researcher’s Role ..................................................................................................................... 7
Research Goals.......................................................................................................................... 8
Statement of the Problem .......................................................................................................... 9
Purpose of the Study ............................................................................................................... 10
Research Questions ................................................................................................................. 11
Conceptual Framework ........................................................................................................... 11
Identity .............................................................................................................................. 12
Culture............................................................................................................................... 13
World Music Education .................................................................................................... 15
Epistemology: Social Constructionism ................................................................................... 16
Definitions and Terms............................................................................................................. 17
Vietnamese Terms ............................................................................................................ 19
Vietnamese Terms of Cultural Hierarchy ......................................................................... 20
Assumptions ............................................................................................................................ 21
Delimitations ........................................................................................................................... 21
Chapter Summary ................................................................................................................... 22
Chapter 2: Literature Review ........................................................................................................ 23
World Music Specialists ......................................................................................................... 23
Bruno Nettl (b. 1930) ........................................................................................................ 26
Patricia Shehan Campbell (b. 1950) ................................................................................. 28

v
Empirical Studies Concerning World Music Education ......................................................... 29
Philosophical Issues Surrounding World Music Education .................................................... 35
Vietnamese Music ................................................................................................................... 41
French Colonialism and the Westernization of Vietnamese Music ........................................ 43
Forging New Identities Through Contemporary Vietnamese American Music ..................... 44
Vietnamese American Immigrant and Refugee Identity: Drastic Changes, New Perceptions 49
Immigrant Struggles................................................................................................................ 52
World Music Practicum Literature for Children ..................................................................... 54
Other Resources ................................................................................................................ 58
Music in Childhood................................................................................................................. 61
Children’s Identity and Music .......................................................................................... 61
Transmission of Children’s Songs, Rhymes, and Games ....................................................... 67
Chapter Summary ................................................................................................................... 74
Chapter 3: Research Design and Methods .................................................................................... 75
Recruiting Participants and Obtaining Consent ...................................................................... 77
Study Participants ................................................................................................................... 79
Hồ ng .................................................................................................................................. 80
Khoa .................................................................................................................................. 80
Yế n .................................................................................................................................... 81
Bí ch ................................................................................................................................... 81
Thú y .................................................................................................................................. 82
Hằ ng .................................................................................................................................. 82
Data Collection Procedures ..................................................................................................... 83
Trustworthiness of Data .......................................................................................................... 85
Pilot Study ............................................................................................................................... 87
Data Analysis .......................................................................................................................... 89
Limitations .............................................................................................................................. 91
Chapter Summary ................................................................................................................... 92
Chapter 4: Findings ....................................................................................................................... 93
Hồ ng and Khoa ....................................................................................................................... 94
Hồ ng: The Saxophonist..................................................................................................... 94
Analysis: A rich musical childhood ................................................................................ 103

vi
Khoa: The Composer ...................................................................................................... 105
Analysis: A child of historical circumstance .................................................................. 111
Yế n and Bí ch......................................................................................................................... 113
Yế n: The Zither Student.................................................................................................. 113
Analysis: A bounce in her step and a song in her heart .................................................. 127
Bí ch: The Violinist .......................................................................................................... 128
Analysis: An advantaged child ....................................................................................... 137
Thú y and Hằ ng ...................................................................................................................... 139
Thú y: Taught by Nuns .................................................................................................... 139
Analysis: On being the daughter of the choir director .................................................... 148
Hằ ng: An Eager Chorister ............................................................................................... 149
Analysis: A well-rounded experience ............................................................................. 156
Chapter Summary ................................................................................................................. 158
Chapter 5: Discussion and Conclusion ....................................................................................... 159
Discussion ............................................................................................................................. 159
Historical and Social Context (Chronosystem and Macrosystem) ....................................... 161
Historical Context Affecting Musical Development ...................................................... 161
Differences Between Refugee/Immigrant and Non-Refugee/Immigrant Perspective .... 162
Socioeconomic Status ..................................................................................................... 165
Gender Roles Affecting Musical Identity ....................................................................... 166
Religious Upbringing ...................................................................................................... 168
Musical Identities in Childhood: Influences From the Microsystem and the Mesosystem .. 168
The Temporal and Spatial Dimension ............................................................................ 169
Personal and Social Factors Affecting Musical Identity................................................. 171
Musical Practices, Experiences, and Repertoire ............................................................. 174
Research Questions ............................................................................................................... 179
Research Question #1 ..................................................................................................... 179
Research Question #2 ..................................................................................................... 179
Research Question #3 ..................................................................................................... 180
Research Question #4 ..................................................................................................... 181
Research Question #5 ..................................................................................................... 182
Study Limitations .................................................................................................................. 183

vii
A Note on Generalizability ............................................................................................. 185
Implications........................................................................................................................... 185
Suggestions for Future Research .................................................................................... 186
Conclusion ............................................................................................................................ 187
References ................................................................................................................................... 190
Appendix A: List of Criteria for Qualifying Participants ........................................................... 212
Appendix B: IRB Study Approval Letter ................................................................................... 213
Appendix C: Information Sheet for Research ............................................................................. 215
Appendix D: Interview Questions .............................................................................................. 217
Appendix E: Children’s Songs, Games and Ca dao Mentioned in Interviews ........................... 218
Appendix F: Khoa’s Compositions ............................................................................................. 229
Appendix G: Yế n’s Compositions .............................................................................................. 237

viii
List of Tables
Table 2.1. Some Important References at the Intersection of Ethnomusicology and Music
Education .......................................................................................................................... 26
Table 2.2. Resources for World Music Education Appropriate for Classroom Settings for
Children............................................................................................................................. 57
Table 3.1. Descriptions of Study Participants .............................................................................. 79

ix
List of Figures
Figure 2.1. Map of “Little Saigon” in Westminster, California.................................................... 51
Figure 3.1. Recruitment strategy. .................................................................................................. 77
Figure 3.2. Data analysis process. ................................................................................................. 91
Figure 4.1. Three regional ways of starting ca dao. ................................................................... 115
Figure 4.2. Drawing of the game “Ô Quan” by Thú y. ................................................................ 145
Figure 4.3. Re-drawing of Ô Quan as suggested by Thú y. ......................................................... 146
Figure 5.1. Map of central phenomenon, main areas, and emergent themes. ............................. 160

x
Abstract

The presence of world music education in classrooms is fundamentally motivated by the goal of
broadening students’ musical experiences beyond the western canon and influenced by the
nation’s increasingly diverse population. Research surrounding world music education and
resources for teaching music of the world’s cultures is ever-growing; however, world music
curriculum still holds the potential to expand. One children’s music culture that has been largely
unexplored is that of the Vietnamese. The purpose of this study was to explore the meanings of
childhood musical experiences as they were perceived by Vietnamese and Vietnamese American
elders who lived their childhoods in Vietnam between 1931-1975 and to translate and make use
of this information in a culturally sensitive way to offer appropriate Vietnamese musical
selections for the American context. This research provides information about the music
transmission and repertoire of Vietnamese music and musical experiences and will contribute to
the world music curriculum, encourage the embracing of diversity through celebration of musical
cultures and identity, and provide a possible route through which music educators can find a path
toward cultural responsiveness and sensitivity.
This retrospective narrative inquiry included the stories of one Vietnamese and five
Vietnamese American elders who were interviewed at their homes, at their children’s workplace,
or via phone call. Data was collected over five months and consisted of audio recordings of the
interviews, researcher transcriptions, and field notes of observations. Research questions
included: 1) What experiences encompassed Vietnamese children’s music making between
1931-1975?; 2) What songs did children sing in Vietnam between 1931-1975?; 3) How do the
research findings inform existing knowledge about Vietnamese American culture?; 4) What
implications do Vietnamese children’s songs and music making have on American music

xi
education, particularly in areas of the United States that are densely populated by Vietnamese
Americans?; 5) What contributions to world music curriculum might this research provide?
Data were coded and analyzed for themes and sub-themes. Findings revealed childhood
musical experiences including singing, playing games, playing instruments both alone and with
others, watching cả i lương theater, listening, being sung to, learning orally, aurally, through rote
and through written notation, improvising, and composing. These experiences occurred in a
multitude of ways in various temporal, spatial, social, and personal dimensions, and played a role
in forming the participants’ childhood musical identities. A list of Vietnamese children’s songs,
games, chants, ca dao, and other music was collected. This collection can be used in multiple
ways as music educators see fit, including musical activities, co-curricular lessons, performance,
listening activities, or other creative ways. Though the findings are focused on children’s
repertoire, plenty of information is appropriate for secondary and tertiary musical study,
including ethnomusicological studies. Conclusions and implications for music educators and
researchers are presented at the end.

Key terms: world music, world music education, Vietnamese, Vietnamese American, elders,
musical childhoods, Vietnamese music, musical identity, immigrant, refugee

1

Chapter 1: Introduction

Teaching and learning of world music education has been advocated since the 1950s
(McCarthy, 1997). Marked by the historic declaration at the Tanglewood Symposium of 1967
(Choate, 1968), the push for ‘multiculturalism’ in the 1980s and eventually world music
pedagogy held a regular presence in music education dialogue and curriculum throughout the
1990s (Volk, 1993, 1998). Living ethnomusicologists and music educators such as Patricia
Shehan Campbell, Bruno Nettl, and Huib Schippers have been at the forefront of contributing to
this branch of research and have long encouraged music teachers to study how people around the
world learn, engage in, and transmit music (Campbell, 1991, 2004; Campbell & Lum, 2019;
Nettl, 2015; Schippers, 2010; Schippers & Grant, 2016). This push toward understanding and
teaching of the world’s music is fundamentally motivated by the goal of broadening students’
musical experiences beyond the western canon and influenced by the nation’s increasingly
diverse population as well as the global interconnectedness afforded by technology and media
Research surrounding world music education has continued to proliferate in the past 20
years (Campbell & Wiggins, 2013); however, world music curriculum still holds the potential to
expand. Numerous music cultures in the world remain unexplored. There is much to be learned
about how other cultures ‘musick’ as Christopher Small (1998) refers to in describing the
activities involving all aspects of music making, including performing along or for others,
composing, listening, and any other daily acts that involve music; this includes music
transmission, musical repertoire, and cultural values that are reflected through musical practices.
One such children’s musical culture that has been largely unexplored is that of the Vietnamese,
whose storied relationship with the United States is primarily tied to the Vietnam War.
2

The Historical, Political, and Cultural Background of the Vietnamese
The relatively recent presence of the Vietnamese in the United States accounts for the
dearth of Vietnamese musical research. The introduction to the Vietnamese in American
education was through political conflict. In 1975, at the end of the 20-year-long Vietnam War,
the United States withdrew from Vietnam, resulting in a Vietnamese exodus and consequent
Vietnamese diaspora. The arrival of Vietnamese refugees and subsequently their children in
classrooms and communities across the United States required teachers to focus on assimilating
Vietnamese children to American culture; language became the primary concern. Ironically, the
Tanglewood Symposium of 1967 took place during the Vietnam War. Although music educators
were championing multicultural music, classroom teachers were dealing with the struggles of
basic communication with traumatized refugee children. After more than four decades in the
United States, a few research studies about Vietnamese music have been written, but do not
nearly begin to cover the vast array of musical genres and practices that make up the Vietnamese
experience.
Because of the precarious circumstances in which they emigrated to the United States,
Vietnamese were not commonly seen as a people with a musical culture to be studied, but rather
a war-torn people with trauma and struggle attached to their identities (Lieu, 2011). Fittingly,
much of the existing research on Vietnamese Americans consists of a focus on psychological
health, political studies, economic growth, or resilience as a community (Aguilar-San Juan,
2009; Huynh, 2016; Lieu, 2011; D. T. Nguyen, 2012). The generation who were refugees
identifies largely as staunch anti-communists while holding onto their Confucianist-rooted values
and pre-1975 traditions, rituals, and culture (Lieu, 2011). This generation has somewhat
perpetuated their reputation as political activists while many of their children have stepped away
3

from the political arena in order to find their own identities as a new generation of Vietnamese
Americans.
Vietnamese traditions and values are largely a consequence of Chinese rule from the
second century B.C. to 938 A.D. and again from 1407-1428 (Karnow, 1991). Karnow (1991)
explains that because of this commonly named “thousand-year rule” of China over Vietnam,
Vietnamese adopted China’s economic structure based on wet rice farming, Confucian
bureaucratic concepts that were rooted in respect for authority, and Chinese language. Lê Lợ i,
who directed the final defeat of the last Chinese invasion, became known as Vietnam’s greatest
emperor. After having defeated the Chinese, he maintained a relationship with China that would
quell their demands. One of his successors, Lê Thá nh Tông, maintained Confucian political and
bureaucratic structures and focused on the advancement of education. He led direction over the
building of a new library and lecture halls in the national university, modified exams to a
rigorous level, promoted literature and poetry through competitions and science and math
through publications, and issued the first complete map of the country. The era under his and Lê
Lợ i’s rule is considered the golden age of Vietnam. Today, Vietnamese American communities
still hold strong to prioritizing education, and remnants of the golden era exist in house
gatherings when hosts and guests recite poetry as part of their conversation and entertainment.
In the 17
th
century, Western music was introduced to the Vietnamese via the Roman
Catholic Church (Gibbs, 2003). Gibbs (2003) stated that French missionaries taught Latin
plainchant to the Vietnamese throughout the 18
th
and 19
th
centuries. Karnow (1991) explains that
not long after, France re-entered Vietnam as a political force in the mid-19
th
century, on an
aggressive campaign for colonization. He explains that Vietnamese who converted to
Catholicism were favored by the French, often receiving incentives and land. Cooperative
4

Vietnamese in high governmental positions were also highly favored by the French; their
children would study abroad in France and come back with a Western education and bilingual
abilities. Between 1880-1954, the French had imposed many of their cultural practices onto
Vietnam, building restaurants, hotels, churches, and infrastructure in the French style, and even
naming streets after French heroes (Karnow, 1991). Along with the physical changes came
cultural influences. Popular French artists, particularly Tino Rossi, became well-known and
loved by Vietnamese (Gibbs, 2003). Gibbs (2003) also noted that Vietnamese adopted and
adapted songs from French Scouts for their own Vietnamese Scouts. The European classical
tradition also was exported to Vietnam, where music conservatories were constructed: this
included one failed attempt from 1927-1930 (McClellan, 2009), and in 1956, two successful
attempts in Hanoi in the North, and Saigon in the South. Here, French music professors and
Vietnamese professors who had studied in France taught the European classical canon, including
such composers as Bach, Vivaldi, Mozart, and Beethoven on orchestral instruments, with piano,
and violin being the most popular.
Underprivileged, abused, and exploited Vietnamese of the lower class fomented anger
and resentment of the West’s influence and eventually organized as the Communist Party to
overthrow the French. In 1941, Japan’s forces tenaciously overthrew the French and then
withdrew due to threats from the Allies of the ongoing WWII. This ultimately enabled
Communists to take power over North Vietnam. At the Geneva conference in 1954, a proposed
divide at the 17
th
parallel between North and South Vietnam only delayed ultimate communist
domination of the entire country. In the North, Communists had banned all western-related
entertainment (Gibbs, 2008). By 1975, Communists had taken the entire country; any cultural
practices that were related to the West were banned, including rock and roll, pop, and Scouts.
5

After the end of the Vietnam War in 1975, also often called the “fall of Saigon”, the
political divide between those who fled and those who stayed was eventually reflected through
diverging musical cultures. Vietnamese composers and songwriters who fled often wrote music
about war, leaving and losing loved ones, and yearning for their motherland, while Vietnamese
musicians who stayed were sanctioned by the communist government to produce music that
reflected the nation’s ethics. This included songs of praise to the communist dictator as well as
nationalistic songs. Songs that the Vietnamese refugees enjoyed were eventually called “yellow
songs” while revolutionary songs that Communist Vietnamese commissioned were called “red
songs” (M. Nguyen, 2012). Overseas, emerging generations of Vietnamese in the diaspora have
innovated music and musical practices, resulting in hybrids such as the widely popular Asia,
Thú y Nga and Paris By Night variety shows in which Vietnamese songs are sung on flashy
Western-inspired stage settings (Lieu, 2011; J. Nguyen, 2012). In 1994, former president Bill
Clinton’s visit to Vietnam resulted in the lift of a 19-year long embargo. The re-introduction of
Western products, including music, proliferated. The Vietnamese began exploring American
pop, rap and hip hop openly while creating their own new Western-influenced music (Olsen,
2008).
Vietnamese American Children’s Musical Experiences
In the United States, Vietnamese American children’s musical experiences reflect the
current social and cultural context. According to Huynh (2016), some grandparents of these
children (i.e., the generation who were refugees from the Vietnam War) sing the songs they
remember about nature and family love to their grandchildren, while others do not. The study
noted that some Vietnamese American parents taught their children Vietnamese music while
others had forgotten the songs. This diffused transmission of songs down generations was a
6

result of the turmoil of war and indicative of a people who were struggling to find a balance
between two cultures, either through enculturation or assimilation (Huynh, 2016).
Vietnamese Children’s Music in American Classrooms
Music educators who choose to employ music of Vietnam in their world music
curriculum may not be aware of the political complexities involved in choosing repertoire.
Because of the politically sensitive climate, it would be wise to choose songs that represent the
ideals and childhoods of Vietnamese Americans, which does not necessarily align with the ideals
of modern Vietnam. Where do we find appropriate Vietnamese music to teach in our
classrooms? Turning to Vietnamese American elders who are living in our society today would
prove greatly revealing. When choosing music for world music curricula, it is necessary and
important to make informed decisions on repertoire and ensure historical and cultural awareness.
Issues concerning authenticity, representation, and context plague some teachers
(Campbell, 2016). They “fear criticism that they might show disrespect for a musical culture
through the errors in the musical selections that they choose to teach and learn, the inaccurate
performances of these selections, and in the mistellings of the meanings of the music”
(Campbell, 2016, p. 102). This study will address issues of authenticity, representation, and
context by exploring how Vietnamese elders made music in childhood, what their context was in
making music, and what elements of this might be meaningful to American classrooms. As the
International Society of Music Educators (ISME) stated in its mission, “music can best be
comprehended in social and cultural context and as a part of its culture, and all musical systems
are valuable and worthy of comprehension and study” (International Society for Music
Education, 1994).
7

This study aimed to explore the meanings of Vietnamese music educational experiences
as they are perceived by Vietnamese and Vietnamese American elders who lived their
childhoods in Vietnam and to translate and make use of this information in a culturally sensitive
way to offer appropriate Vietnamese musical selections for the American context. This research
provides information about the transmission and repertoire of Vietnamese music and musical
experiences and will contribute to the world music curricula, encourage the embracing of
diversity through celebration of musical cultures and identity, and provide a possible route
through which music educators can find a path toward cultural responsiveness and sensitivity.
Researcher’s Role
I am an insider of the Vietnamese American community and have an advantage in
exploring Vietnamese culture and identity intimately, authentically, accurately, and sensitively. I
grew up in the enclave known as Little Saigon in Westminster, California. My childhood
consisted of being immersed in Vietnamese culture via many uniquely Vietnamese experiences,
including: going to temple, attending Vietnamese grammar school and learning to read, write and
speak Vietnamese, going to cultural events such as the annual Vietnamese New Year festival and
the Mid-Autumn Harvest Moon Festival, attending musical performances, taking music lessons
at a primarily Vietnamese-operated music studio, and playing in Vietnamese American musical
ensembles. At home, I only spoke Vietnamese, and my family often watched and listened to
Vietnamese TV, movies, and music videos. In adulthood, my first music employers and
supervisors, colleagues, and employment opportunities were all within the Vietnamese
community; I still hold strong connections with these people. As an insider to the community, I
have intimate knowledge and experience with Vietnamese and Vietnamese American history,
culture, and musical experiences. Outside the Vietnamese community, I often serve the role of
8

culture bearer to represent my culture accurately, authentically, and with sensitivity. As a music
educator, I offer suggestions on ways to incorporate Vietnamese music into the United States
world music curriculum. As a researcher, I can present this knowledge in an academically
rigorous fashion so that others may make use of it, further their research studies on the topic, and
disseminate the knowledge to contribute to the field.
My role as a researcher comes from an emic viewpoint and therefore assumes several
biases that I will acknowledge and try to neutralize (Peshkin, 1988, 1994). Bresler (2013)
mentions the importance of being aware of our subjectivities and maintaining a distance to be
effective researchers. As an insider of the Vietnamese American community and as a musician
working in the community, it is important to withhold my own beliefs and opinions about music
making in the Vietnamese American community, the Vietnamese American cultural and
historical background, and Vietnamese American elders. On the other hand, being an insider
gives me the benefit of creating rapport with participants which may lead to insights and “secret
stories” that would otherwise be withheld from outsiders (Clandinin, 2006), while empathy will
help me understand the participants’ context (Stueber, 2008). Throughout my fieldwork, I have
kept a research journal in which I could mentally process my reflection and reactions. Journaling
helped me explore my feelings in a way that informed my research while maintaining ethics
throughout my course of inquiry (Kleinman & Copp, 1993).
Research Goals
Because the purpose of this research was to share findings in the hopes that they would
inform and be put to practical use by music educators who strive toward a transcultural,
culturally responsive and culturally sensitive manner of teaching and learning, I conducted this
research through the lenses of identity, culture, and world music education. The goals of this
9

research were threefold: 1) to explore ways in which young Vietnamese learned and participated
in music throughout between the years 1931-1970 in Vietnam, 2) to identify the repertoire that
they engaged with as well as the uses and functions of these songs, and 3) to discuss implications
of the findings of the research for music teaching and learning.
Statement of the Problem
As of 2017, 1.3 million Vietnamese resided in the United States (U.S. Census Bureau,
2017). Despite being the 6
th
most populous foreign-born population in the country, rarely is
Vietnamese music included in music curriculums. Few resources exist, and those that do are
sometimes insufficient or inaccurate. Without proper resources, a non-Vietnamese music
educator has cause to be concerned about the authenticity of any found sources and question how
to teach Vietnamese music authentically. Without guidance, educators might opt to altogether
avoid including Vietnamese music in their curriculum. This research produced authentic and
accurate knowledge about Vietnamese musical experiences and repertoire while offering
suggestions on how it can inform and enhance the music curriculum.
Although much literature can be found on music making around the globe including
Ghana, Kenya, Australia, Thailand, India, Malaysia, and other countries, there is a void of
research on music making in Vietnam. A small collection of ethnomusicological texts on
traditional Vietnamese music (Khe & Nguyen, 2001; P. T. Nguyen & Campbell, 1991;
Wettermark & Lundstrom, 2016) and several investigations into popular music making (Lieu,
2011; J. Nguyen, 2012; Olson, 2008) have recently emerged, yet research on music making of
children in Vietnam is virtually non-existent in American archives. Questions arise: In what
capacity did Vietnamese children engage with music? Did Vietnamese children learn music
formally or informally or both? What was music making like in the home? What forms did music
10

learning in school take if music was indeed taught in school? How did Vietnam’s historical and
cultural background color children’s musical background? How can people’s experiences in
Vietnam inform how we should approach diverse school populations in the United States,
specifically in areas where high numbers of Vietnamese students reside?
My past research revealed that the time between 1880-1965 was a significant
developmental period for Vietnamese children’s music that is sung today in Southern California
by Vietnamese American children and their parents (Huynh, 2016). Just as the French were
beginning to influence music in Vietnam, musical repertoire changed as the country fell to
Communism in the 20
th
century (Olsen, 2008), particularly when all western aspects of culture
were officially banned in 1975 (Norton, 2018). The last living generation to know the children’s
song repertoire as it existed before the Communist Party took over is the generation born
between the years of 1930-1960; they are the last vestiges of knowledge of pre-1975 Vietnamese
children’s music.
Purpose of the Study
This study explored children’s music making in Vietnam through three male and three
female elders’ recollections of their childhood experiences. I examined their recollections of
music making as children through recorded interviews and field notes. I aimed to capture the
participants’ musical landscapes in their homes, at school, and in social situations. Through
narrative inquiry, I wove their individual experiences within the overall picture of the time,
resulting in a story with both macro and micro-plots.
The purpose of this retrospective narrative inquiry was to answer essential questions
about Vietnamese children’s music making through the lenses of identity, culture, and world
music education with implications for teaching music in tertiary music education courses,
11

creating world music curriculum for the elementary general music classroom, teaching in
classrooms with students of diverse cultures, and cultural responsiveness and sensitivity.
The participants lived their childhoods during the end of French colonial influence. There
are many aural and written accounts of Vietnamese experiences in places such as the University
of California, Irvine’s Southeast Asian Archives, but they were not interviewed with the intent to
collect musical experiences, and thus they may probably contain scarce information that is useful
to the field of music education. This dissertation launches such a collection, complementing
existing sources.
Research Questions
1. What experiences encompassed Vietnamese children’s music making between 1931-
1975?
2. What songs did children sing in Vietnam between 1931-1975?
3. How do the research findings inform existing knowledge about Vietnamese American
culture?
4. What implications do Vietnamese children’s songs and music making have on American
music education, particularly in areas of the United States that are densely populated by
Vietnamese Americans?
5. What contributions to world music curriculum might this research provide?
Conceptual Framework
This study is shaped through the conceptual lenses of identity, culture, and world music
education. Together, these lenses help to clarify the musico-cultural terrain to be explored.
12

Identity
Identity is “the set of meanings that define who one is when one is an occupant of a
particular role in society, a member of a particular group, or claims particular characteristics that
identify him or her as a unique person” (Burke & Stets, 2009, p. 2). In this study, participants
identified themselves as many of the following: Vietnamese, immigrant, musician, mother,
father, sister, brother, child, student, or teacher. Each of the participants claimed several
identities because they played more than one role in society. As Burke and Stets (2009) stated:
Identity theory seeks to explain the specific meanings that individuals have for the
multiple identities that they claim; how these identities relate to one another for any one
person; how their identities influence their behavior, thoughts, and feelings or emotions;
and how their identities tie them into society at large. (p. 2)
Identity theory arises from social and behavioral sciences, officially developed about 40
years ago. In this theory, individuals strive to define who they are within a larger context of
society, culture, and environment. Essentially, individuals make meaning out of their lives and
define their role in society, their sense of belonging to certain groups, and self-prescribed
characteristics (Burke & Stets, 2009). As suggested in the study by Burke and Stets, individuals’
self-prescribed identities can reveal how they perceived themselves at a certain place and time,
and therefore, how they created meaning of the world around them. Their identity as they saw it
at that moment reveals the power and social issues in their surrounding environment, the values
they acquired, and decisions that they made that later influenced their life paths. It also assigns
them the protagonist role in their own life story and the ability to narrate their story within their
local reality and social structure. In essence, the nature of the individual “depends on the society
in which he or she lives” (Burke & Stets, 2009, p. 3).
13

Burke and Stets (2009) stressed that “individuals exist within the context of social
structures” (p. 2). In this sense, it is important to note that society is an integral and inherent part
of identity theory. Social structure emerges from the actions of individuals and is “patterned over
time and across persons” (Burke & Stets, 2009, p. 4). Burke and Stets stated that society is made
of individuals and individuals make up society; consequently, identities are socially constructed.
Identity theory is based on the perspective of structural symbolic interactionism
1
(Stryker,
1980/2002), which consists of the self, language, and interactions. Through the participants’ self-
described identities and interactions with others, I discovered their musical childhoods, family
values, and cultural practices, and was able to situate them in a musical and cultural narrative.
Culture
Exploring identity leads to recognizing symbolic patterns of multiple individuals in a
society that groups them in a culture. Burke and Stets (2009) stated: “We are born into a social
world that is ongoing and organized, and we learn about this organization through socialization.
Others (parents, educators, the media, and so forth) teach us what it is” (p. 34). It is through
others, society, that individuals learn culture. According to Roger Keesing (1974), culture is a
knowledge system but has been defined in many ways, one of which is a symbolic structure. He
summarizes the different ways thinkers have defined culture in his article “Theories of Culture.”
Clifford Geertz (1973) defined culture as a symbolic system to hold certain properties: it is
semiotic, it is based on actual activities, and it is interpreted through “thick description that is
deeply embedded in the contextual richness of social life” (cited in Keesing, 1974, p. 79).
Similarly, David Schneider defined culture as a “system of symbols and meanings” (cited in

1
Structural symbolic interactionism is the basis upon which identity theory is rooted. Attributed to philosopher
George Herbert Mead and intellectuals William James and Charles Horton Cooley, structural symbolic
interactionism examines the social structure of social life under the assumption that it is fixed.
14

Keesing, 1974, p. 80). Ward Goodenough states: “Cultural theory must explain in what sense we
can speak of culture as being shared or as the property of groups…” (cited in Keesing, 1974, p.
84). The next step after exploring identity, then, is exploring the culture that binds a group of
individuals.
Culture is complex to define, but for the purpose of this study, culture is meant as the
way in which a group identifies itself in meaning-making through quotidian activities and
artifacts. Meaning-making includes values and ethics that are agreed upon by a group; traditions;
rituals that satisfy a purpose and promote the continuation of a culture; and hierarchies and rules
that impose understandings of the roles of people in the group. The Cambridge Dictionary
defines culture as: “the way of life, especially the customs and beliefs, of a particular group of
people at a particular time” (Cambridge Dictionary, n.d.). Through in-depth interviews with six
participants, I merged experiences and stories to illustrate the soundscape of children’s musical
culture in Vietnam. I identified the values and ethics that surrounded their childhoods and
examined how this affected their lives. I also discovered the activities and artifacts that reflected
their realities as children. This collective evidence formed a narrative of their roles, the
emergence of their identities, and the culture that they knew and with which they identified. As
Keesing (1974) summarized: “it may be precisely in exploring the phenomenological world of
the familiar and immediate, the everyday and mundane, that we stand to gain the most crucial
knowledge of how humans perceive, understand, and act” (p. 93).
Music holds a primary role in culture, as it gives meaning to activities, traditions, and
rituals. The study of music in culture is ethnomusicology; naturally, there will be elements of this
in the form of discussion about the uses and functions of music as well as musical analysis.
Patricia Shehan Campbell (2016) stated two essential questions pertaining to the ties between
15

music and culture which provided a foundational premise for this study: “What meaning can this
music hold in the culture? How can it best fit into systems of musical education and training?”
(p. 95). These questions are also the basis of world music education, which rounds out my
conceptual framework.
World Music Education
World music education, also known by other names such as multicultural, multiethnic, or
intercultural education, world musics in education, or global musics in education (Schippers &
Campbell, 2012) involves teaching students about the world’s musical cultures, both on a global
(teaching the musics of diverse cultures that exist overseas) and local level (teaching the musics
of diverse cultures that exist in the local community; Nettl, 2013). As globalization and
migration are now a common way of being and living throughout much of the world, learning
about cultures other than our primary culture is not only natural but necessary. Increasingly
diverse student populations around the world and especially in the United States have inevitably
led to an interest and necessity to learn about others’ cultures (Campbell, 2016). World music
education is an optimal way to educate students about the world around them. In this study,
exploring the participants’ musical experiences contributes to world music education.
The foundations of world music are rooted in ethnomusicology (Campbell, 2016).
Qualitative research in music also has roots in ethnomusicology (Matsunobu & Bresler, 2014).
Ethnomusicologists study the meanings that a musical culture holds for humans, examines
human values through music, and studies human behavior through music (Nettl, 2013). Through
each participant’s interview, I explored these various meanings, values, and behaviors. Though
the exploration may have ethnomusicological tendencies, the core of the study remains tied to
applications toward world music education, teaching, and learning.
16

Epistemology: Social Constructionism
In striving to create meaning from my participants’ lived experiences, I worked with the
assumption that each participant lived a unique childhood influenced by their parents, relatives,
and community members, coloring their perception of the uses, functions, and meaning of music
making in their early years. In their spatial, temporal, and sociopersonal dimensions, each of
their realities is different (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000).
This research was conducted under the social constructionist epistemology. In
constructionism, reality is based on the period in which a person lives (Barker, 2004). The reality
constructed by society at that time is considered truth. As a sub-category of constructionism,
social constructionism “acknowledges the impact of others around us and our social interactions
with them, on our ways of discovering truths” (Egbert & Sanden, 2014, p. 22). By delving into
the past (1931-1975), I was able to garner what the realities of my participants’ childhoods were,
what life was like, what values they and their families held at the time, and how these truths were
manifested through their musical childhoods. As Matsunobu and Bresler (2014) stated, “social
reality… is perspective and multiple” (p. 3); this reflects the truth of each of the participants’
childhoods. At the same time, stitching each of the participant’s experiences together enabled the
creation of a collection of shared assumptions that illuminate the shape of their reality and
ultimately helped to find a space between realism and relativism while keeping in mind the
participants’ individually constructed realities. I compared these collective truths to explore how
they may affect their grandchildren’s realities, certainly a new one in a different place and time. I
also considered how the songs that these participants grew up on might (or might not) have a
new place in modern-day American music education.
17

Definitions and Terms
Assimilation: Following anthropology and sociology, this is the “process whereby
individuals or groups of differing ethnic heritage are absorbed into the dominant culture of a
society” (Pauls, 2008).
Culture: The way in which a group identifies itself in symbolic meaning-making through
quotidian artifacts and activities, including traditions and rituals.
Elder: This term will include persons born between the years of 1931 and 1953. Limiting
the youngest participant to age 65 (born in 1954) will ensure that the person lived their childhood
when the French’s influence was still felt. The French officially left Vietnam in 1954, but their
school systems were still left in place, and the French language was often spoken until the 1970s.
Limiting the oldest participant to age 88 will include people who were living at the time of
French colonial rule.
Enculturation: “The gradual acquisition of the characteristics and norms of a family,
community, and culture” (Herskovits, 1948, cited in Campbell & Wiggins, 2013, p. 513).
Identity Theory: A construct that involves individuals striving to define who they are
within a larger context of society, culture, and environment. It is “the set of meanings that define
who one is when one is an occupant of a particular role in society, a member of a particular
group, or claims particular characteristics that identify him or her as a unique person” (Burke &
Stets, 2009, p. 2).
Immigrant: a person who comes to live permanently in a country that is not their
country of birth.
18

Music making: singing, listening to live or recorded music or singing, or playing
musical instruments. Also, playing games that involve singing, rhymes, or chants. In Vietnamese
culture, poetry is also considered to be musical and will be included.
Musical childhood: musical experiences from birth to age 12, including moments in the
home, in the village, or at school and involving singing, playing games, playing instruments, or
listening to music.
Musicking: refers to the activities involving all aspects of music making, including
performing along or for others, composing, listening, and any other daily acts that involve music
(Small, 1998).
Narrative inquiry: the process of acquiring information for qualitative research through
storytelling.
Refugee: a person who has been forced to leave their country to escape war or
persecution.
Social constructionist epistemology: the assumption that knowledge is informed by the
world around us. As a sub-category of constructionism, social constructionism “acknowledges
the impact of others around us and our social interactions with them, on our ways of discovering
truths” (Egbert & Sanden, 2014, p. 22).
Vietnamese American: This term includes Americans of Vietnamese descent who have
resided in the United States long-term and do not intend on returning to Vietnam to live.
Participants in this study lived for more than ten years in Southern California and were either
refugees or immigrants from Vietnam.
World music: Traced back to be originally coined in 1987 for music marketing purposes
(Taylor, 1997), the term ‘world music’ is generally interpreted as musical cultures of the world
19

that are not considered the West’. Despite the controversy surrounding this term due to inherent
notions of Western centrism (Hess, 2013), it is a term that has been widely accepted in music
education. Schippers (2010) writes that although the term may be contentious, ambiguous, and
used loosely by scholars of various fields including sociology, anthropology, ethnomusicology,
and music education, arriving at a working definition of the term aids in “understanding the
phenomenon of cultural diversity in music education as an important influence on the musical
realities of the twenty-first century” (p. 16). To this end, he proposes the definition of world
music as “perhaps the least objectionable term to refer collectively to music from various
cultures, with an emphasis on the fact that music travels and establishes itself away from its
place and culture of origin” (Schippers, 2010, p. 39). “World music” as it is used in this study
will refer to Schipper’s definition.
World music education: World music education “is situated somewhere between the
scholarly discipline of ethnomusicology… and the practice of musically educating students in the
world’s musical cultures” (Campbell, 2016, p. 94). Campbell notes that world music education,
also known as ‘world musics in education’ or ‘global musics in education’ and ‘multicultural’,
‘multiethnic’, or ‘intercultural’ education is related to world music pedagogy, a methodology on
how to teach world music, as opposed to Kodaly, Orff, and Dalcroze methodologies all of which
are European-centric approaches (see Gault and Abril, 2016).
Vietnamese Terms
Ca dao: oral folk poems that are often used as lullabies.
Cả i lương: 20
th
century South Vietnamese musical theater productions evolving from há t
bồ i. Involving on-stage singing and traditional instruments with the addition of Western
orchestral instruments upon the colonization of the French.
20

Há t bộ i: South Vietnamese classical theatre which evolved in the 16
th
century from
tườ ng in the North, traditionally reserved for royalty but by the 18
th
century became popular
among mainstream audiences.
Há t chè o: off-stage theatrical performance popular in North Vietnam dating back to the
10th century, with music similar to folk songs, performed by commoners.
Há t ru or ru: the act of singing a lullaby.
Hò : peasant work songs.
Hướ ng đạ o: Scouts, similar to Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts of America.
Nhạ c cổ truyề n: Traditional music, as played by zithers, monochords, bamboo flutes, and
other traditional instruments.
Nhạ c đờ i: Literally “life music”, implicating music of ordinary life, such as pop and folk
songs as opposed to religious songs. It could be interpreted as the equivalent of “secular music”,
whose dyadic pair would be “secular music”.
Nhạ c mớ i: Contemporary music; literally “new music”, generally considered to be
written post-WWII and containing Western harmony.
Nhạ c thiế u nhi or đồ ng dao: children’s music.
Vietnamese Terms of Cultural Hierarchy
Bá c: “sir” or “ma’am”, reserved for elders and people older than one’s parents.
Cô: used to address the wife of the teacher, or a woman younger than one’s mother
Con: “I”, if the person I was addressing was from South Vietnam or considered close in
relationship
Chá u: “I”, if the person I was addressing was from North Vietnam
21

Em: “I”, if the person I was addressing was someone with whom I did not have a close
relationship, or if I were younger than the person I was addressing
Thà y: teacher
Assumptions
Six participants were involved in the study. All participants were born in Vietnam and
lived their childhoods in Vietnam between the years 1931-1975. All but one participant fled
Vietnam in or after 1975 due to political conflict. All participants experienced the effects of
French colonialism, the war in Vietnam through the Japanese invasion, and the war against
communists who started the invasion in the North. All participants were fluent in Vietnamese
and interviewed in this language. Though they were all from the same ethnicity, participants
varied in socio-economic background during their childhood. As I share the same ethnic identity
and have parents of the same age and background as my participants, I intimately understood
their history and cultural values and was able to analyze the data in astute ways resulting in a
comprehensive and authentic narration.
Delimitations
This study did not intend to generalize children’s musical culture in Vietnam, as it is
limited to a time window between 1931-1975 and is centered on six individual experiences.
Instead, it presented six different realities and perceptions of truth, which were connected by
time and space through narrative inquiry. Five out of the six participants lived in Orange County,
California, while one participant was living in Vietnam; the participant living in Vietnam served
to widen the points of view that I gathered. Although the time frame between 1880-1910 was of
interest, I did not interview those who were children between 1880-1910 because they have
surely passed away. Those who are alive who were born between 1910-1930 would now be aged
22

89-109, and at the risk of selecting participants who might neither have all their faculties nor be
able to participate due to any amount of extenuating circumstances such as health issues, I
excluded this group. The study was then limited to a 15-year window between 1931-1960, which
was deemed as an appropriate and ample time frame in which to select six participants.
Chapter Summary
This first chapter described the cultural and historical background for the study and
situated it within the scope of world music education. I stated my role as a researcher, my
theoretical lens, and epistemology. In this chapter, I also stated the need for the study, the
purpose and research questions, assumptions, delimitations, and definitions of key terms.
Chapter 2 includes a comprehensive review of literature on world music curriculum in the United
States, methods of children’s song transmission, retrospective studies on music in childhood, and
existing studies of Vietnamese music. Noted will be the lack of Vietnamese children’s music
research in the existing body of knowledge. Chapter 3 describes the methodology of the
qualitative research design and procedures of this narrative study, including data collection and
analysis. The participants are introduced, and the limitations of the study are discussed. Research
findings are revealed in Chapter 4 through individual stories. Chapter 5 includes a discussion of
the findings, a review of the research questions, implications including suggestions for further
research, and conclusions.

23

Chapter 2: Literature Review

In this chapter, I examine the existing knowledge base on music of the world’s cultures
through literature from the fields of ethnomusicology, sociology, and music education to
understand the ways in which musical cultures have been studied. After introducing the works of
scholars who laid the foundation for world music studies and catapulted it into a full-fledged
research area with defining connections between ethnomusicology and music education, I hone
in on existing research about Vietnamese music and Vietnamese immigrant and refugee identity.
I include sociological research that concerns the role and function of music in a cultural context
as well as historical background on the Westernization of Vietnamese music. I examine existing
Vietnamese children’s music resources available to music educators. I also discuss children’s
music making, children’s musical environments, musical identities as influenced by their
physical and social surroundings, and music transmission. This literature review provides a
foundation upon which I investigate the research questions and the conceptual framework on
which they are based.
World Music Specialists
As mentioned in Chapter 1, world music is a contentious term as it originated with the
assumption of a Western-centric view of music and was created for music marketing (Taylor,
1997). In this study, world music will be considered “music from various cultures, with an
emphasis on the fact that music travels and establishes itself away from its place and culture of
origin” (Schippers, 2010, p. 39).
Numerous scholars have contributed to the world music movement in the past 50 years.
Campbell (2016) explains that ethnomusicologists and music educators alike have advocated for
the teaching and learning of world music. Notable music educators who laid the foundation for
24

this movement included: William M. Anderson, Barbara Reeder Lundquist, Sally Monsour, and
James Standifer, who provided professional development in the teaching of music of Hindustani
Indian, Indonesian, Sub-Saharan African, Middle Eastern, and African American cultures
(Schippers & Campbell, 2012). Schippers and Campbell (2012) also noted ethnomusicologists at
the forefront of the movement, including: Ki Mantle Hood (1918-2005) and his work on
Indonesian gamelan and his lasting influence on universities’ inclusion and active approach to
ethnomusicology, implementing joint praxis and study of a culture and advocacy for bi-
musicality, a term coined by Hood which involves the fluency and first-hand practice of two
musical cultures; John Blacking (c. 1928-1990; 1967) and his ground-breaking work on South
African Venda children’s music and anthropological perspective to the study of musical cultures;
David McAllester (1916-2006) and his work on Navajo and Comanche music, and Bruno Nettl
(b. 1930) and his work on Blackfoot, Middle Eastern, and North and South Indian music. The
work of these ethnomusicologists supported music educators in their efforts to integrate world
music into the classroom. Collaborative efforts between ethnomusicologists and music educators
were evidenced in symposia and conferences, resulting in manifestos that proposed the inclusion
of musics of the world’s cultures in classrooms nationwide (Choate, 1968).
Some particularly notable scholars have played an important role in both
ethnomusicology and music education. Alan Merriam (1964) introduced music through the lens
of anthropology and emphasized the importance of understanding the cultural context of music,
including how it is learned and taught and its uses and functions, setting the stage for the
dawning of ethnomusicology as a field of study. Bruno Nettl (1983, 2012, 2013, 2015) explored
the unique relationship between ethnomusicology and music education. J.H. Kwabena Nketia
(1974), who wrote the first book of African musical practices, championed understanding and
25

learning of folk songs in the classroom (Nketia, 1967; 1970; 2005; 2016; Volk, 1993; T.
Wiggins, 2005). Patricia Shehan Campbell (1991) has brought together ethnomusicology and
music education in theory and practice, actively supporting in-service and pre-service teachers in
world music education practice and research. Huib Schippers (2010) contributed to the evolution
of how educators incorporate world music into the curriculum in a spectrum of ways. These
internationally prominent scholars (among others) have not only helped to maintain and even
accelerate the presence of world music education toward its robust presence in classrooms but
have emerged as leading advocates for world music education (for a list of some of their main
works, please refer to Table 2.1). Two widely recognized scholars among those listed above,
Nettl and Campbell, are of particular importance in philosophically rooting world music
education. Their works are discussed ahead in more detail.
26

Table 2.1.

Some Important References at the Intersection of Ethnomusicology and Music Education
Author Title (Year)
Alan Merriam The Anthropology of Music (1964)
Bruno Nettl The Study of Ethnomusicology: 29 issues and
concepts (1983)
Some Contributions of Ethnomusicology
(2012)
Becoming an ethnomusicologist: A miscellany
of influences (2013)
J.H. Kwabena Nketia The Place of Authentic Folk Music in
Education (1967)
Music Education in Africa and the West: We
Can Learn from Each Other (1970)
Ethnomusicology and African Music –
Collected papers, Volume One: Modes of
Inquiry and Interpretation (2005)
Reinstating traditional music in
contemporary contexts: reminiscences of a
nonagenarian's lifelong encounters with the
musical traditions of Africa (2016)
Patricia Shehan Campbell Lessons from the World (1991)
Teaching Music Globally: Experiencing
Music, Expressing Culture (2004)
Musical enculturation: sociocultural
influences and meanings of children’s
experiences in and through music (2010)
Music, Education, and Diversity: Bridging
Cultures and Communities (2018)
Patricia Shehan Campbell and Chee Hoo Lum World Music Pedagogy, Volume VI: School-
Community Intersections (2019)
Huib Schippers Facing the Music: Shaping Music Education
from a Global Perspective (2010)

Bruno Nettl (b. 1930)
Bruno Nettl (2012), an internationally esteemed ethnomusicologist, holds an authoritative
voice concerning how ethnomusicology informs music education. In his chapter, “Some
Contributions of Ethnomusicology,” in The Oxford Handbook of Music Education, Nettl
27

delineates the fundamental concepts upon which ethnomusicologists base their work, then
expands on how these concepts have influenced the relationship between ethnomusicology and
music education. These include preservation, fieldwork, internalization, processes, and
comparative study. Regarding preservation, Nettl (2012) states that the goal of musical
preservation through sound and video recording and performance of a culture’s music is often
central to ethnomusicological purposes and that it is a way to introduce these ethnological
principles to music education. Concerning fieldwork, Nettl (2012) refers to “face-to-face
confrontation with the people whose music is being studied” (p. 2). In the classroom, this might
translate to bringing in culture bearers to share their music. Nettl states that “internalization” is a
large component of developing the relationship between ethnomusicology and music education.
“Internalization” refers to understanding a musical system by learning from a cultural insider, the
key component to this being active participation. Equally important as being an active participant
is “learning about the culture’s perspective, system of ideas, of its music, from social religious,
economic, and specifically musical perspective” (Nettl, 2012, p. 3). Ethnomusicology and music
education are also linked through the study of the “processes” of change and cultural
relationship. Nettl (2012) notes various processes: “the nature of musical change and relationship
to cultural change; change of musical style, repertory, instrumentarium, performance context,
compositions through history of performance, for instance the variants of a folk song” (p. 3).
These are all related to the way music is transmitted and taught and learned. Lastly, Nettl
describes comparative ethnomusicology, which is used in music education to compare the music
of a society with that of neighboring countries.
Nettl’s insights about music and culture also serve music education purposes. He states
that “musical style reflects culture somewhat directly” (Nettl, 2012, p. 4) and speaks of the role
28

of music in defining and preserving culture. Nettl (2012) points out that the goal of music
education is the “transmission and maintenance of the musical culture”, while that of
ethnomusicology is “changing understanding and attitudes about music” (p. 6). Though these
two goals might seem at odds, world music education brings both goals together. Additionally,
he advocates for bimusicality, improvisation, folk song collection, and a hands-on approach to
teaching in classrooms. Nettle (2012) states that performance-based study in ethnomusicology
was spearheaded in the 1950s by Mantle Hood at the University of California, Los Angeles, then
followed by Robert E. Brown at Wesleyan University. Since then, other universities across the
nation have incorporated world music ensembles into university-level ethnomusicology curricula
as a part of the initiative toward bimusicality. A number of universities have combined music
education and ethnomusicology programs, including the universities of Bamberg and Magdeburg
in Germany, the University of Washington and Kent State University in the United States, and
the Memorial University of Newfoundland in Canada (Nettl, 2012). Nettl (2012) writes, “for
understanding a musical culture, its system of teaching or transmission of both the conceptions
and the sounds is clearly of primary importance” (p. 10). This is agreed upon and put into
practice by notable scholar and music educator, Patricia Shehan Campbell.
Patricia Shehan Campbell (b. 1950)
Patricia Shehan Campbell has been instrumental in advocating for and enacting world
music education curricula in the late 20
th
and early 21
st
centuries. While Nettl (2012) stresses
how ethnomusicologists often took the “role of scholar rather than performing artist” (p. 1),
Campbell has balanced the roles of scholar, advocate for world music, and practitioner. Having
published many books and book chapters and serving as editor of several handbooks, Campbell’s
publications span over four decades on informing and championing world music education,
29

emerging as the torchbearer for world music pedagogy. From titles on childhood music and
teaching such as Music in Childhood: From Preschool through the Elementary Grades
(Campbell & Scott-Kassner, 1995), Songs in Their Heads (Campbell, 2010b) and Music for
Elementary Classroom Teachers (Campbell, Kassner, & Scott-Kassne, 2017) to books on
various world musics such as Teaching Music Globally: Experiencing Music, Expressing Culture
(Campbell, 2004) and the World Music Pedagogy series (Campbell & Lum, 2019) to
comprehensive texts on the history of music education that include world music curriculum such
as Lessons from the World: A Cross-Cultural Guide to Music Teaching and Learning (Campbell,
1991) and the recent Music, Education, and Diversity: Bridging Cultures and Communities
(Multicultural Education Series; Campbell, 2017), Campbell is a key contributor to the existing
collection of world music education literature. She has written about the importance of teaching
both world music and local musics in classrooms, issues concerning authenticity in teaching
world music in classrooms, and has offered numerous practical ways to enact world music
education in the classroom.
Nettl and Campbell’s established philosophical bases and a large contribution to the field
have ignited a proliferation of research on behalf of education on world music. A wide variety of
studies of world music education in the classroom have abounded, with extensive contributions
to various approaches to teaching world music, including philosophical issues and their
impending implications. I describe a selection of them ahead.
Empirical Studies Concerning World Music Education
Chen-Hafteck’s (2007) multiple case studies involved a sociocultural approach to
teaching world music which focused on how music “reflects people’s lifestyles and ways of
thinking across cultural boundaries” (p. 338), a concept supported both by Campbell and Nettl.
30

With the participation of five general classroom teachers and one social studies specialist, Chen-
Hafteck provided teachers with a comprehensive curriculum guidebook with a CD, videotape,
and other materials. She trained the teachers on the implementation of the materials and lesson
structure. Her design consisted of a 10-week-long student-centered curriculum that included
hands-on activities, creative projects that were presented as a final project, active listening,
singing, playing of folk songs, and creating Chinese music. The curriculum contained cross-
curricular activities in art, dance, and social science, and included information on the daily life of
people in China and their regional songs, philosophies of Chinese people and music for self-
cultivation, and music and dances for festival celebrations. Chinese guest artists gave live
musical demonstrations in the classroom. Reports, evaluations, and student reports revealed that
after exposing 250 fifth and sixth grade students in three New York schools to Chinese music
and culture using her self-designed curriculum, positive associations including an increase in
cultural music and knowledge, increase in learning motivation, increase in positive attitudes
toward people of other cultures, and increased self-confidence in students of minority cultures
are possible, with consideration to teaching approaches and environmental factors (2007).
Neto, Da Conceiçao Pinto, and Mullet’s (2016) quantitative study examined the impact of
a cross-cultural music program on implicit and explicit anti-dark-skin prejudice of 229
Portuguese adolescents aged 12-14. The authors created an experimental group and a control
group from a random selection of five schools in Lisbon, Portugal. The classroom teachers
administered twenty 90-minute sessions of a cross-cultural musical education program over six
months in which Portuguese songs (Fado), Cape Verdean songs (Morna) and cultural
background on Cape Verde and Boa Vista Island were presented. Cape Verdean and Portuguese
songs were presented in alternate sessions. Songs such as “Nos Morna” by Ildo Lobo, fado “Os
31

Puto” by Carlos do Carmo, morna “Sodade” by Cesá ria É vora, and fado “Tudo isto é fado” by
Amá lia Rodrigues were used for active listening, interpretation, and analysis, choreography, and
illustration. Four measurements were taken during the process for both the experimental and
control groups: pretest, post-test, a post-test 3 months after the conclusion of data collection, and
a post-test for 60 of the participants two years after the conclusion of data collection. The tests
used were the Implicit Association Test (Greenwald, McGhee, & Schwartz, 1998; Nosek et al,.
2009) that is commonly used to show various kinds of prejudice, and the Explicit Anti-Dark Skin
Attitude Test (Greenwald et al., 1998) in which attitude toward skin-tone was measured on a 7-
point scale, ranging from 0 (‘I strongly prefer dark-skinned people to light-skinned people) to 6
(‘I strongly prefer light-skinned people to dark-skinned people). Findings revealed that after
exposing the experimental group to the world music curriculum, there was a reduction in anti-
dark skin prejudice for all three post-tests in the experimental group, but no reduction in the
control group. The study implied the impact that teachers and policy makers could have on
students’ views and attitudes about people of other cultures by implementing a curriculum of
music of another culture.
Mars, Saether, and Folkestad (2015) conducted a sociocultural and ethnomusicological
case study in which adolescent students from Sweden and the Gambia learned from and
interacted with each other for a concert project in The Gambia. The learning exchange included
singing, dancing, and playing instruments. Students from the Gambia learned music based on
oral culture in which improvisation is often a natural part, while Swedish students were notation-
based in their learning and relied on sheet music. The authors collected data over 12 years using
multiple tools, and a portion of their findings are exemplified in the detailed descriptions of cases
of two of the students who were paired up for the project: Alieu from the Gambia who played the
32

kora, and Anna from Sweden who played the piano. The two students met four times and each
taught the other how to play each other’s instruments. They also played together. The activities
for music learning included “listening, repetition, watching, writing things down, explaining
verbally, and using several tools simultaneously” (Mars et al., 2015, p. 302). Field observations
and interviews with the adolescents showed that their musical and cultural backgrounds
influenced their teaching and learning methods and choice of learning tools more than their own
musical learning choices. The authors suggested that teachers should reflect on their teaching
methods and create a learning environment that would best fit students’ learning styles rather
than teach ‘how they were taught’. Each culture’s different teaching traditions was embodied in
each of the two adolescents and were highlighted when the two students interacted. This cross-
cultural study shows ways of teaching a culture’s music is embedded within cultural practices
and the relevance of teaching methods in each culture.
Manns (2007) wrote about African music teaching and learning systems, pointing out the
difference between etic and emic views of African music. She noted that the main purpose of
education in Africa is socialization, and the role that music plays in this context are many,
including social, religious, political, economic, and health purposes. Some tasks may be
considered musical while others are extramusical, but the learning of the tasks are practical and
involve “participation and exploration in musical activities, discussion, and utilization of
heuristic support systems such as mnemonics” (Manns, 2007, p. 808). Manns brought an emic
perspective to research on African music, offering much insight into various aspects of African
musical teaching and learning by professionals and village musicians, including musician
families, apprenticeship, secret societies, professional guilds and cults, ritual events and
transitions, dreaming, visions and spirits, and encouragement of music engagement in the home
33

during a child’s early years. Most relevant to this study are the early childhood years, in which
the mother-child relationship plays a key role. Manns described how the child first learns the
mother’s musicality in the rhythm of her walk while the child is tied to her back, feeling the
mother working or dancing. As the child gains exposure to other elders and children, singing and
improvisation through dance, song, games, and storytelling are encouraged (Manns, 2007).
Manns also discussed music as it is influenced by colonialism and technology, among other
contemporary issues. With her statement that “research methods and philosophies still emerged
from foreign thinking and did not expose indigenous thinking” (Manns, 2007, p. 805), her
insider’s view offered an integral contribution to the fields of ethnomusicology and music
education.
Gluschankof (2008) conducted a videoethnography study in which three kindergarten
schools in Israel were observed. She provided a rare glimpse into the findings from two of the
schools in an article that compared a non-urban state-sponsored Jewish kindergarten located
approximately 60 kilometers north-east of Tel-Aviv with an urban Arab kindergarten in a
Church-operated school in Nazareth that was run by Franciscan nuns. Over seven months,
Gluschankof (2008) observed children aged 4-5 years in both schools in their music making
activities. From 19 hours of video recording, her research involved identifying meaningful
musical expressions, transcribing the data, and searching for emerging patterns within them.
Findings revealed that Jewish children seemed to share an overall structure in their music
making, which involved an initial stage of ‘warming up’, a development of musical expression of
which the musical gestures were similar to each other, and an ending section often by a non-
musical gesture, as they seemed unsure of how to end musically. The Arab children tended to
walk around the classroom with a single instrument, sometimes playing it and sometimes not.
34

Though percussion instruments such as castanets, bells, and maracas were available, students
seemed to be highly attracted to the darbouka with two mallets. On it, they were observed
playing ‘massmoudi khabir’, a well-known rhythmic pattern in Arab music. Both groups of
children seemed to explore timbres of instruments, which was in line with the findings of
Swanwick and Tillman (1986), Smithrim (1997), Glover (2000), Gluschankof (2003), and Cohen
(1987). With western music focusing less on timbre than other musics, Gluschankoff (2008)
suggested that “young children, regardless of their culture, found more in common with non-
western musical styles than western ones” (p. 324). This revealed important implications in
support of teaching world musics to children.
Marsh (2002) conducted an ethnomusicological study on two Aboriginal communities in
contrasting school settings in Tennant Creek, Australia. Through video and audio recordings,
field notes, and unstructured interviews with Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal children and
Aboriginal elders, she observed and compared the characteristics of Aboriginal and non-
Aboriginal children’s playground games. She looked into song “transmission, generative
practices, musical, linguistic and kinesthetic features and influence of the media and other adult
sources” (Marsh, 2002, p. 5) and found that much of Aboriginal children’s song knowledge was
mediated by TV, tapes, CDs and mainstream media, that Aboriginal language was shifting, and
that song transmission was affected by these influences as well. She noted that “the way in which
rhythmic features of the original European models were changed when translated in Warumungu
[language]” was evident when observing intercultural transmission processes (Marsh, 2002, p.
8). Children in both settings transmitted games through observation and participation after
watching the whole activity, with physical proximity and physical contact with others. They also
were observed improvising new song texts, music, and movements to the song games.
35

Aboriginal children often reported to her that they learned clapping games from extended family
members in their community rather than friends. Marsh (2002) also stressed the importance of
working collaboratively with the communities that are being researched to provide them with a
voice and to work together in preservation and dissemination of their cultural heritage, in this
case by sharing the findings with the Aboriginal Language and Culture Centre to help schools
and teachers create “culturally appropriate music and language programs” (p. 5). Marsh’s study
revealed many different dimensions to studying the music of a culture, including how the
children of the culture learn and teach it, the technological influences on their learned songs,
cross-cultural teaching of the songs and how they change due to the nature of rhythms in
language, and the responsibility of the researcher to use the findings in ways that will contribute
positively to the community being researched.
With this ever-growing amount of research done on world musics from the lens of
ethnomusicology and music education, there is a clear interest and support for world music
education. With this support comes philosophical issues that surround the various ways we teach
and think about world music.
Philosophical Issues Surrounding World Music Education
Aside from experimental research and case studies, some scholars have focused on
philosophical issues concerning world music education. Schippers and Cain (2010) examined
three case studies that focused on issues on the choices made in teaching, including breadth
versus depth, pedagogical approaches that range from more passive methods to more active
methods, and methods of transmission, conscious instrument choices, and language with
awareness and cultural sensitivity. Their first case study used to demonstrate these issues was
seen in St. Peter’s Lutheran College in Brisbane, Australia, where the music program was strong
36

and generously supported by the administration. The college had a strong traditional and
conservative approach to their schooling, seen in their successful concert band, string, and choral
programs, but their musical practices did not live up to their mission statement which promoted
equity, diversity, and multiculturalism, which was seen through their exclusive music education
of European “art” music. This first case questioned the alignment of pedagogical approaches to
the school’s mission. In the second case study, De Dapperschool in Amsterdam was comprised
of a diverse student population ranging from Turkey, Morocco, and Surinam, among other
places. The music program at the school, “Drumming Around the World”, involved guest artists
who presented drumming techniques from West Africa using the darbuka, djembe, and conga
(although the conga originates from Cuba), yet no background information was given about the
instruments; it was a purely sonic experience. Tradition, authenticity, and context in this situation
were question marks. After the drumming program, five music teachers at De Dapperschool
successfully devised a program to extend study on diverse musics, and through this they
demonstrated that no single teacher is expected to be an expert on many cultures, there are other
ways to learning world music than passively listening to a few musical examples, and music
education pedagogies can be applied to teaching culturally diverse musics. In the third case
study, the Singapore American School was an example of flexibility in teaching world music.
Students learned Javanese gamelan with the strictest adherence to traditional learning techniques
possible, yet they added electric guitar and drum kit to their ensemble, integrating modern band
of the 21
st
century. Though they would not be playing in a palace where Javanese gamelan might
be traditionally performed, they still studied with seriousness, with five years of spiraled learning
comprised of modeling and repetition. Schippers and Cain (2010) observe several factors in the
success of a culturally diverse program:
37

First: support for the diversity of the student population is an expectation of the teaching
environment and is advocated through the school’s philosophy and curriculum. In
addition, the school recognized the advantages of a culturally inclusive approach.
Second: more than adequate funding is provided for guest artist performances,
instruments, books, and recordings as well as a culturally sensitive music series. Third: a
strong professional development program encourages teachers to learn new skills on a
regular basis and to upgrade their professional qualifications. Fourth: parental and
administrative support allows culturally inclusive programs to flourish. (p. 171)
These three case studies stress the importance of moving beyond rhetoric and pursuing actual
practice, complexities of tradition, authenticity, and context in the classroom, and finally, that
cultural diversity is central to 21
st
-century music making.
Other issues in the teaching and learning of world music have also been debated. Reimer
(2002) compiled a collection of essays from 13 music education scholars on thoughts about
issues in teaching and learning world music. These scholars included: Terese M. Volk, Anthony
J. Palmer, Peter Dunbar-Hall, Elizabeth Oehrle, Robert W. Stephens, Anthony Seeger, Ellen
McCullough-Brabson, Milagros Agostini Quesada, Bryan Burton, C. Victor Fung, Rita Klinger,
Kathy Robinson, and Patricia Shehan Campbell. In it, he stated that in the wave of world music
education practices following the Tanglewood Symposium, “theoretical work establishing a
sound basis for practice, probing the complexities and conundrums of the multicultural idea and
pointing out possible misunderstandings, impracticalities, abuses, and confusions, was far
outstripped by immediately usable material and methodologies” (Reimer, 2002, p. 4). His
collection of essays gathered from the Northwestern University Music Education Leadership
Seminar in 1998 discuss the “health and vitality of the world musics movement and the doubts,
38

reservations, and unresolved dilemmas that face them in their work” (Reimer, 2002, p. 5). At the
time, the term “multicultural music education” was still somewhat widely used; though it is now
trending more toward “world music education.” Importantly, I will use the term “multicultural
music education” in this section to stay in alignment with the thought processes at the time.
In the collection of essays (Reimer, 2002), scholars wrote about various issues pertaining
to multicultural music education. Volk (2002) discussed “outsiders” becoming “insiders” and the
challenges involved in being bimusical in an authentic manner. Palmer focused on music as a
primary way to achieve humanness and on how music can be learned given differences in
musical interests and cultures. Dunbar-Hall (2002) warned educators of approaching world
music with Western preconceptions and the possibility of it being perceived as colonialism.
Stephens (2002) discussed various definitions of multiculturalism and asserted that we must
address racism. He wrote that in order to support students to appreciate diverse cultures, teachers
must “prepare all students for the realities of living in a racially, ethnically, socially, and
culturally pluralistic world” (p. 98). Anthony Seeger (2002) suggested ways in which world
musics can be incorporated in school programs, social studies, and through independent student
studies. He stressed that students must take what they’ve learned and apply it to the real world.
Agostini Quesada (2002) explored the different meanings of multiculturalism and urged teachers
to become familiar with a music in order to gain confidence in teaching it. Fung (2002) set forth
four fundamental positions about teaching world music in American schools: 1) musics have a
cultural context, 2) musics provide experiences beyond sound, 3) musics are changeable and
fluid, and 4) diversity is a valuable resource in the society (pp. 189-194). Robinson drew a
picture of what multicultural music education in the general elementary music classroom might
look like. Campbell closed the volume with her personal experiences in the field as teacher,
39

scholar, and musician and urged teachers to acquire the varied knowledge of world musics that
they need in order to teach what they are interested in. Reimer’s (2002) collection summed up
the challenges that teachers of world music must face in order to be successful in their endeavors
and expressed his own conservative views, attesting to a “weak infrastructure of support” (p.
191) for world music. In the past 17 years since the publication of these seminal essays, music
educators have continued to navigate the issues brought forth, but substantial research in support
of world music education has proliferated, strengthening this infrastructure.
Schippers (2010) pointed out how Canadian philosopher David Elliott (1995) challenged
Reimer’s (2002) caution by writing strongly in support of world music education and
encouraging taking a praxial approach. Schippers points out two key statements, first in Elliott’s
support: “If music consists in a diversity of music cultures, then music is inherently
multicultural. And if music is inherently multicultural, then music education ought to be
multicultural in essence” (Elliott, 1995, p. 207). And second, in his suggested application:
If it is accurate to say that music education functions as culture as much as it functions in
relation to culture, then induction into unfamiliar musical cultures offers something few
other forms of education can provide. A truly multicultural MUSIC curriculum connects
the individual self with the personhood of other musicers and audiences in other times
and places. And the effectiveness of music in this regard resides in its essential nature as
praxis: as thinking-in-action. A MUSIC curriculum centered on the praxial teaching and
learning of a reasonable range of music cultures (over a span of months and years) offers
students the opportunity to achieve a central goal of humanistic education: self-
understanding through “other-understanding. (Elliott, 1995, p. 209)
40

While Schippers and Cain (2010) reviewed underlying philosophies of schools that either
support or hinder world music education in various ways, Reimer (2002) drew on works of other
scholars to take a deeper look at the challenges faced by world music education. Elliott is
forthright in his support for world music education through praxis as a way to understand
ourselves by understanding others.
Patricia Shehan Campbell strongly supports world music education, which is evident in
her primary role in World Music Pedagogy. The basis of her support lies in the cultural diversity
that exists and the unavoidable globality that children live in today, with information and media
from nearby to across the world available to them. She called on music educators to be
responsible for creating musically democratic classroom environments and drew on empirical
research that showed positive results from teaching world music curriculum (Campbell, 2016).
She recognized the rise of world music education from the field of ethnomusicology and pointed
out that through world music education, students can be taught in a cross-cultural way. Through
world music education, she stated, one can “build musical skills, musical and cultural
knowledge, and cultural sensitivity to music and musicians of local neighborhoods and distance
places across the planet” (Campbell, 2016, p. 90). Campbell is perhaps the most visible supporter
of world music education today.
Music educators have pooled together a knowledge base of breadth and discussed at great
depth the various philosophical issues and implications of world music education in the
classroom. Common musical cultures of study include India, the middle east, China, Kenya,
Japan, Malaysia, Indonesia, Korea, and various countries in Africa. Despite the increasing
resources on world music, many musical cultures remain to be part of the world music
curriculum studied in educational settings, one of which is Vietnamese music. Although there
41

exists scholarship on musical cultures of Vietnam, it is not widely known to be a musical culture
that is commonly studied in the classroom. An exploration of existing research on Vietnamese
music will help identify what may be lacking in such resources and what areas could stand to be
further developed.
Vietnamese Music
Among the vast array of studies on musical cultures of the world, studies on Vietnamese
music hold a modest place in the annals of research. From an ethnomusicological lens, Tran Van
Khe is an authority on traditional Vietnamese music, having authored articles such as
“Vietnamese culture and music” in 1978, “Present and future preservation of and presentation of
traditional music” in 1977, “L’acculturation dans les traditions musicales de l’Asie” in 1974,
“The ‘Juke-Box’ crisis in Asian music” in 1973, and “The Non-Acceptance of the unfamiliar” in
1969. At the time when there was meager attention paid to Vietnamese music, Khe’s works
pushed for its recognition by the research community and paved the road for future scholars in
the arena. Janse (1962) reports on the origins of Vietnamese music which, through archeological
evidence such as flutes, cymbals, and drums, contain Western influences that date back
approximately two millennia. Cannon (2016) also reports on traditional music, albeit in the
modern landscape, and discusses the challenges in creating genres of Vietnamese music. Norton
(2018), on the other hand, reports on the northern and central Vietnamese vocal music genre of
ca trù and the culture and society that surrounds it. Wettermark and Lundstrom (2016) have
explored the ways that ca trù has evolved for sustainability in modern times. Gibbs (2003, 2008)
takes an interest in French colonial influences on Vietnamese music. McClellan (2009) homed in
on musical instruction in colonial Hanoi as a tool for colonial power while Rosen (1998) held
interests tied to music education, including piano pedagogy techniques and history of piano and
42

music institutions in Vietnam. Jähnichen (2018) presents a comprehensive list of terminology for
Vietnamese musical terms and their English translations. Most recently, young scholars have
taken an interest in traditional instruments such as the đà n bầ u (monochord; Beebe, 2017). On
musical theatre, some studies have been produced (Bù i, 1999; Hauch, 1972; Trainor, 1977; Tran,
2017). More studies exist pertaining to the same topics surrounding instruments (organology),
genres, and history, including ones originating from Vietnam and France, but none address
children’s music.
The only text from the above search that mentions children is in Khe’s (1977) article
pushing for musico-cultural preservation in which he stated that a group of children aged 6-10 in
Vietnam was being taught Vietnamese traditional instruments. In support of present and future
preservation of traditional music, Khe recounted the thousands upon thousands of
ethnomusicological archives that exist in libraries, depositories, and museums around the world
containing recordings, photographs, and slides. He considered archiving a passive process of
preservation and urged for active preservation through performance. He cited several examples
in which young people are learning traditional musics of their respective cultures, including the
Solomon Islands, Venezuela, Vietnam, and Iran. Khe wrote with the broader picture in mind of
presenting in one text the various ways in which traditional musics throughout the world are
being preserved. He urged for performance through concerts, tours, festivals, active preservation
through teaching and learning, and notes that up until then, the initiative had been privately
supported rather than supported by governments. He further suggested that for future
preservation, 1) bodies must offer technical and financial support to record all styles of music,
“no strings attached”, 2) teaching and presentation must continue, 3) young people should create
new music in traditional styles, and 4) concerns about preservation should be made visible to
43

cultural policies of nations and international organizations (Khe, 1977, p. 73). Through this
article, Khe revealed himself as not only a culture bearer for Vietnamese traditional music but a
spokesperson for the preservation of all world musics. He contributed a breadth of information
on international music-preservation happenings, which consequently belied the need for a deeper
look into how the youth of Vietnam and its diasporic community were at the time (and continue
to today) preserving traditional music.
French Colonialism and the Westernization of Vietnamese Music
Because this study focuses on the years 1931-1975, it is fitting to examine the literature
that provides historical background for the music of this time. This would chronicle the French
influence on Vietnamese music, as French colonialists occupied Vietnam between 1880-1954.
In 1880, the French succeeded in colonizing Vietnam. Along with them, they brought
their music, the chanson. Many Vietnamese, particularly in South Vietnam, became enamored
with French culture. Musicians started writing songs in the style of French chanson (Gibbs,
2003). The French introduced the music conservatory to Vietnam (Rosen, 1998), where boys
were encouraged to learn violin and girls to learn piano (M. Nguyen, personal communication,
June 2018).
The French chanson, introduced in the late 19
th
century, set the scene for 20
th
-century
Vietnamese songwriters who would write chanson-like songs with Western tonalities but with
Vietnamese lyrics and melodies that were amenable to the Vietnamese language. Lyrics
contained characteristic tonal inflections with tonal ornamentations that were unique to the
Vietnamese language. These inflections and ornamentations came from previous musical
practices such as Vietnamese theater (cả i lương) or sung oral folk poems (ca dao). The style of
music was Western, but the lyrics stayed true to Vietnamese values based on family, love, virtue,
44

and for females, purity (Olsen, 2008). Famous songwriters such as Phạ m Duy and Phạ m Dì nh
Chương (no relation) wrote hundreds of songs in this style. These diatonic songs became well-
known and loved by the Vietnamese masses and are now generally considered iconic
representations of Vietnamese music.
Western influence affected children’s songs as well. Some songs had documented
songwriters while others remained uncredited. These included songs such as: “Kì a Con Bướ m
Và ng” (Yellow Butterfly, a musical parallel to “Frè re Jacques”), “Trong Kì a Con Voi” (Look,
There’s an Elephant), “Rướ c Đè n Thá ng Tá m” (Let’s Get Our August Lanterns), “Con Mè o Treo
Len Cay Cau” (Cat Climbing on a Tree), and many more. These are the children’s songs that
many Vietnamese Americans are mostly familiar with.
Forging New Identities Through Contemporary Vietnamese American Music
Nhi T. Lieu (2011) and Jason Nguyen (2012) examined mainstream diasporic popular
Vietnamese music production in the form of popular variety shows and their role in Vietnamese
American and Vietnamese diasporic identity. Lieu (2011) discussed the creation of a diasporic
Vietnamese identity post-Vietnam War and their connective identity through the entertainment
of these variety shows. These productions, which were created after the Vietnam War by
refugees, are comprised of live large-scale entertainment productions in grand theaters that are
filmed in Paris, the United States, and occasionally elsewhere in the world outside of Vietnam.
They are distributed as cassette tapes, videotapes, compact discs, karaoke laserdiscs, and DVDs.
These shows feature famous Vietnamese American singers, some of whom dress traditionally
and sing older folk songs and war songs, while other younger singers will sing covers of
American pop songs or newly written Vietnamese pop songs, all while scantily clad and gyrating
on stage with backup dancers. Occasionally there is a short comedic sketch, traditional
45

instrument feature, and sometimes even a short fashion show feature of the latest modern
iterations of the traditional Vietnamese dress, the “á o dà i”. Attending a live show is both a
glamorous social outing and an opportunity for several hours of nostalgia in revisiting one’s
favorite singers and songs. These variety shows have become so well-known that any person of
Vietnamese heritage recognizes the meanings behind the advertisement posters on restaurant
windows or through videos that are being played on TV inside the restaurants as people dine
(Lieu, 2011). Lieu (2011) stated that “their ubiquity across national and state boundaries attests
to the global circulation of Vietnamese cultural production and the transnational character of the
Vietnamese diaspora” (p. xi).
Lieu (2011) juxtaposed two different images of Vietnamese Americans: the first is the
refugee, who is war-torn, crestfallen, and tied to trauma, while the second is the tantalizing,
joyous Vietnamese singer on stage. She did this to illustrate how:
The first image paralyzes us if we limit ourselves to seeing the Vietnamese experience as
such, while the second image has the potential to deepen and expand our cultural
knowledge about these people and their desires to live their lives free from the constraints
of the first image. (Lieu, 2011, p. xii)
Some Vietnamese Americans would identify with both images, while others would probably
hold on to one or the other more strongly. While many people of the older generation of
Vietnamese Americans, who were refugees, held on to traditionally conservative values, they
still enjoyed, for the most part, the variety shows despite the presence of images that didn’t
necessarily align with their values. The shows gave them a way to reminisce and safeguard their
memories, but they also offered an opportunity to express reservations about the sexualized
imagery in the shows and how this would influence the identities of the next generation of
46

Vietnamese Americans. The shows made visible the duality of the Vietnamese identity, but
within this, made clear their cultural progress and success in the aftermath of war. Lieu (2011)
argues that Vietnamese cultural productions such as these variety shows “privilege a “new”
diasporic Vietnamese subjectivity, shedding an “impoverished refugee” image for a new hybrid
bourgeois ethnic identity” (p. xxiv).
Jason Nguyen (2012) referred to the same variety shows that Lieu (2011) did, including
Asia and Thú y Nga Productions, and noted how some embraced these shows while others, often
younger 2
nd
generation Vietnamese Americans, rejected them altogether, and in this act were
negotiating their identities. He wrote that the Vietnamese American identity was a “contingent
identity used at particular times in response to particular needs. Sometimes, this means that one
emphasizes a sense of being Vietnamese in America. At other times, one emphasizes an idea of
being an American of Vietnamese-descent” (J. Nguyen, 2012, p. 130). He stated that being
“Vietnamese” and being “Vietnamese American” did have distinctions but that those distinctions
were drawn according to the context of necessity, often for social purposes. For instance, it may
be fine to perform a certain song for an American audience, as they would perceive it to be
coming from a Vietnamese person, but that same song might not be received positively in the
Vietnamese American audience depending on nuances of political association. J. Nguyen wrote
(2012),“the song represented multiple discrete meanings activated at different times rather than
some hybrid meaning present at all times” (p. 53). Likewise, Vietnamese American identity
follows certain cultural nuances, such as in what context one sees oneself as Vietnamese and in
what context one identifies as Vietnamese American.
47

Older Vietnamese Americans, many of whom were refugees, identify themselves in
various ways that unveil a peek into identity politics. J. Nguyen (2012) described the various
labels of identification:
…”Vietnamese in foreign seas” (người Việt hải ngoạ i), “Vietnamese far from home”
(người Việt xa xứ) or even “free Vietnamese” (người Việt tự do). The names signify the
importance of laying claim to Vietnam as home, with a nostalgic emphasis on being far
from home. The last title, “free Vietnamese,” indicates how some overseas Vietnamese
lay claim to the ideological and political high-ground when comparing themselves to
Vietnam. (p. 55)
As will be seen later on, five out of six of the participants in this study, being older and
former refugees or immigrants, are from the very generation that J. Nguyen (2012) described.
Because they are political refugees, they may very well grapple with the issues concerning
identity that Lieu (2011) and J. Nguyen discuss.
As a result of the political divide between Vietnamese refugees and Vietnamese who
remained in Vietnam, cultural practices diverged, and the variety shows produced outside of
Vietnam were the most emblematic of this. Most of the songs presented in the variety shows
were songs written by beloved songwriters who wrote songs before 1975. Songs that were
composed before 1975 were cherished by refugees as nostalgic memories as they held onto the
memories of Vietnam as they knew it, while in Vietnam, new music was being composed. The
songs composed before 1975 and loved by refugees, often love songs, became known as “yellow
music” or nhạ c và ng, while revolutionary songs composed after 1975 were referred to as “red
music” or nhạ c đỏ . Minh Nguyen (2012) stepped into the musico-political arena by discussing
this complex musical divide and its meanings to both those in and outside of Vietnam, further
48

adding layers to Vietnamese identity. He reported that the term “yellow music” was coined by
the Communist Party in Vietnam post 1975 in order to “undermine the cultural practices that
were seen to be of the South (Vietnam)” and that it had the “rhetoric and ideological baggage of
being Western (French and American) and inauthentic Vietnamese culture” (M. Nguyen, 2012,
p. 3). Although Communist Vietnamese would consider it a negative term, across the diaspora
“yellow music” has evolved to become a celebrated word, embodying pride for the culture and
heritage of South Vietnam (M. Nguyen, 2012). M. Nguyen (2012) notes that another term for
contemporary Vietnamese music is “new music”, or tân nhá c, and is used to refer to “popular
music in South Vietnam and the diaspora” (p. 9). It is a less politically charged term and is
considered an umbrella term for contemporary music, within which “yellow music” lies (M.
Nguyen, 2012). A Vietnamese or Vietnamese American might very well be aware of the
sensitivities involved in identifying themselves as a fan of “yellow music” or “new music”.
Campbell (2010a) described Vietnamese American identity much more generally through
the holidays they celebrate and the music that they make. She stated that they connect with
Vietnamese identity through holiday celebrations such as the Vietnamese New Year or Tế t, with
Vietnamese music recordings playing in the background during the meal, occasionally breaking
into song, and singing karaoke versions of newly arranged folk songs. She also mentioned
younger generations connecting to their heritage by taking lessons on traditional instruments
such as the zither or đà n tranh or traditional dance. Although this portrait is accurate in some
cases, as in any culture, situations vary widely depending on the home, and in some cases, these
cultural and musical moments are dissipating altogether. However, there are some overarching
challenges that immigrants and refugees share regardless of their country of origin. For
Vietnamese in America such as the participants in this study (with the exception of the one who
49

remains in Vietnam), the struggle lies within the realm of moving from the identity of ‘political
refugee’ to ‘Vietnamese American’.
Vietnamese American Immigrant and Refugee Identity: Drastic Changes, New Perceptions
Immigrants and refugees face a unique situation in that in emigrating to another country;
they find themselves negotiating between their former identity and new identity. Those who
claim one resident country their entire lives generally see themselves as a citizen of that country,
while those who settle in a different country from that which they were born identify with their
country of origin, formulate a new identity in the country in which they moved to, and/or seek
balance between their old and new identities. The balance involves different cultural values,
social norms, and accepted ways of being. In this study, five of the participants’ countries of
origin are Vietnam, and they have all sought new identities after their settlement in Westminster,
California. One participant remains in Vietnam to the present and has never emigrated. Certainly,
differences in self-identification exist between immigrants and non-immigrants; these have to do
not only with cultural differences and political beliefs (as five of the participants were refugees
from the Vietnam War, fleeing from persecution for their anti-communist stances) but also how
they perceive their past.
The arrival of Vietnamese refugees came in several waves (Reyes, 1999). Before 1975,
just before the fall of Saigon, Reyes (1999) reported that a United States company had relocated
some of its Vietnamese employees to Hoboken, New Jersey. They were comprised of highly
skilled, moderately affluent women and men and their families from Saigon. Then, what was
considered the first wave of refugees, she recounted, consisted of a similar demographic who
fled as the fall of Saigon became official. They too were well educated from South Vietnam who
had contact with Americans. Many left by plane and were in United States holding centers for a
50

short period before settling into areas spread across the United States (Reyes, 1999). The second
wave of refugees consisted of those who left after 1977, had experienced life under Communist
rule and were known as boat people, as they fled by boat (Reyes, 1999). Reyes expressed that
many came alone, leaving their families behind for various reasons, one common reason being
not having enough money to pay those who were controlling the boats. Once settled in the
United States, refugees began the process of starting life anew. As discussed in Chapter 4, five of
the six participants in this study consist of former refugees from both the first and second wave.
These five participants all ultimately settled in Orange County, California, where I interviewed
them.
In Orange County’s “Little Saigon” enclave, situated in Westminster, California (see
Figure 2.1), the largest population of Vietnamese outside of Vietnam reside. Here, Vietnamese
refugees, immigrants, and even some Vietnamese study abroad students live, work, and play. At
the focus of the 6-mile stretch lined with Vietnamese shops and restaurants is the Asian Garden
Mall, an iconic commercial center of Little Saigon where one can find jewelry, food, night
markets, orchids, and any other Vietnamese commodity, including music (Aguilar San-Juan,
2009; Reyes, 1999). Within the mall, contemporary music or tân nhạ c bombards the visitor from
any of the six audio and video stores located throughout the mall’s two levels. Most of the songs
played are in the style of cha-cha, bolero, rhymba, tango, pop, or rock, with Vietnamese lyrics,
and some of these songs might have zither, bamboo flute, or other traditional instruments in the
arrangement (Reyes, 1999). These are styles of music that Vietnamese identify with as their own,
as they are the songs that they danced and sang to in clubs during French colonization in
Vietnam in the early 1900s.
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Figure 2.1. Map of “Little Saigon” in Westminster, California. Adapted from “File:USA
California Southern location map.svg,” by NordNordWest, derivative work: Banaticus, 2011,
Commons.wikimedia.org. Retrieved from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/
File:USA_California_Southern_location_map.svg. Copyright 2011 by NordNordWest
(https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:NordNordWest). Reprinted courtesy of the Copyright
Holder under a Creative Commons License CC BY 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/
by/3.0)

Although Vietnamese immigrants and refugees were unified in identity by the fact they
were of the same culture and spoke the same language, nuances within the community created
different layers of Vietnamese identity. Reyes (1999) wrote that Tri Nguyen, a counselor at a
community college in Westminster, California who had worked with hundreds of Vietnamese
students since 1976, delineated these various nuances by describing Vietnamese in America by
the dyad of evacuee and refugee. The evacuee was described as one who was “either evacuated
by Americans or who left with the Americans in the fall of Saigon” while refugees were those
who had “escaped from the communist regime on foot or by boat” (Reyes, 1999, p. 109).
Evacuees were generally skilled urban professionals who had been trained by or worked with the
French or Americans, while refugees were generally farmers, fishermen, coastal, and of different
ethnicities (Reyes, 1999). Essentially, Tri Nguyen considered evacuees as those who fled in the
first wave, while refugees were of the second wave (Reyes, 1999). Reyes reported that an
52

informant saw the difference in psychological and emotional wounds between the dyad; those
who were from the second wave had experienced life under communist rule and were often
scared. They had been through the experience of lengthy, dangerous escapes, usually only
successful after multiple attempts, and had spent long periods in refugee camps. As such, they
often were more vocal about their anti-communism. Despite this difference, both first wave and
second wave refugees (or evacuees and refugees) faced the same challenges upon their arrival in
the United States. These included language barriers, feelings of isolation, helplessness or loss of
control, having to deal with stereotypes imposed on them, navigating between two identities,
concerted efforts to fit in to the new culture and navigating feelings of how their new identity
colored the way they saw their past (Aguilar San-Juan, 2009; Ilari, 2006; Reyes, 1999; Sout-
Manning, 2007).
Immigrant Struggles
The struggle to find a new identity in a new country is seen in Souto-Manning’s (2007)
account of a Latino mother who changes the name of her youngest son to an American name in
order to give him a new identity in the new country. She did this for various reasons, the main
one being trying to ensure her son’s success in school in the United States. Latino immigrants
often face various challenges, such as prejudice, stereotypes, and rejection by mass media. The
author reveals her empathy for the mother and son, as she faced a similar internal conflict in her
youth. As a youth, she had wished that she could change her own Brazilian name to an American
one to blend in with other kids. The process of the name change plays a part in the assimilation
process, a beginning step that will also entail adapting to a new culture, language, and country.
From my lived experience, many Vietnamese Americans share the same story of changing their
names in an effort to “fit in”.
53

Ilari’s (2006) study on Dekasegi also addressed old and new identities as Brazilians of
Japanese descent traveled to Japan for work, experienced culture shock, and struggled to place
their identities. In searching for the role that music played in personal, cultural, and national
identities, Ilari found that Dekasegi often turned to older Brazilian music as a source of
familiarity and comfort while navigating their new lives in Japan. Similar to Souto-Manning
(2007), Ilari (2006) pointed out that stereotypes of people of other nations play a role in identity
construction as well. While Brazilians held the stereotype of being friendly but lazy at work,
Japanese held the stereotype of being hard workers. However, unlike Souto-Manning’s study in
which Latinos had to fight against a negative stereotype, Brazilian-Japanese were not seen as
lazy and did not have a negative stereotype attached to them in Brazil, but they were often
isolated and seen as different in Japan. Seeking comfort from feelings of isolation, the Dekasegi
listened to older Brazilian music that reminded them of the past. This was similar to Lieu’s
(2011) assessment that older Vietnamese refugees and immigrants sought music of the past for
nostalgic reasons. However, because of the limitations of living abroad, Dekasegi were not able
to follow the current trending music, whereas for Vietnamese in the diaspora chose not to listen
to new music being created in Vietnam for politically charged reasons. They chose instead to
listen to the music that represented the Vietnam in which they grew up. This created a temporal
rift which helped them hold on to the pleasant past rather than face the horrid present. Ilari
(2006) articulated,
Many people who live in foreign countries for a considerable period of time often
experience a time displacement that has a direct impact on their national, cultural, and
personal identities. This is concurrent with many studies that suggest immigrants’
perceptions of their countries and cultures to change in the course of time. In many cases,
54

immigrants’ perceptions of their countries become very dichotomous; they are idyllic or
detestable. (p. 128)
To diasporic Vietnamese, present perceptions of their home country had become
detestable, especially when Western and Western-style music was banned by the Communist
government. Ilari’s study illustrated the changing nature of immigrant identities, the complex
nature of navigating the old with the new, and how adapting to new situations can color
perceptions of the past. In this study, the participants who are older immigrants or former
refugees may perceive their past, not just around the time of their departure, but back to their
childhoods, differently than that of the Vietnamese participant who remained in Vietnam.
World Music Practicum Literature for Children
Many music texts exist for the teaching of world music to children in the classroom, yet
very few Vietnamese songs are present within them (refer to Table 2.2). Hal Leonard’s Music
Express Books series, Music of Our World: Multicultural Festivals, Songs and Activities
(Higgins, 2003) and More Music of Our World: Multicultural Songs and Activities for
Classroom and Community (Higgins & Shank, 2005) includes two musical repertoire and
instruction books that include cultural background, songs, and lesson plans. Music of Our World
includes songs from eight places around the globe appropriate for use with Grades 2-6: Japan,
India, Hawaii, Sweden, Brazil, Laos, South Africa, and Mexico. More Music of Our World
extends the series by including songs for Grades 4-6 from: Cuba, Zimbabwe, Africans in the
Americas, the Philippines, Latin songs, Arab songs, the Caribbean, and the Andes Mountains.
Alfred Music has published a colorful array of books celebrating multiculturalism, including
Traditional Songs of Singing Cultures: A World Sampler (Campbell, Williamson & Perron,
1996) with songs from Argentina, Barbados, Brazil, Canada, England, Eritrea, France, Hungary,
55

Japan, Korea, the Netherlands, New Zealand/Maori, Portugal, Taiwan, Uganda/Baganda, and the
United States, Songs of Latin America: From the Field to the Classroom (Campbell & Frega,
2001), Games Children Sing Around the World: Twelve Singing Games from Twelve Countries
(Ramsier, 2001) with songs from Belgium, Poland, Cyprus, Finland, France, Korea, Greece, and
Switzerland, and World Beat Fun: Multicultural and Contemporary Beat Rhythms for K-8
Classrooms (Wajler, 2002). Alfred also possesses a world music series entitled Games Children
Play in which each book of the series focuses on a specific country, its culture, and the songs and
games that children play. The selected countries include India (Kiester, 2005b), Japan (Kiester,
2005c), China (Kiester, 2005a), and Malaysia (Lew & Campbell, 2006). Though none of the
previous texts contained any Vietnamese songs, two Vietnamese songs offerings were found in
Roots and Branches: A Legacy of Multicultural Music for Children (Campbell, McCullough-
Brabson, & Tucker, 1994), “Cù m Nụ m Cù m Nị u” and “Qua Cầ u Gió Bay”. This book also
included music from African American traditions, Brazil, Cajun, Cambodia, China, Ecuador,
England, Eritrea, France, India, Iran, Ireland, Israel, Kiowa/Komanche, Korea, Japan, Malaysia,
Mozambique, Navajo, New Mexico, Puerto Rico, and Russia. It was published by World Music
Press, which specialized in world music materials for the classroom. World Music Press also
published From Rice Paddies and Temple Yards (P T. Nguyen & Campbell, 1991).
From Rice Paddies and Temple Yards (P. T. Nguyen & Campbell, 1991) is the only book
on traditional Vietnamese music that offers teachers practical applications for classroom use.
Leaning heavily on an ethnomusicological lens, the book introduces the historical and cultural
background of Vietnam over the first ten pages. The next 13 pages are devoted to musical forms
and organology (monochord, lute, zither, fiddles, and dulcimer). Following this, twelve lessons
dedicated to twelve songs provide guidance for exploring the traditional music of Vietnam with
56

the aid of a CD. Each lesson contains background information on the song of choice, sheet
music, listening and performance suggestions for the song, and a study guide to review musical
concepts and suggestions for creating one’s own rendition of the song. It is a thorough
investigation of traditional Vietnamese music and is appropriate for mature learners (sixth grade
and up), but the lessons can be simplified by the teacher who wishes to present it to younger
learners.
Music classroom texts for grade including K-5 Making Music (Beethoven et al., 2002),
Music Connection (Beethoven et al., 1995), Share the Music (Bond et al., 1995, 2003), and
Spotlight on Music (Bond et al., 2006) contain numerous folk and traditional songs from various
countries spread throughout their series while offering lessons that incorporate national music
education standards (Mason, 2010). Mason (2010) reports that the Silver Burdett Ginn (2002)
series contains over 4,000 songs from 107 countries, while the Macmillan McGraw Hill series
contains 3,665 songs from 100 countries. Of the Silver Burdett Ginn series’ 4000 songs, five (or
.12%) are songs from Vietnam. Of the Macmillan McGraw Hill series’ 3,665 songs, four (or
.1%) are from Vietnam. This contrasts with the high number of songs from Germany, of which
there are 123 (3.07%) in the Silver Burdett series and 118 (3.21%) in the Macmillan McGraw
Hill series. In my years of teaching, I recall seeing one publishing of the Vietnamese song,
“Rướ c Đè n Thá ng Tá m”, among these series, which was fraught with typos. Table 2.2 lists the
above works.
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Table 2.2.

Resources for World Music Education Appropriate for Classroom Settings for Children
Author Title (Year) Countries Addressed
Hal Leonard
Publisher.
Higgins
Music of Our World:
Multicultural Festivals,
Songs and Activities
(2003)
Japan, India, Hawaii, Sweden, Brazil, Laos,
South Africa, and Mexico
Higgins & Shank and More Music of Our
World: Multicultural
Songs and Activities for
Classroom and
Community (2005)
Cuba, Zimbabwe, Africans in the Americas,
the Philippines, Latin songs, Arab songs, the
Caribbean, and the Andes Mountains
Alfred Publisher.
Campbell,
Williamson &
Peron
Traditional Songs of
Singing Cultures: A
World Sampler (1996)
Argentina, Barbados, Brazil, Canada,
England, Eritrea, France, Hungary, Japan,
Korea, the Netherlands, New Zealand/Maori,
Portugal, Taiwan, Uganda/Buganda, and the
United States
Campbell &
Frega
Songs of Latin America:
From the Field to the
Classroom (2001)
Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Cuba, Guatemala,
Mexico, Puerto Rico, and Venezuela
Ed. Ramsier Games Children Sing
Around the World:
Twelve Singing Games
from Twelve Countries
(2001)
Belgium, Poland, Cyprus, Finland, France,
Korea, Greece, and Switzerland
Wajler World Beat Fun:
Multicultural and
Contemporary Beat
Rhythms for K-8
Classrooms (2002)
Asian, Middle Eastern, African with hip-hop,
Native American with hip-hop, North
American rock, Rain Forest, and salsa
Alfred Series Games Children Play
Series:
India (Kiester, 2005b),
Japan (Kiester, 2005c),
China (Kiester, 2005a),
Malaysia (Lew &
Campbell, 2006)
India, Japan, China, and Malaysia
58

Author Title (Year) Countries Addressed
Campbell,
McCullough-
Brabson, &
Tucker
Roots and Branches: A
Legacy of Multicultural
Music for Children
(1994)
African American traditions, Brazil, Cajun,
Cambodia, China, Ecuador, England, Eritrea,
France, India, Iran, Ireland, Israel,
Kiowa/Komanche, Korea, Japan, Malaysia,
Mozambique, Navajo, New Mexico, Puerto
Rico, and Russia
P. T. Nguyen &
Campbell
From Rice Paddies and
Temple Yards (1991)
Vietnam
Silver Burdett
Ginn Publisher
Making Music (2002)
Music Connection (1995)
107 countries, five songs from Vietnam
Macmillan
McGraw-Hill
Publisher
(Bond et al.)
Share the Music (1995,
2003)
Spotlight on Music (2006)
100 countries, four songs from Vietnam

Other Resources
Music education researchers have also produced much literature on children’s music
making throughout the world. Campbell and Wiggins’s (2013) Oxford Handbook of Children’s
Musical Cultures shares stories about 34 communities around the world, each with its unique
way of transmitting, teaching, learning, and musicking in general. Bringing together
contributions from ethnomusicologists, music educators, and also folklore experts and
developmental psychologists, this retrospective collection of studies brings together “the extent
of local music in children’s use, or in particular contexts in which children gather (e.g., schools,
homes, and playgrounds)” (Campbell & Wiggins, 2013, p. 2). In essence, it mingles the adult
scholar with the child’s point of view, providing:
Descriptions and assessments of the musical world of children in specific settings, their
enculturation, and possibilities for their musical education and training, the sources of
knowledge and materials, and the range of music available to them, taught, expressed,
invented, and preserved by them. (Campbell & Wiggins, 2013, p. 2)
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Western teaching methods have been applied to musics of various countries. Concerning
Ghana, there are song collections, teaching methods for American educators on Ghanaian
children’s music and studies of Ghanian children’s music making (Amoaku, 1971; Kubitsky,
1998; Pembrook & Robinson, 1997). Kubitsky (1998) draws parallels between traditional West
African approaches and Orff Schulwerk to suggest ways in which Western educators might teach
Ghanaian music in their classrooms. Music research on Kenya includes Kenyan teaching
methods (Freshwater, Sherwood, & Mbugua, 2008). Therese Volk (2006) writes about the
application of Thai music for general and instrumental music programs. Bryan Burton’s
recurring column “Multicultural Resources” in General Music Today provided practitioners with
information and reviews on world music teaching materials (Burton & Diliberto, 1999).
Much multimedia content also exists for world music education. An earlier resource,
Global Voices in Song (Goetze & Fern, 1999) is a CD-ROM series which acts as a supplement in
transmitting songs aurally and visually. Comprehensive online sources such as Smithsonian
Folkways Recordings (https://folkways.si.edu/) include 30-second clips of songs and liner notes
of songs from Vietnam, although no aid is offered in selecting appropriate songs for children in
the classroom or how to incorporate them into a lesson plan. One prominent website,
Mamalisa.com, has evolved tremendously in the past decade and has become a “go-to” source
for music educators seeking songs, rhymes, and poetry from around the world, and includes folk
songs, nursery songs, games, lyric translations to English, and occasionally audio or video
representations from YouTube of the song in question. Cultural context is provided when
possible but often includes only a few superficial comments if any, leaving the teacher to need to
explore more elsewhere if they desire a more in-depth understanding of the song. Sections for
forum discussions enjoy contribution from visitors who sometimes comment on other versions of
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songs they learned. Although it may not be academically researched, the website’s advantage lies
in its breadth in offering many songs from many countries and several ways to go about
searching for songs. One can search by continent, country, or language. The website contains
nine children’s songs from Vietnam, including “Đà n Chim Trắ ng” (A Flock of White Birds),
“Con Cò Bé Bé ” (A Little Baby Stork), “Chá u Yêu Bà ” (I Love You Granny), “Thằ ng Bờm Có
Cá i Quạ t Mo” (Little Fellow Mo), “Ming Mang Mung” (Ming Mang Mung), “Người Ơi Người
Ở Đừ ng Về ” (Oh, My Beloved! Stay With Me!), “Cá i Cò Cá i Vạ c Cá i Nông” (Oh Stork and
Night Heron), “Mộ t Con Vị t” (One Duck), and “Kì a Con Bướ m Và ng” (Yellow Butterfly).
There is a dearth in information about Vietnamese music as it directly applies to music
educators in a hands-on, practical sense for the classroom. Among these most readily available
resources mentioned above, Vietnamese children’s music resources are few and far between.
Upon an extensive internet search for a book with a specific focus on Vietnamese children’s
songs, one book surfaced: “Sing and Learn Vietnamese: Introduce Vietnamese with Favorite
Children’s Songs” (1998). The book is marketed to teach children the Vietnamese language
through song and includes a CD recording of the songs. It contains the Vietnamese lyrics and
English translation, but no music notation. Upon inspection of this book, I identified a few typos.
My own created book, The Vietnamese Children’s Songbook, awaits addition to the market.
Certainly, there must exist other Vietnamese children’s songbooks, perhaps at specialty
bookstores in Little Saigon in Westminster, California, but their existence and availability remain
a mystery to most American music educators and mainstream consumers.
Overall, the broad range of ways that world music in research is studied and has been
taught is represented here in a sample of what currently exists. An exhaustive collection of
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research on world music teaching and learning evidences its ubiquitous presence in music
education. Among these numerous resources, Vietnamese children’s music literature is lacking.
Music in Childhood
Through music, children find pathways to express themselves, develop their sense of
identity, and become a participating member of their culture. They learn from their peers and
caretakers, gain knowledge about the world around them, and from this, they develop a sense of
their musical preferences. Children experience music in a myriad of ways: informally and
formally, deliberately and spontaneously, actively through singing, playing and listening, or
passively in everyday environments. They experience music at home, at school, out in the town,
and the spaces in between. To capture the musical lives of children, researchers have followed
them into spaces such as the classroom and playground (Marsh, 2008), the home (de Vries,
2009), the car (Chitwood, 2018; Koops, 2014), and the subway (Custodero, 2016). In the 21st
century, researchers have given a voice to children as human beings with their own perspective,
thoughts, opinions, and identities. In this retrospective study, the childhood experiences of the
participants will be explored at home, out in the town, at school, in daily life and on holidays,
musicking actively and passively, singing, playing instruments, or listening, alone and with
others, as part of their formation of their identity and as part of society around them.
Children’s Identity and Music
Campbell (2012) described children’s identities as “shaped and defined by language,
ethnicity, and religious beliefs” (p. 11). Through enculturation, the child learns the songs that
will ease them into their role in society. Ultimately, however, it is the children who define their
identities, which, as they mature into adolescence, are often expressed through dress and music
choice (Campbell, 2012). Additionally, Campbell stated that they choose not one identity but
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several. A child is aware of the many categories they might fall into, including but not limited to
“student”, “child of”, “girl” or “boy”, “sister” or “brother”. In this study, exploration of both
intimate and broad-range spatial, social, personal, and temporal dimensions revealed the
participants’ various emerging musical identities through their childhood journeys. These
dimensions can be explored through MacDonald, Hargreaves, and Miell’s (2002) theory of
music in identity as well as Bronfenbrenner’s (see Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006)
bioecological systems theory of development as applied to musical childhoods.
MacDonald, Hargreaves, and Miell (2002) described identity in terms of music as “the
ways in which people view themselves in relation to any musical activity (in performance,
listening, education, and so forth), and is made up of both personal and social elements” (p. 573).
They proposed two distinct concepts concerning musical identity, that of identities in music
(IIM) and music in identities (MII). Identities in music distinguish the way a person describes
themselves as a musician. This might be a composer, performer, music teacher, critic, or other
defined musical roles. The authors stated that these categories are “reinforced by musical
institutions such as schools or conservatories and form an important part of the self-concepts of
professional musicians or, indeed, anybody involved in musical activities” and are universal and
influenced by social spheres (Hargreaves, MacDonald, & Miell, 2017, p. 4). Music in identities
focuses on how music plays a role in self-making by individuals, groups, and institutions. It is
about “how we use music within our overall self-identities – to the extent to which music is
important in our self-definitions as masculine-feminine, old-young, abled-disabled, extrovert-
introvert, and so on” (Hargreaves et al., 2017, p. 4). One can construct, negotiate, and maintain
their identities through subscribing to a particular genre or style of music which shapes to their
sense of self and relationship with others. Musical identities are foundational to music
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development because they dictate how individuals and groups engage musically (MacDonald et
al., 2002). This identity theory proposes that identity is flexible and evolves. It is shaped by
place, culture, relationships, and social settings. It also asserts that people identify with multiple
roles depending on the context they are in at a given moment, all while possessing a core identity
within. In their most recent development, the authors have added to their theory that musical
identities are performative and social. Music is something that we actively engage in everyday
life. In this interaction, people co-construct their musical, social, and personal identities (Elliott
& Silverman, 2017).
Barrett (2017) applied MacDonald et al.’s (2002) theory to young children’s identity
work through a study of musical narratives. Through moments of music improvisation and
engagement, she described children’s identities as multiple and flexible (as the youngest in a
playgroup or the oldest sibling), and in multiple socio-cultural spheres such as the home,
extended family and friends, in religious spaces, playgroups, festivals, and events. Barrett noted
that children demonstrate a cultural understanding well before the age of five, which develop
from the interplay between the developing child, her home, and community. She stated that the
family holds an essential role in the child’s identity through their given roles in relation to their
parents, siblings, and extended family and friends through the “rituals of communication and
interaction that are afforded in these relationships”, and through the “shared stories and codes of
conduct that are constructed with the child” (Barrett, 2017, p. 64). Through stories that show
how children come to understand the world and their place in it, Barrett (2017) illustrated how a
musical activity “may be viewed as a means of both constructing and telling narrative identity to
self and others” (p. 75). She described one 4-year-old girl, “Lucy”, who sang to her younger
brother, calling herself a “special girl”, her infant sister as a “my special girl too” and her brother
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as a “special little boy”. Barrett showed how Lucy used song to affirm her relationships with her
siblings and her emotions about them, and identified their individual and collective roles in the
family unit. In another case, 3-year-old “Jay” improvised a song that showed his understanding
of his location as he sang about being in the kitchen, the events in his life as he sang about his
younger sibling crying, and social norms as he sang “and I say hello”. His musical improvisation
was jazzy and swung, revealing his understanding and preference for this style of music. 4-year-
old “Charli”, yet another case, sang about imagined fairies to explore her preferences and
fantasies. Barrett’s research focused on children’s improvised singing and revealed how children
explore, perform, and enact multiple forms of identity, laying the foundation for their musical
identities.
Concerning human development, Hargreaves et al. (2017) noted that there are four
distinct stages in one’s life: infancy, early childhood, adolescence, and old age. In this study, the
focus will be on infancy to adolescence. In early childhood, “children develop their physical and
motor skills, and engage in interactions with their caregivers through play, stories, and singing”
(Hargreaves et al., 2017, p. 5). They added that interactions with the music and culture prompt
their own musical ideas and creations. In adolescence, musical preferences are a key indicator of
identity development and are used to delineate the characteristics of various social groups
(Tarrant, North, & Hargreaves, 2001).
Developmentally speaking, children gradually become their own agents as their
interactions with their parents and the community around them become more complex
(Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006). These general interactions with others, occurring in the
immediate environment with regularity over an extended period, has been referred to as
“proximal processes” by Bronfenbrenner and Morris (2006). Music education scholars
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(Campbell, 2010a; Whiteman, 2012) have connected Bronfenbrenner and Morris’s (2006)
developmental theory to children’s musical development. A key component in this theory is the
environmental context in which children develop (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006). The
environmental context is composed of five main systems, which are represented by nested
concentric circles. Bronfenbrenner and Morris (2006) coined the term “microsystem” in which
family, friends, and teachers have a direct influence on children in the home and at school.
Bronfenbrenner and Morris explain that the surrounding environment helps shape a child’s
identity. Larger systems also affect children’s development: the “mesosystem” is the
“relationships between the child’s contexts of home, school, and neighborhood” (Campbell,
2010a, p. 62), while the “exosystem” refers to the influences of connected settings that indirectly
affect the child’s immediate environment (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006). The “macrosystem”
relates to the larger social and cultural values that influence the child’s identity; lastly, the
“chronosystem” is related to changes that happen during a person’s life course and through the
historical period in which they lived. These systems are a component of this bioecological
systems theory and situate the child’s life spatially, temporally, and sociopersonally.
Young and Ilari (2012) adapted Eraut’s (2000) “levels of intention” to early childhood
music experiences, looking at the ways in which children interact musically in various
environments with various people. This more detailed look into music making delineates various
levels of intention, including implicit, reactive, and deliberative scenarios (Young & Ilari, 2012).
An example of implicit music making in the home could be found in the “everyday music in the
family” that happens with little awareness that it is happening, while deliberative music making
would be planned moments “directed activity by family members, such as programs which
include activities to continue at home” (Young & Ilari, 2012, p. 283). These multiple avenues
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through which children experience music, their surroundings, and the people who interact with
them influence their identities.
Combining the more personal level of music making via Eraut’s (2000) ideas with the
broader views that Bronfenbrenner and Morris (2006) present creates a multi-layered
understanding of the complexities of music making and its influences in shaping a child’s
musical identity. For a comprehensive understanding, however, the temporal dimension of
childhood must be considered, rounding out the spatial and sociopersonal dimensions and
completing Clandinin and Connelly’s (2000) approach to narrative research.
As songs are passed down from generation to generation, children learn what their
cultural identity is by the songs that are sung to them. They carry these songs of their family’s
past into their present and possibly their future as they form their own families. Berrí os-Miranda
(2013) traced this temporal dimension of musical childhood through three generations of her
own Puerto Rican family. She provided a historical background to demonstrate the cultural and
political influences on music and dance in her home town of Santurce, Puerto Rico. Through
thick description, she painted the picture of the ever-present music and dance in her home,
intergenerational and community-based in nature. She stated that music in this sense is “a source
of cultural security, a marker of my identity and a mode of interaction that helps me know where
and with whom I belong” (Berrí os-Miranda, 2013, p. 302). With dance being closely tied to
music in her culture, she described the different types of music her mother was surrounded by
music through the radio and live performances, and almost always involved dancing. She
described the specific musics of carnival during her mother’s time including bomba, plena,
sonas, guarachas, valses and danzas. Her mother had a thorough memory folk songs, lullabies,
and commercial recordings; this rich musical existence colored her own experience. Dancing
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from infanthood and later being influenced by the emergence of salsa, music and dance shaped
her own identity, embedded in Puerto Rican counterculture in the 1960s and 70s. Salsa was a
“response to the social and political predicament of Puerto Ricans” and became symbolic of her
identity and culture. She passed on music and dance to her own children as they learned to dance
as toddlers. They learned to salsa, and their travels to Puerto Rico introduced them to the newer
music of reggaetó n, which was fast to become part of their emerging identities as the youngest
generation of Puerto Ricans. Berrí os-Miranda (2013) demonstrated that although the music may
change, it is “inseparably tied to social experience” (p. 313). The different types of music that are
passed down are symbols of culture and family history, while new music is indicative of the
changing times and offers opportunities to create new identities within a culture.
As temporal, spatial, and sociocultural dimensions combine in the lives of immigrant
families, the songs that are passed down from the older generations can impact children’s
identity work. Songs that are both forgotten and remembered are likely to affect cultural identity,
such as Vietnamese American parents whose song repertoire was limited by what they could
remember without resources (Huynh, 2016). Newly created resources such as books, audio
recordings, videos, or software apps can help support identity creation, song preservation, and
song transmission.
Transmission of Children’s Songs, Rhymes, and Games
In childhood, songs are most often transmitted through singing, listening, and performing
on instruments. Through songs, language is used to convey cultural meanings and values.
Children often learn songs by rote, naturally, and through repetition. They can learn songs by
playing games (Marsh, 2008). Through listening, children gain aural skills, appreciation for the
aesthetics of music, and can imagine various meanings of music. Through playing instruments
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and technology, children explore the diverse world of organized sounds and materials and can
play alone or learn the societal rules of performing with others. This includes interaction with
parents, relatives, siblings, friends, mentors, teachers, religious mentors, or scout leaders, to
name a few.
Patterson (2015) described song transmission as a combination of oral and aural culture:
“Oral culture refers to what is spoken and sung, and aural culture refers to what is heard and
comprehended. Both are necessary for effective transmission to occur, and oral and aural
methods are almost always simultaneously present in most societies” (p. 36). Through oral and
aural methods, children observe and imitate, whether it be through playing instruments or
vocalizing. Music transmission in most non-Western cultures involves oral and aural skills,
mainly through repeated listenings, for one to internalize music. Ethnomusicologists and music
educators have investigated transmission processes as a pathway to learning about cultures.
Scholars have studied how children engage in music making and construct knowledge in
their communities, as they interact with teachers, community members, and other children.
Blacking (1967) recounted how Venda children in South Africa absorbed the music that
surrounded them, taking part in performance and practice as a natural part of the music
transmission process with adults and as part of the community. He also described how knowing
certain song repertoire was sometimes a necessity in being accepted into the social age group.
Marsh (2008) wrote about oral transmission as key to children’s learning through musical
games and play in social situations. In over 15 years of extensive ethnomusicological research
done on playgrounds across the globe, including Australia, Norway, the United States, the
United Kingdom, and Korea, Marsh studied how children transmit, perpetuate, and transform
playground games. She noted that the songs, chants, games, rhythmic moving and dancing that
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children engaged in were often spontaneous and improvised upon, creating their own
opportunities for creativity and innovation. These kinds of musical moments on the playground
were often discounted in the classroom yet existed worldwide. The musical games that children
played outside the classroom were highly complex and demonstrated organized movement and
complexity in form, rhythm, and melody. Musical games were also influenced culturally and
socially. One of the examples Marsh drew from is at Birch Vale Elementary School, where she
observed five girls in fourth grade playing hand-clapping games in which pairs or small groups
of up to six children played. The performance operated “as a mechanism for social inclusion or
exclusion” (p. 106) as those who do not know, cannot keep up with, or perform the socially
accepted ‘version’ of that game were excluded. On the other hand, inclusion can occur if a child
knows a different version and their version is accepted. Marsh observed an example of this at
Springfield School in Sydney, Australia where a child introduced a new introduction to a game
and the other children accepted and included her version by adding it to what they had already
been clapping and chanting.
Marsh (2008) showed the process of teaching and learning of song and game
transmission through an example in which a game called “Slide” was learned by a child at ballet
school and passed on to her peers at school. In an interview, the child revealed that children of
other grades had observed her playing it and caught on and started playing it as well. The child
also taught it to other children while waiting in line. Through inconspicuous moments like this,
children’s games and songs spread rapidly on the playground. Marsh (2008) wrote that children
were well aware of “the genealogy of the transmission process, the roles and competencies of
different teaching and learning pairs, the sequence in which they acquired game skills, the way in
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which other children outside of their immediate friendship group had learned the game through
observation, and the location in which transmission had primarily occurred” (p. 138).
Marsh (2008) showed how children changed the songs through interethnic transmission,
audiovisual and written media, classroom transmission, and material from other sources outside
of the school. An example of interethnic transmission changes was found in her account of three
10-year-old girls from China who had emigrated to Springfield School in Sydney. They each
spoke a different Chinese dialect: Cantonese, Mandarin, and Shanghainese, and so one girl
taught the other two a game she had learned in Shanghai, “Black and White TV”, in English, the
language that they all knew. Another example was found when a different group of ethnically
diverse children each improvised a different version of the game they were playing in each of
their different languages: Cantonese, Rumanian, and Tongan. It was evident that language played
a role in how songs changed.
Regarding audiovisual and written media, children were seen to adopt and adapt Top 40
songs, TV theme songs, and commercial jingles on the playground. Because of media, children
from different parts of the world knew the same song, although a little differently and titled
differently. For instance, a clapping game was seen in schools in Sydney, Australia, and
Stavanger and Ryfylke, Norway. In Sydney, the children knew the song as “Michael Jackson”,
another element of how media influenced and changed their version of the song. Eight and nine-
year-old girls on a playground in Bedford also took pop songs such as Celine Dion’s famous
“My Heart Will Go On” and The Tide is High” by Atomic Kittens from mainstream media and
elaborated on the dances that they learned from the music videos. In the classroom, songs that
teachers taught would find their way onto the playground often as clapping games. In a central
Australian school, “The Twelve Days of Christmas” was transformed into a clapping game,
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while at another nearby school, “Jack and Jill” and “Humpty Dumpty” turned into clapping
games as well, devised by the children. In a school in Seattle, Washington, “There Was an Old
Lady Who Swallowed a Fly” was transformed into a clapping game as well. Marsh (2008) wrote
that “by appropriating these adult-generated songs for game use, children claim them as their
own, shifting ownership and control of adult material into their own domain” (p. 188). What was
notable in Marsh’s research was that each of these contexts of song and game transmission on
the playground that she observed was found in multiple schools across the globe, stepping closer
and closer to finding universal practices of children’s song transmission. Her work indicates
important overarching concepts that ethnomusicologists and music educators can find of
substantial importance when considering the teaching and learning of world music.
Although improvisation is considered to be a natural part of children’s music making and
often results in multiple iterations of one song as Marsh (2008) showed, certain examples like
counting rhymes show children’s music making to remain relatively static because of their
rhythmic and metric constraints (Rubin, 1995) or social constraints in which the correct forms
must be adhered to in order for the song to be considered correctly performed, such as in
Harwood’s (1998) study of African American girls’ playground singing games. McDowell
(1999) described the process of children’s transmission as a series of steps: encoding, reception,
de-coding, and re-encoding of folkloric “messages” as passed to them by others and as they pass
songs on to other children. Finnegan (1986) noted that context is key to understanding the
transmission process and its subtleties within a culture and that oral transmission “must be
discovered through detailed investigation and in full appreciation of the variety and complexity
inherent in oral, as in written, modes of expression and communication” (p. 76). By far,
children’s song transmission is found to be oral and aural. Campbell (2018) states, “the literature
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on music transmission, and the experiences of children in their own efforts to transmit and learn
the music and oral lore of their culture, points to the importance of orality (and aurality) over
literacy” (p. 107).
Another example of oral transmission is found in Gaunt’s (2006) research on the games
of African American girls. Gaunt investigated clapping games, cheers, playground games such as
the double-dutch jump roping and identifies how black musical styles are incorporated into and
connected to long traditions of African and African American music making. Through oral-
kinetic practices, black musical styles and behavior are taught and learned, informing the reader
about black musical expression as well as cultural norms and practices. In this context, too,
orality and improvisation are part of the musical fabric in childhood. Over eight years, Gaunt
collected a variety of game-songs and their different versions and interviewed sixteen African
American women from ages 18-65. Her analysis included how music captures ethnic identity
through lyrics and embodiment performed through the games.
As previously noted, Nettl (2015) pointed out that understanding a musical culture entails
deeply involving oneself in its system of teaching or transmission of both the musical concepts
and sounds. In a similar vein, Campbell (2016) stated, “the teaching/learning method is as
culturally construed as the musical sound itself, and thus the manner of musical acquisition
offers insight on the musicians and their valued ways of transmission” (p. 105). In effect,
understanding how a song is transmitted provides a breadth of view of a culture. Dunbar-Hall’s
(2010) study embodied this sentiment in his observations of children’s learning of music and
dance in Bali, one experience in many during his extended study of music in Bali between 1999-
2007. He stated that children’s learning of traditional music and dance is “shaped by their
culture’s uses and valuing of music, and beliefs and practices concerning teaching and learning”
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(Dunbar-Hall, 2010, p. 17). He suggested that the social and cultural expectations embedded
within a rehearsal of dance and gamelan represent inherent religious beliefs and cultural
maintenance. Dunbar-Hall also described how socially accepted behaviors could be derived from
observing the dance that the girls learn and the gamelan that the boys rehearse. That children are
all generally expected to learn music and dance is indicative of the role of the family to provide
music learning. The teachers memorize the music and movements and then pass it on to children.
In Dunbar-Hall’s (2010) words, “Embodiment, rather than cognitive processing of how to
perform, is the basis of learning” (p. 23). This reflects many non-Western cultures’ music
making and teaching. Dunbar-Hall’s study is a prime example of how studying transmission can
inform us about a culture and the deeper significance a song holds. Dunbar-Hall showed that
there are other methods to the teaching and learning of a song than the Western notation-
dependent style. By investigating these methods, we learn about a culture and its values and
social mores. We learn not only more about the song itself, but we can begin to understand the
embedded meaning and symbols it holds in a culture. Essentially, learning about the transmission
method of a song in its culture breathes life into the song and the act; it gives the song meaning
through context.
In this study, by examining how songs were transmitted in the participants’ lives when
they were children, we can gain insight into the values and social mores of the Vietnamese
culture at that time. We can also discover common teaching and learning methods embedded in
the culture, search for universality in song transmission, and find meaning in informal musical
childhood moments.
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Chapter Summary
In this chapter, I have examined the boundaries between ethnomusicology and music
education, existing literature on Vietnamese music and cultural identity, and Vietnamese
children’s music.
I also discussed research on children’s musical experiences and surroundings. I explored
cultural and societal influences which influence how children construct their identities,
knowledge, realities, and musical tastes. I also delved into how methods of song transmission
reflect a child’s temporal, spatial, social, and personal placement.
This chapter illustrates that while there exists research on Vietnamese music and music
making, appropriate resources for Vietnamese children’s music is lacking. Vietnamese music is
often seen by the West as a traditional music to be studied, part of a larger collection of musics
of the world, assumed to be performed by adults and listened to in the classroom. The few songs
that exist in music education literature for children are flawed with typos as observed in series
such as Silver Burdett Ginn or insufficient for classroom use (H. T. Nguyen & Yoon, 1998). This
illustrates a need for a closer examination of Vietnamese children’s musical repertoire, the uses,
and functions of children’s music in Vietnam, and how this might inform music educators
interested in incorporating this in their world music curriculum.
This chapter also explored research on temporal, spatial, social, and personal dimensions
of childhood musical experiences pertaining to aspects of identity, culture, and transmission.
Examining musical childhoods through these dimensions offers a holistic picture of meaning-
making and the human condition, in and through music.

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Chapter 3: Research Design and Methods

Narrative research “issues claims about the meaning life events hold for people” and that
it “makes claims about how people understand situations, others, and themselves” (Polkinghorne,
2007, p. 475). This study was designed as a retrospective narrative study. Essentially,
retrospective narrative inquiry is research about the human condition during a specific period in
the past. I investigated this through six participants’ stories to gain insight into their experiences
as children in Vietnam.
Narrative research involves presenting research knowledge in the form of stories (Barrett
& Stauffer, 2009; Clandinin & Connelly, 2000 Creswell, 2013; Creswell & Miller, 2000;
Polkinghorne, 2007; Riessman, 2008). Storytelling includes a plotline, story arc, and individuals’
sub-stories (Polkinghorne, 1995). The plotline involves a main story or idea set in a certain
historical and cultural background. The story arc gives structure to the story and is established
chronologically. Sub-stories come from personal experiences that lead individuals to perceive
themselves as unique, each with a story of their own that defines their strength, struggles, and
ultimately their account of success or failure. Most people perceive their story-arc as being born,
struggling, and finally triumphing over some event, which has led them to their current position
(Denzin, 1989). Each of the six participants in this study brought unique insight and stories to the
research questions; I combined the stories by finding congruent and incongruent points among
each of them to construct an overall plotline and story arc from their individual experiences, in
effect “restorying” (Creswell, 2013). The narrative was essentially co-constructed by the
participants and me (Creswell & Miller, 2000; Riessman, 2008). I created a narrative from these
stories to not only “look for connection and consonance, but also to recognize that different
perspectives, voices, and experiences exist and can inform” (Barrett & Stauffer, 2009, p. 2).
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Creswell (2013) emphasizes the gathering of information to set the stories within a
context. He mentions situating stories within the participants’ experiences, their culture, and their
historical context. Similarly, Clandinin and Connelly (2000) utilize a tri-dimensional inquiry
space: the temporal, spatial, and sociopersonal. Clandinin and Connelly, Creswell, and
Polkinghorne (1995) stress the key role that chronology plays in narrative research by creating a
beginning, middle and end, within which there is a struggle, key point or a climax. In this study,
the context is in the home, at school, or in the village, in participants’ home towns in either North
or South Vietnam and between the years of 1931-1975. I layered the six childhoods
chronologically to identify who was historically affected by what, and how this shaped their
story, consequently creating the story arc for the narrative.
Analysis of the data consists of both the stories and the themes that emerge from them
(Creswell, 2013). The themes give meanings to the stories. The words themselves also reveal
meanings. I used what Creswell (2013) calls a “microlinguistic” approach to the analysis of the
transcripts, “probing for the meanings of words, phrases, and larger units of discourse such as is
often done in conversational analysis” (p. 75). Barrett and Stauffer (2009) warn against merely
telling the stories and give the reminder that narrative inquiry “requires the careful analysis of
narrative data against a series of frames including those of the research participant, the
researcher, and the larger cultural narratives in which these individuals are situated” (p. 11). I tell
the story that the data reveals through the conceptual framework of identity, culture, and world
music education while respecting each individual’s constructed knowledge as learned through
surrounding members of society during their childhood, in line with social constructionist
epistemology (Egbert & Sanden, 2014).
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Recruiting Participants and Obtaining Consent

Figure 3.1. Recruitment strategy.
The steps to recruitment included several stages, as depicted in Figure 3.1. I created a list
of criteria that was to be satisfied by participants to be included in the study that would establish
them as credible sources (see Appendix A). This list helped to ensure that participants lived their
childhoods in Vietnam between 1931-1975, were of sound mind and memory to recall their pasts
and had rich musical childhoods which would fulfill my research intentions. Starting with a
sample of purposive convenience, I first recruited three participants by asking musicians with
whom I had a relationship; two of the three were a husband and wife couple. During their
interviews, I asked these three participants for references to other people, effectively using a
snowball sampling technique (Creswell, 2013), which resulted in an introduction to another
person. Two other participants were found through a family member who reached out to her
church choir. These participants were a husband and wife couple. In total, there were three
participants whom I knew personally and three other participants whom I did not know
List of criteria
Samples of
purposive
convenience:
"Khoa" and "Hằ ng"
Snowball sample:
"Yế n"
Sample of
purposive
convenience:
"Hồ ng"
Snowball samples:
"Thú y" and "Bí ch"
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personally. This balance of six participants was an effort to have both rich interviews and
awareness to hold an objective outlook.
All but one participant lived in the surroundings of the enclave community known as
Little Saigon, in Westminster, California. The one remaining participant lived in Vietnam; the
interviews for this person were conducted through Skype. I included the participant from
Vietnam with the expectation that their experiences could provide additional insight, opinion,
and scope to the data. Participants were born between the years of 1931 and 1953 and lived their
childhoods in Vietnam. This period was important because I wanted to capture the music making
and music in Vietnam before the musical culture drastically changed from the political change in
1975 at the culmination of the Vietnam War, which enforced restrictions on much of the music
that was played and practiced. I wanted to find the oldest participant possible to capture musical
experiences as distant as possible before communist censorship. The youngest participant at age
66 would still be old enough to have lived their childhood in Vietnam, but also before the
communist takeover. I chose three men and three women to provide equity in sexes. I was
successful in finding participants with varied musical backgrounds for a wide range of
experiences. Their experience ranged from professional musicians to non-professional
community music participants. Participants were varied in their non-religious practices versus
religious practices of music. The sample ultimately offered a wide range of participant
experiences from which to construct a narrative that could avoid a myopic view of Vietnamese
musical childhood experiences.
Recruitment efforts followed shortly after IRB approval in December of 2018 (see
Appendix B). I made phone calls to the three personal acquaintances and described my research
study to them, and they agreed to participate in the study. I scheduled coming to the
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participants’ homes or their children’s workplace to interview them over two weeks. Upon
arriving at the interview destination, I shared the information sheet with each participant,
detailing the purpose of the research, that they would be audio-recorded, and their rights as a
participant (see Appendix C). I verbally translated the information sheet for each participant
from English to Vietnamese. No participants had reservations about their participation.
Study Participants
Each participant possessed distinguishing characteristics. Their age and place of birth set
the historical context. Their musical identifier shaped their personal story and gave insight into
how they perceived their place in the world as a child. In Table 3.1, I note these characteristics,
and I also include whether they were a personal acquaintance of mine, which was a factor in
considering the depth of their answers. Pseudonyms are used as a measure of privacy to protect
their identities.
Table 3.1.

Descriptions of Study Participants
Pseudonym
Year
born
Region born
(North or
South)
Female/Male
Personal
acquaintance?
Main musical
identifier
Hồ ng 1931 North Male Yes Saxophonist
Khoa* 1933 South Male Yes Composer
Yế n 1942 North Female No Zitherist
Bí ch 1944 South Male No Pianist/violinist
Thú y 1946 North Female No Singer
Hằ ng 1953 North Female Yes Singer
Note. *Khoa is the only participant whose real name is used, by permission. As a well-known
composer in the Vietnamese community, his compositions, included as data, and participation in
another public project (Rubino & Rael, 2019), reveal his identity. Yế n, whose compositions are
also included in the data, will remain anonymous.
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Hồ ng
My first interview with Hồ ng took place on January 23, 2019, at his home, and the
second interview was on April 23, 2019, via phone call. At the time of the interviews, Hồ ng was
88 years old. He was a professional saxophonist who played for the French and American
militaries starting at the age of 21. He had recently retired from playing due to health issues. As a
teenager and young adult, I performed with him in a Vietnamese band for several years. He was
born in the city of Phá t Diệm in the north of Vietnam and fled to the South to escape
communism when he was a boy. His father passed away when he was a baby, leaving his mother
to raise him. In 1975 he fled to the United states, where he would be a member of the first
Vietnamese dance band in the United States and would tour extensively, namely in Hawaii,
California and Washington D.C. His two daughters and son have taken after him: his daughters
sing, although no longer professionally, while his son has his own band that often performs for
private events.
Khoa
My first interview with Khoa was on January 17, 2019, at his daughter’s music school
and my second interview was on April 11, 2019, via phone call. At the time of the interviews,
Khoa was 85 years old. Khoa is a professional composer and photographer. My acquaintance
with him spans over fifteen years. I have played in orchestras that have performed Khoa’s music
often, and he appeared in a documentary film I created about musicians in “Little Saigon” in
Westminster, California (Rubino & Rael, 2019). He would attend the rehearsals, concerts, and
give opening speeches at concerts in Little Saigon. He was born in the city of Cà n Thơ, in the
south of Vietnam, at the prime of French colonial power. He was a child when the Japanese
invaded Vietnam to overthrow French colonists and recalls experiencing poverty and chaos due
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to war. His mother passed away when he was young because of the lack of medicine for her
tuberculosis. His father was a pastor who prepared music for the church, where Khoa learned to
play the piano. In 1975, he fled Vietnam to seek refuge in the United States, where he taught
photography in universities and eventually composed full-time.
Yế n
Yế n is a professor of zither born in Nam Đị nh and currently residing in Hồ Chí Minh
City (formerly Saigon), Vietnam. My first interview with her was on May 23, 2019, and my
second interview was on June 20, 2019. Both interviews took place via Skype. At the time of the
interviews, Yế n was 77 years old. She completed the four-year traditional music program at the
National Music School in Saigon and eventually became a teacher of her own zither school. She
now runs a successful zither school which holds many performances throughout the year. She
knows how to play other traditional instruments but only teaches zither, as that is her main
instrument.

Bí ch
Bí ch is Thuy’s husband. My first interview with him was on May 14, 2019, in his home,
and my second interview took place on June 14, 2019, in his home. At the time of the interviews,
Bí ch was 74 years old. Born in Cà n Thơ, hee completed the seven-year Western classical music
program at the National School of Music in Saigon or Trườ ng Quố c Gia Ăm Nhạ c, a
conservatory in South Vietnam in Saigon. He was a child just as the conservatory was founded
by the French and Vietnamese in 1956, and his father, who was a general secretary of education
for the French, held their favor, which resulted in his entrance into the music conservatory.
There, he studied piano for a few years and then transferred to violin studies. He eventually
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became the aural skills teacher for the school as an adult. After being forced into “re-education”
camp (which Vietnamese Americans commonly call “prison”), he was released after eight and a
half years and emigrated to the United States with his wife. He used to accompany his wife’s
church choir, and now occasionally plays piano as a hobby when entertaining guests in his home.
He is a self-proclaimed classical music lover and says he does not like Vietnamese music.
Thú y
My first interview with Thú y was on May 7, 2019, and my second interview was on May
14, 2019. Both interviews took place in her home. At the time of the interviews, Thú y was 72
years old. She was a life-long member of the Catholic Church and sang in church choirs
throughout her entire life. She first sang in a children’s choir in Vietnam in the northern city of
Phá t Diệm where she was born. After her family fled to the South in 1954 to escape Communist
rule, she eventually joined an adult church choir and took up conducting and zither lessons. Her
father directed the church choirs, while her mother raised her and her siblings at home. She came
to the United States in 1989 as an immigrant, where she would sing in local churches and
occasionally act as a substitute conductor. She recently formed her own choir which rehearses at
her home. Their choir sings for local community members during times of need, such as when a
family friend or member of the church community is near death. Her children and grandchildren
sang in church choirs, and her grandson is an active member in a lion dance troupe which
includes a heavy amount of acrobatics and percussion instrument playing.

Hằ ng
I interviewed Hằ ng on the same days as I interviewed Khoa. At the time of the
interviews, Hằ ng was 66 years old. Although not a professional musician by trade, Hằ ng is a
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visible vocalist in the Little Saigon community and often performs as a soloist with the local
orchestra. She regularly sings in multiple choirs: a Vietnamese church choir, an English-speaking
church choir, and a secular choir that performs with the local orchestra. She is an acquaintance
with whom I’ve performed for over fifteen years. She was born in the city of Ninh Bì nh in the
north of Vietnam in 1952, just before the French were defeated and the 17
th
parallel was drawn.
At the age of two, her family fled from the North into the South to avoid communist dominance.
Because they fled their home, she recalls her family being very poor. She described herself as
lucky, as many children had to make dolls from sticks while her older brother would buy her
‘real’ dolls when he would come home to visit from the army. Her father directed the church
choir and, her mother raised her and her siblings at home. She fled Vietnam in 1975 with her
husband to the United States, where she would give birth to three daughters, one of whom is an
accomplished pianist and owns her own music school.
Data Collection Procedures
I audio recorded and took field notes on the semi-structured in-depth interviews
conducted with each of the six participants. Interview questions were pre-composed (Appendix
D). To record interviews, I used a Zoom Handy Recorder H4n. For the participant living in
Vietnam, I recorded the audio of the Skype conversation. I translated and transcribed the
interviews from Vietnamese to English in Microsoft Word in preparation for coding since all
spoke mostly in Vietnamese. I interviewed each participant at least twice over weeks to months.
I offered each participant a journal to write down memories of their musical childhoods in
between interview periods, although neither my pilot nor the first three participants used the
journal. This predicated my decision to forego offering the journal for the last three participants.
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I coded, analyzed, and searched for broad themes among the six interviews and my field notes
with the aid of computer software NVivo 12.
Narrative inquiry includes multiple forms of data collection (Creswell, 2013). In addition
to the interview transcripts, I used field notes to capture information that was not shared in
interviews to keep factual observations, schedule interviews, keep track of recorded data
uploads, and to formulate new questions as I came up with them. I also had interviewees draw in
my book when they were describing something that seemed to be better understood when
accompanied by a visual component. I sought out archival pieces of data, including music sheets
and YouTube videos to cross-reference songs that participants mentioned. I kept a journal to
reflect on my biases and ponder ethical considerations. These multiple forms of data
corroborated the findings.
Through retrospective semi-structured interviews, I constructed questions about their
childhoods but was aware that an answer might lead to a spontaneous insight that would branch
out to an unexplored topic. I allotted ample time for the possibility of talking about more than
just the questions I posed; approximately one hour for the first interview was enough for the
participant to answer the questions at a relaxed pace but also have the freedom to expand on their
answers as they saw fit. The first interview took place in person, as it would be easier to create a
sense of rapport and trust with the participant and allow me to better interpret their answers by
reading their facial expressions and body language. A second interview would enable me to ask
another series of questions and form questions tailored to the participant after having reviewed
the first interview. The second interview took place by phone for four of the participants, so as
not to intrude on their time and effort to receive me as a guest in their home again. This choice
was made after the pilot study and the first two interviews of the first husband and wife pair, in
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which the pilot participant and the wife participant expressed hesitancy to do a second interview
in person by saying they were “very busy”. When I suggested a phone interview instead, they
seemed relieved and enthusiastically agreed. Also, because I knew the first three participants
personally, and was aware that the third participant was not healthy, I judged that I could grasp
their nuances after the first interview and felt it was not necessary to visit in-person again. The
fourth and fifth participants, also a husband and wife couple, were participants I did not
personally know; I felt that doing first and second interviews with them in person would be
helpful to me in gauging any nuances that might be lost over the phone. I interviewed the fourth
participant in-person twice, while the fifth participant was interviewed via phone because they
were sick and did not want to infect me. For the sixth participant in Vietnam, both interviews
were conducted via Skype due to geographical limitations. A third interview for each participant
was initially designed as a possibility in the case that more questions remained; however, for all
participants, a third interview was not necessary. I used the same interview questions for each
participant in the first interview to provide a baseline for a cross-participant analysis. The second
interview, which lasted anywhere between 18-58 minutes, consisted of more personalized
questions that would encourage the participant to speak more about their childhood experiences.
This would be useful in analyzing the construction of their realities and knowledge.
Trustworthiness of Data
Inspired by Lincoln and Guba’s (1985) interpretive position in Naturalistic Inquiry and
Creswell and Miller’s (2000) validation strategies, I used measures of validity related to
trustworthiness as appropriate for qualitative research methods. Lincoln and Guba (1985) state
that trustworthiness refers to key issues including “truth value”, applicability, consistency, and
neutrality, which are conventionally (i.e., quantitatively) addressed by establishing internal
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validity, external validity, reliability, and objectivity (p. 290). The authors propose using
methods more appropriate for qualitative research, which include establishing credibility,
dependability, and confirmability.
In this study, several measures were used to ensure trustworthiness of data through
credibility: disconfirming evidence, using thick description, prolonged engagement in the field,
cross-referencing, and member checking. I checked for disconfirming evidence (Creswell &
Miller, 2000) by first creating themes that I thought might emerge, then looked for data that
disconfirmed the themes. This confirmed that participants’ realities were varied, which was in
line with my epistemology and consequently supported the credibility of the stories. I used thick
description (Geertz, 1973) to create “verisimilitude, statements that produce for the readers the
feeling that they have experienced, or could experience, the events being described in a study”
(Creswell & Miller, 2000, p. 129). Creswell and Miller (2000) explain that “credibility is
established through the lens of readers who read a narrative account and are transported into a
setting or situation” (p. 129). Thus, thick description gives the reader the ability to judge
transferability of the study (Lincoln & Guba, 1985).
Lincoln and Guba (1985) and Creswell and Miller (2000) stated that prolonged
engagement in the field is a way to check validity as well. The longer the researcher is in the
field, the more opportunities they have for multiple experiences that will corroborate their
findings (Creswell & Miller, 2000), but also the better they will be at detecting personal
distortions (Lincoln & Guba, 1985). Being in the field for a long amount of time also builds
rapport and trust with participants. In my case, being an insider in the community since birth
gave me a pre-existing prolonged engagement and rapport with three participants whom I
already knew personally for over 10 years.
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I used cross-referencing and member checking for further credibility. Polkinghorne
(2007) asserts that a statement’s validity “rests on a consensus within a community of speakers”
(p. 474); as such, I cross-referenced the statements of the six participants with each other’s
statements, with other scholars’ work and searched for archival sources that might confirm their
statements and songs. I performed member-checking by sending the transcripts to the
participants to read over and confirm that I accurately recorded what they said. I had a translator
read my transcriptions and verify that I had transcribed accurately and fill in any missing parts
that I could not translate properly.
The journal I kept contributed to establishing trustworthiness as well. The journal
consisted of scheduling and logistics of the study, including participants’ availabilities and
means of communicating and traveling to them. It also served as a personal diary in which I
reflected on my reactions, biases, and insights, and options and ultimate methodological
decisions I made. It sometimes also served as a field journal in which I would jot down notes
during interviews and would offer as a drawing board for participants who were describing
things to me that were better understood when drawn, such as how certain games worked. The
journal served as a tool for credibility, transferability, dependability, and confirmability, as
explained by Lincoln and Guba (1985).
Pilot Study
In January, I performed a pilot study with one participant. This revealed to me what I
needed to prepare for my actual interviews and how I needed to refine my interview questions.
The pilot study helped me judge the willingness and comfort level of the participant when in the
presence of the recorder and how to be sensitive to body language and facial expressions for
when they were ready (or not) to be recorded. I tested my interview questions by asking my pilot
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study participant to share their musical childhood experiences with me, to which they responded,
“I didn’t have any because we were at war.” This was a shocking answer and helped me realize
that I needed to be better informed before going in for an interview. I needed to understand the
historical background at the time and ask sensitive questions according to what was happening
during that era. The participant was not someone I knew intimately and seemed guarded about
answering questions about her past, yet eager to tell me about her present musical endeavors and
the talents of her surrounding family members. This helped me realize that I needed to find a
way to respectfully phrase questions and guide the participant through my interview in a way
that kept them focused.
It was evident that the cultural dynamic of respect and hierarchy was prevalent. I am
between 30-60 years younger than my participants. This creates an age hierarchy in the
Vietnamese culture wherein I must call people who are older than my parents “bá c” (which
roughly translates to “sir” or “ma’am”) as a term of respect to their age. If they are in any way
related to mentoring me or guiding me, I must address them as “thà y” (which means “teacher”).
If they are the wife of the mentor, one would generally address them as “cô” which insinuates a
younger age so as not to offend them by assuming that they might look old. I would address
myself as “con”, “chá u”, or “em” depending on my relationship to them as well as if they were
originally from the north or south of Vietnam, since the two regions have a slightly different
vocabulary. If they were from the South and/or I knew them personally, I would call myself
“con”. If they were from the North, I would call myself “chá u” until they felt comfortable
enough with me to call me “con”, which means that they consider you someone close. If they
were someone I was not close to at all, I would say “em” to distance myself. Each of these
situations did present itself because of the various relationships I had with the participants.
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The built-in hierarchy in the culture evident through language afforded me a natural
opportunity for reflexivity (Creswell & Miller, 2000). I became aware of the fact that although I
was a researcher, the age gap placed me in a lower rank in the scheme of cultural hierarchy;
additionally, being a female also precludes certain assumptions in the culture. In Vietnamese
culture, the father in a family is regarded as the highest authority. This places males on a more
privileged position on the cultural hierarchy. Therefore, my position as both a female and
younger than my participants heightened my awareness of being lower on the hierarchy. This
awareness helped heighten my cultural sensitivity during the times I was interacting with
participants.
I learned from the pilot study that three interviews might not be necessary to cover all my
interview questions; rather, two interviews would suffice. Additionally, after experiencing subtle
cues from two participants that the second interview was a lot to ask, I deduced that three
interviews seemed to be too intrusive on the participants’ time. The pilot participant reluctantly
agreed to a second interview but was visibly reticent. I was able to gather a satisfactory amount
of information after two interviews while at the same time maintaining positive rapport. I felt
maintaining a positive rapport with the participants was a priority because I wanted to maintain a
good reputation as a researcher in the case of future studies in the community.
Data Analysis
I followed the customary methods of data collection, analysis, and presentation
(Creswell, 2013; Polkinghorne, 1998). Data was collected through audio-recorded, in-depth,
semi-structured interviews with participants over five months. Data was organized in password-
protected computer files according to the participant and chronologically. Recordings of
interviews were opened using the Groove Music application (Version 10.19031.1141.0). First
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interviews ranged from 52 minutes to 89 minutes, while second interviews ranged from 18
minutes to 58 minutes. These interviews took place between January 17, 2019, and June 20,
2019. Listening, translating, and transcribing occurred between April and July 2019, totaling
10.7 hours of recordings and 145 pages of transcription. During and after listening to the first
interviews of each participant, I jotted down additional questions that arose from their responses.
I spent at least one week to reflect on the participant’s responses and to give myself time to
construct questions for the second interview. This time allowed for “meaningful emergence or
unfolding of the design and the successive focusing of the study” (Lincoln & Guba, 1985, p. 11).
Transcriptions were verified by a third-party translator and fixed or filled in at places in the
transcript that I had not understood clearly.
My first few re-listenings and readings of the transcriptions included taking notes on
emerging themes, which included reflections, questions, categories, and notes on potential
plotlines that could be developed. I wrote these themes down on a mind map to visualize the
themes and their connections by linking them in various ways. From this, I derived a diagram
showing these connections. Data was then coded through computer software NVivo and
analyzed accordingly. I used the themes and categories derived through my mind map as a guide
for the NVivo coding. First, I did a lean coding with several broad categories, then went back
and created subcategories to label, or in vivo coding. Larger themes were derived from these
codes and subcategories. As I went through in vivo coding on NVivo, new categories and
different ways of linking information emerged. I changed my mind map as I saw fit.
Once all participants’ data were analyzed, I compared all six stories to derive emergent
themes for the narrative scene and plot. As I analyzed each story, I searched for disparate views
of reality among the six stories to consider different childhood experiences. This allowed for a
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broad view of music making and music education. I created a timeline with each participant’s
chronology and superimposed them on important historical dates so that I could see the evolution
of events over time within a historical context. This way, I could envision an overall plot and
scene within the context of 1931-1975 with each participant’s story being a subplot. A graphic
representation of the data analysis process is shown in Figure 3.2.

Figure 3.2. Data analysis process.
Limitations
Several limitations occurred throughout the study. The first limitation was related to time.
In February, the Vietnamese celebrate Vietnamese New Year or “Tế t” based on the Lunar
Calendar, which is a busy time of celebration that can last from a day to a month depending on
how strongly the participant holds onto cultural Vietnamese New Year practices. My first three
participants were busy throughout the month of Tet, and then after Tet, two were preparing for a
concert. This consequently led to the second interviews taking place three months after their first
Record
interviews
Translate and
transcribe
interviews into
field data
Sent to third party
translator to verify
accuracy of
transcriptions and
fix errors
First reads: take
notes on
emerging themes,
reflections,
questions,
categories,
potential plotlines
Create a mind
map with one
bubble for each
theme and sub-
theme; link
bubbles
Create a
diagram from
the mind map
Input data into
NVivo 12. Lean
coding, search for
more emerging
themes
Compare my
notes and
diagram with
NVivo results
Consider all data,
layer all six
stories
chronologically to
search for
patterns,
congruencies,
and
incongruencies
Outline the
emergent plots
and scenes with
themes and
subcategories
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interview. However, I believe the answers given in the second interview were not hindered by
the delay. The participants still remembered the events of their childhood just as they did three
months prior. For the participant in Vietnam, we were not able to connect in person, so there may
have been facial nuances or body language that I might have missed since the participant
preferred to interview over Skype, which had a lag and at times was spotty in connection. Lastly,
the participants did not seem interested in keeping a journal, and ultimately did not write
anything, so there was no data to collect from journals.
Chapter Summary
This chapter detailed the design of the study. Qualitative in nature, the study was a
retrospective narrative inquiry which enabled participants’ stories to unfold in a semi-structured
way through two interviews. The interviews took place over four months in various spaces,
including participants’ homes, their children’s workspaces, over the phone, and through Skype.
A pilot study provided insight into modifying interview questions and anticipating cultural
nuances. Trustworthiness occurred through the following: credibility checks of the participants,
disconfirming evidence, thick description, prolonged engagement in the field, cross-referencing,
member-checking through the participants, participation of a third-party translator and
confirming data with existing historical information. Data were translated, transcribed, analyzed,
and coded for themes. Finally, discussion of limitations accounted for gaps in continuity and
abandoned journal data collection.

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Chapter 4: Findings

Hồ ng, Khoa, Yế n, Bí ch, Thú y, and Hằ ng were the six elders who participated in this
retrospective inquiry into musical childhoods. All elders allowed me to join them in
reconstructing their childhoods when they were living in Vietnam by recounting musical
moments at home, in school, in the community, at the conservatory, and through Scouts.
Through their experiences, I was able to understand the ways that music was used in their lives,
the functions of music within the larger context of society, and the ways in which songs and
games were transmitted.
Through narrative analysis, a pattern emerged which led me to pair the narratives of two
elders each in the following three chapters that would serve to illuminate their musical
experiences in dyads. Hồ ng and Khoa were paired for their contrasting experiences in exposure
to music in childhood and the ways in which they became involved in music, which shaped their
identities as professional musicians later in adulthood. Yế n and Bí ch were paired to expose two
different departments of music as students in at the National Music School. Thú y and Hằ ng were
paired to illustrate two ends of a spectrum concerning the role of religion in musical childhood.
Thus, the findings were organized by emerging themes which were exemplified by select elders.
Within each story, my personal reflections from field notes, journal entries, and synthesizing
thoughts helped in the reconstruction of each story in written form. Beyond this, overarching
patterns that emerged from coding and categorizing all of the elders’ experiences were addressed
in the discussion in Chapter 5. Since this chapter drew heavily from the individuals’ stories, I
employed narrative analysis in the sense used by Polkinghorne (1995) which involved
synthesizing the data to derive meaning that is stored within each individual narrative. In Chapter
5, I employed analysis of narrative (Polkinghorne, 1995), also called paradigmatic analysis, in
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the discussion section by exploring larger themes, sub-themes, and patterns that emerged from
all six narratives. The examples used in the discussion section of Chapter 5 were pulled from
various elders’ stories when appropriate, and therefore disengaged them from their personal
narrative. The intention behind using both modes of analysis was to enable the reader to
understand each individual’s account as a separate story while also presenting other knowledge
emerging from all individuals’ narratives in a paradigmatic way, enabling an interpretation of
overarching themes. I begin with Hồ ng and Khoa.
Hồ ng and Khoa
Hồ ng: The Saxophonist
“Solfege, I learned when I was young, and I liked music from a young age, so when I grew up, I
became a musician.” – Hồ ng
I visited Hồ ng in his small but well-kept condominium, where he invited me to sit next to
him on the living room couch. His wife served me a drink while he asked me how my parents
were doing. It had been many years since he had seen my dad, and about twenty years since I
had first played in a Vietnamese band with him. Due to his deteriorating health throughout the
course of this study, our second interview was conducted via telephone. My personal knowledge
of Hồ ng was that he was always a cheerful man, passionate about the dance music we played in
the band which consisted of tango, paso doble, bolero, cha cha, Boston, bolé ro, and valse, and
that he possessed a big, bright, ringing tone on his alto saxophone, probably from his career as a
dance band musician where music had to be able to cut through people’s chatter and laughter in
restaurants and clubs. In our previous conversations in setting up these interviews, he eagerly
told me about his ‘golden days’ and the great times he had touring with bands, great musicians
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and singers he played with, famous restaurants where he played, and his complicated but
fortunate escape from Vietnam to the United States in 1975.
Now at 88 years old, Hồ ng recounted his childhood as an exciting and joy-filled time. He
participated in the church choir, in Scouts, and had learned how to play the banjo and mandolin
on his own.
Tina: So you sang in the church?
Hồ ng: Yes, I sang; it was really fun. Most importantly, during the big holidays:
Christmas, Easter. The band had to practice every night or once a week. When the
holiday was coming, you had to practice every night, singing part songs. The leader of
the choir was good at theory, so he taught it. It was fun. When I was young, it was fun,
and I liked it. When I sang, it was funny, because I remember when they sang their part,
(he sings an example), it was the bass part and I didn’t understand at first, but when the
parts came together, it sounded good. (Interview 2)
In church choir, he described how he thought the bass part sounded funny because the
part didn’t seem to make melodic sense when the men sang it individually, only to understand
the beauty of harmony when he heard all the parts as a whole. His musical experience with the
church was one out of choice. He expressed that he enjoyed music very much, but it was also one
of convenience, as he lived in proximity to the church.
Hồ ng: My house was right next to the church. So I congregated and helped with the
church only in Latin from the beginning to the end for a full hour of mass. Everything
was in Latin. And back then, there were few people who dedicated their lives to the
church. So there would be two masses, three masses, and not enough people to help run
them. And so I helped out… In the mornings, we would hear the bells ringing for working
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people to wake up to go to church. I’d help out with the mass, I’d hear singing, and I
joined them in singing. The director called me in, I liked it and I knew the basics, so I
would sing.
Tina: Back in church, what did you sing?
Hồ ng: I don’t remember anymore. But back then, I helped with the masses in Latin. I
knew the mass from the beginning to the end, now I’ve forgotten it, but when singing, we
sang in Latin only. Not in Vietnamese. Back then, no one wrote music in Vietnamese.
(Interview 1)
When I asked him about whether he participated in Scouts, he lit up and became very
excited to share.
Hồ ng: Oh, Hướ ng Đạ o is very good. Then, I was 14-15 years old. Normally, it teaches us
to help people do good deeds. When you are walking on the street, you may see a nail, a
tree branch, or a rock on the way that may cause trouble, you should pick it up. That’s
how we can help people, just minor deeds. You always try to help other people in any
way you can. When you went camping, you had to do everything yourself. You had to
look for wood to build fire and cook your own food, climb a mountain, cross small
streams, all these obstacles so you can be trained in the life of Scouts to help people. I
remember when I was young, it was so cold and we were wearing short sleeve shirts and
shorts, we had to be strong and brave. It was good.
Tina: Where there younger kids in it?
Hồ ng: Yes, young and old. The younger group was called Cub Scouts, the older group
was called Scouts.
Tina: Did they sing children’s songs?
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Hồ ng: Yes, they sang a lot, it’s been so long, I’ve forgotten. But at night we’d sit around,
practice singing, tell stories, we’d set a campfire to get warm, all the scouts would sit
around, someone would tell stories, or stand up and sing, someone would lead the whole
group to sing. It was fun. It was to have morals and have a good, helping heart,
especially toward elders and weak people. You’d help them immediately. When I was
young, I was really motivated by it. Maybe it’s because of that that God loved me back,
and helped me have a full life, a good life; He gives back to us.
Tina: Was Scouts religiously affiliated?
Hồ ng: Yes, it was Catholic Scouts, so when we went to mass, we wore Scout uniforms. To
portray that we were kind people, we had to be more serious than others.
Tina: When you sang songs in Scouts, was it songs about Jesus or…?
Hồ ng: We sang about both and life and religion. Because when I was young, I was in the
church choir. Solfege, I learned when I was young, and I liked music from a young age,
so when I grew up, I became a musician (chuckles).
Tina: Did people play instruments like the guitar?
Hồ ng: Yes. After we came back at night, people told us to make a fire. Someone played
guitar, another played harmonica, and we’d sing, and there was a song leader keeping
the beat. Usually, it was just one part. In the church, it was several parts.
Tina: In Scouts, did they sing about nature and animals?
Hồ ng: Yes, and climbed mountains, drawing contests, writing contests, it was so fun.
Scout life is fun. And it taught you to have goodness towards others. No enmity, no
sadness. Forgiveness.
Tina: Do they have those songs printed in books (for Scouts)?
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Hồ ng: During my time, they didn’t have the technology for printers. It was just orally
learned. He sang first and then we repeated. There were some people who could listen
well. So like you hear something and you know what it is. We listened and copied.
(Interview 2)
When I asked Hồ ng about music in the community, he recalled being an excited boy who
couldn’t wait to see all of the entertainment surrounding him. He loved the arts so much that
sometimes he would break rules just to go watch performances.
Tina: Back in Vietnam, did they lion dance out in the streets?
Hồ ng: Yes, when I was in school, they lion danced, did martial arts. We were in school,
and we’d see the lion dance troupe go by, my heart would beat so fast.
Tina: Was lion dancing for boys only or for girls too?
Hồ ng: Mostly boys and men, it was rare to have girls. When I was young, I went to see
“cả i lương” theater with my friend. (On the way) we’d follow the lion dancing troupe,
jumping from up high, all scratched up with bloody knees and arms (laughs), but we did
not feel the pain and we enjoyed it a lot... During the Mid-Autumn Harvest Moon Festival
in school, they’d practice the lion dance. I liked it so much. In August I would long for it.
Tina: So you used to watch “cả i lương” theater?
Hồ ng: Yes, I loved “cả i lương” theater. I loved it so much.
Tina: Did you have to pay?
Hồ ng: No (laughs). Well, I’m a little ashamed to say. In my hometown, once in a while,
the “cả i lương” theater troupe would come to perform. “Cả i lương” was performed in
the temple. I climbed up the rope, then swung over the temple and jumped down the
column to watch “cả i lương” theater for free. We were young and in school; we didn’t
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have money to money to get in. I really liked it…So I liked musicals from long before.
(Interview 2)
Hung recalled himself as a boy who loved music, with an interest in instruments at an early age.
Tina: Can you tell me about when you learned banjo and mandolin? Who taught you?
Hồ ng: Banjo I taught myself, I was good. I could play the melody and the chords in one
instrument. So maybe God gave me that gift… I had that talent from when I was young.
(Interview 2)
His strong Catholic faith was evident in our conversation, as he often referred to God-given
talents and fortune. This was also evident in how he recounted celebrating the holidays.
Tina: In Vietnam, during holidays like Christmas, did people sing a lot in town?
Hồ ng: It was so fun. Everyone is so excited, going out and dressed up nicely, there were
cars everywhere, in Catholicism, it’s a great time, Christmas, Vietnamese New Year, in
Vietnam it’s much more fun than in the United States. After 1975, when we came to the
United States, for Christmas and Vietnamese New Year, my family just cried. We missed
our homeland. There’s nowhere like where you were born, where you grew up. It was a
different type of happiness, a Vietnamese style. (Interview 2)
His comparison of Vietnamese New Year festivities in Vietnam to Vietnamese New Year
festivities in the United States belies a tip-of-the-iceberg view of how his present life differs
from his childhood. This will be discussed more in Chapter 5.
Although he mentioned that his journey from Vietnam to the United States in 1975 was a
very smooth transition and one that was a relatively positive experience filled with fortune, here,
he hinted at the difficulties of being displaced from one’s country.
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Hồ ng: Now I see that we are really lonely, because my children have all left, it’s just us
two older people watching out for each other. Everyone is busy with work, grandkids are
schooling, the family is not what it used to be back then in Vietnam. (Interview 2)
Ever the optimist, he circled back to seeing a positive view of life in the United States.
Hồ ng: My wife and I have discussions about life here in America, we are here in the
United States, so we have to accept the lifestyle in the United States. You lose one thing,
but you gain another like materials, our spirits are relaxed, no one gives us trouble, but
it’s just a little lonely. But if you live in the United States, then you have to adapt to this
environment. (Interview 2)
Hồ ng reconstructed a very happy childhood, filled with musical joys coming from many
dimensions, including with Scouts, in the church, the community, and his own explorations with
instruments and theatre-going. However, when I asked about his parents, his recollections were
sparse. He confided that his father had passed away at a young age:
Hồ ng: I heard that my dad played in a band in the church, I don’t know which
instrument... He died when I was just a few months old. Dad passed away when he was
pretty young, about 40-something. Back then, they didn’t have medicine. During my time,
there was a medicine called ký ninh (quinine) people used for everything. Cold, flus,
fevers, quinine. There was only quinine. No surgery, nothing. (Interview 1)
When I asked about whether his mother sang him lullabies, he replied,
Hồ ng: No, (thinking) uh, uh, well, yes. I remember now and I feel kind of sad. In the old
days… there were no fans no air conditioning, it was horribly hot in the summer. I
remember the singing, “hò ơi”, singing lullabies to children in the summer, it’s a sad
memory, remembering my homeland. (Interview 1)
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Though his recollections were mostly positive, the ones of his mother brought back sad
memories. He also shared some memories that showed the dire political situation of the time.
Tina: Was there music in schools?
Hồ ng: No. In schools, they never taught music. It was just the school program, nothing
more. If you wanted to learn, you learned separately outside. Back then, we were poor.
The country was very poor.
Tina: So you had to have money?
Hồ ng: Yes, have money to rent (instruments). Perhaps you don’t know my situation. Out
in the North, it was all poor. Only in the cities, Hà Nộ i, Nam Đị nh, Ninh Bì nh it was well-
to-do. The worst was in 1945. People in the North were dying everywhere; it was stifling.
So, in the North, you could only harvest once a year. You had to wait for the rain. It
would rain and then you’d use the water buffalos and sow, then plant the rice grains. In
the winter you could not cultivate. If it didn’t rain, you couldn’t cultivate. In brief, you
could only cultivate once a year. If you couldn’t cultivate, you’d go hungry. If the North
was dry that year, then the South would send rice to help us. In the South, there’s the
Sông Cử u Long River, they had water the entire year… they would not go hungry. In
1945, the Japanese occupied Vietnam; that year, it was dry, we were hungry. The South
was supporting us. But the Japanese burned all of their rice fields. The North went
hungry, and the South couldn’t help. At the time, I was already in Hà Nộ i. I would open
the door, and people would be lying dead next to the river bank. At the beginning, they’d
bury them. But there were so many dead that they just put them on buffalo carts, pushed
them out to the river, and dumped them in the river. They couldn’t bury them because
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there were too many dead… No one could forget that. The two American atomic bombs
pulled the Japanese out. (Interview 1)
Despite the dire circumstances in North Vietnam that he grew up in during a time of war
with French and then Japanese occupation, his love for music eventually led him to seek a career
as a military musician. In his early 20s, he joined the military, where he learned to play the
saxophone from lieutenants in the military band. I asked him about his first experience playing
saxophone:
Tina: When you made your first sound on the saxophone, how did it make you feel?
Hồ ng: To be able to make the sound I was already happy. But the theory I knew already,
so saxophone was easy. Do Re Mi Fa Sol La Si Do: seven keys, seven fingers, two little
fingers, so it was easier than others. So I liked it. I practiced for a strong sound. The
sound is unique to the person. One person’s sound is warm, one is high-pitched, each
person is different. I practiced so it sounded smooth. Later, I practiced for resonance,
then practiced ear training, identifying notes... I had the desire when I was young…
When I was at school, at the Ha Nộ i church, when I crossed the lake there was a dancing
restaurant, I would climb over and watch, and see Anh Đang Hà playing saxophone with
action, moving around and bowing down, I would wish I could play like him and later on,
I did get the chance to play like him. (Interview 2)
Hồ ng became a saxophonist and ended up touring all over Vietnam to perform with the
French military band, and later performed for American soldiers stationed in Vietnam. When he
came to the United States, he continued to play in various bands and tour throughout the states
until he retired a few years ago. Three of his children joined him in a musical career.
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Analysis: A rich musical childhood
Hồ ng’s story details the many ways a child is exposed to and engages with music and the
multitude of positive experiences that may lead to identity formation as a musician. He excitedly
recounted many experiences: singing in the church choir and recognizing the beauty of harmony,
participating in Scouts and having a sense of belonging, purpose and being of service to the
elderly, anticipation of the annual lion dancing during Tế t, the Vietnamese New Year festival,
and teaching himself how to play banjo and mandolin. His experiences with Scouts, choir, and
holiday celebrations were grounded by his ties to the Catholic Church. Identifying himself as a
music lover at an early age, he saw his musical childhood as a series of experiences leading up to
the defining moment when he joined the military band to learn and perform saxophone.
Hồ ng defined himself through his stories as an active participant in music. When he was
not singing or playing musical instruments, he was looking forward to seeing musical
performances such as lion dancing or cả i lương theater. In considering Hargreaves, MacDonald,
and Miell’s (2016) stages of musical identity development and identities in music, Hồ ng saw
himself as a performer during his early childhood and adolescence. He experienced being a part
of different musical environments (see Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006) – choir and Scouts – as
part of his “microsystem” and influenced by family and friends, then, in the “macrosystem” as
part of a Catholic community that celebrated Christmas and Easter, and finally, as Vietnamese,
celebrating national holidays out in town. His identity was shaped, as Campbell and Wiggins
(2013) stated, by language, ethnicity and religious beliefs. His many experiences throughout
childhood embraced music as performative and social (Hargreaves et al., 2017). These musical
experiences facilitated the development of his musical identity.
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In his various ways of music learning, Hồ ng described learning songs orally and aurally,
but also mentions that he had knowledge of music theory. In Scouts, he recalled simply repeating
what the song leaders sung and being guided by a song leader who kept the beat; he noted that
printing presses weren’t available to them. He mentioned learning solfege and music theory from
the church choir director. This later enabled him to teach himself to play the banjo and mandolin,
which Gibbs (2008) noted was a trend with young people in the 1930s. The solfege, theory, and
singing in Latin were most likely French influences, as the French had a stronghold of Vietnam
during the time of Hồ ng’s childhood. This is corroborated by Gibbs (2003), who noted that
Roman Catholic missionaries first introduced Western music to Vietnam. Liturgical melodies
were translated into Vietnamese, but French missionaries also taught Vietnamese followers Latin
plainchant in the 18
th
and 19
th
centuries (Guerard, 1823; P. T. Nguyen, 1998). Gibbs (2003)
points out that these church activities were specific to the Catholic community; Hồ ng’s
experience, therefore, was a rather unique one compared to Vietnamese society as a whole.
During certain moments of the interview, Hồ ng made clear that the north of Vietnam was
in a state of poverty due to the war between the French and Japanese going on at the time,
between 1940 and 1945. During this time, Hồ ng would have been 9-13 years old. Soon after, the
rise of communists and the Vietnam War would eventually take place. Hồ ng fled Vietnam in
1975 at age 44. Despite having lived in a Vietnam that was constantly in battle, he still managed
to reconstruct a positive childhood experience. He had lived a large portion of his life in Vietnam
and expressed love for his homeland. As a refugee in the United States, he grappled with the
change in culture, lack of cultural celebrations that he cherished back home, and feelings of
isolation. While Hồ ng looked back at the past through a nostalgic lens, Khoa, the next
participant, was less romantic about his childhood.
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Khoa: The Composer
“I was a curious child.” – Khoa
The above epitaph sums up Khoa’s personality and the characteristic that eventually led
him to his first encounter with the piano, setting off a series of events that would lead him to
experiments in composition and eventually becoming an established composer in adulthood. At
86 years old, Khoa is an accomplished composer with numerous pieces to his name. The bulk of
his work consists of Vietnamese music written for Western instruments – that is, while his choice
of instrumentation might be for Western orchestral instruments, his style and harmonic choices
are distinctively Vietnamese. His vocal works are often in Vietnamese, and he is perhaps most
widely known for his symphony, “Symphony Vietnam 1975”. He has also composed orchestral
pieces featuring non-Western instruments such as zither as a soloist.
On the day of our first interview, the rain was pouring so hard outside that a 20-foot walk
from my car to his daughter’s music studio felt like walking under a waterfall. Inside the studio,
he and his wife had found a room that was suitable for our interview. While all the other rooms
had pianos in them (his daughter was a pianist, percussionist, and music teacher) this one had but
a few percussion instruments, a couch, and a table. The studio was not yet open for the day’s
regular student visitors. Over a cup of hot tea, Khoa told me about his childhood. The second
interview would be over the phone, as he held a busy schedule and preferred a phone call for
convenience.
The year Khoa was born, 1933, was the very year that the French started teaching solfege
in Vietnam.
Tina: Did you learn solfege when you were young?
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Khoa: No, what would I do to be able to learn it? Just a few people learned that. We
called it “modern music”. Modern music was different from traditional music. It was
new. It was slow to spread because they didn’t have means to disseminate it widely like
they do today. (Interview 1)
When I asked him about his musical experiences at home, he shared with me the lack of music in
his home, with a tinge of sadness.
Tina: Did your parents sing you to sleep?
Khoa: When I was very little, I don’t remember. But when I could remember, there
wasn’t anymore. My mother died early. Not too young, but I was still young. So, in a way,
I wanted to survive, but I want to do what I wanted. When my mother died, I had a spirit
of wanting to stay away from everyone. My mother didn’t sing. She didn’t know how to
sing. Father just sang church music, just enough to carry the notes; he didn’t know
anything about music. After my mom died, my family life was difficult. We were poor.
After the war evacuation, we were even poorer. So my family was really lacking. My
childhood was very hard. So, I don’t know why I liked music and wanted to develop it
more.
Tina: What kind of music were you exposed to during your childhood, music during
Vietnamese New Year, or church?
Khoa: No, nothing.
Tina: With friends?
Khoa: Nothing.
Tina: Scouts?
Khoa: I wasn’t in it.
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Tina: Listening?
Khoa: Well, yes, there was. My uncle, who lived next door, had children coming back
from France who had studied abroad, they brought home a record player and records,
and it was so strange to listen to. I loved one of the songs; it was so strange. My uncle
said the song title was “Les Filles du Ranco,” but I didn’t know what that meant. Later, I
understood it to be “The Girls of the Ranch” (he laughs heartily), the beat was very
energetic, different, and I fell in love with it. I still remember it. (He hums the first phrase
of the tune). It was just different from the traditional stuff “o, e, o, e”. Over the years, I
heard other songs too. I didn’t know until years later that those songs were actually
French songs with the lyrics translated to Vietnamese. We didn’t hear that in the North,
because northern musicians didn’t mention them. For instance, a song with Vietnamese
lyrics I remember was (he sings): “…da da da da da da da,” turns out it was the song
“Sunset in Vienna,” ahhh! And another song, “Da, da, da, d-da,” They wrote romantic
lyrics (he sings a few lines), what was it? South of the Border (laughs). I didn’t know! It
wasn’t until later that I knew. This time was the beginning of Western music coming to
Vietnam.
Tina: Did you listen to songs on the radio?
Khoa: No radio. (Vinyl) records, or just people singing, and I listened. I was living in
Cầ n Thơ, it wasn’t sophisticated or modernized like Sà i Gò n, there was so much to be
wanted.
Tina: Did you have musical instruments in your home?
Khoa: No.
Tina: Did you have music at school?
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Khoa: No, there was no music in school. Just singing.
Tina: Were there music lessons?
Khoa: Later on, there was, in high school, for a short while. Then the learning time was
cut short, there was a lot of migration (new students coming in from the North), and the
facilities were strained, they didn’t have enough space to teach. And, the courses in the
arts didn’t have much to do with our lives at that time, so they cut it. So music in Vietnam
at that time, it was difficult and poor. (Interview 1)
I pressed him for more information about his experiences singing music in school. He began to
tell me about his favorite songs that they sang in class.
Khoa: When I was in fourth grade (equivalent to second grade in the United States), I
didn’t know how to read music yet, but I could sing. At that time, songs from the
revolutionary movement started to spread. So that’s how I was able to know some songs.
When I was little, I loved two songs: “Chiế n Sĩ Vô Danh” (“The Unknown Soldiers”)
and the children’s song, “Họ c Sinh Hà nh Khú c” (“Marching Students”) by Lê Thương.
And the song “Đêm Vương Biền” (“The Night of King Biền”), because now we were
fighting French. After the Japanese left, the French wanted it back. Back then, you had to
pass a singing test in the last grade to pass elementary. Music was one of the tests, they
called it music, but it was actually singing. I was in fourth grade, but the school had me
teach fifth graders to prepare for their singing test. I was in the lower grade, but I taught
the higher grade. That was a strange thing.
Tina: How did they teach singing in school? Did they use solfege?
Khoa: Just singing. No solfege, nothing. Just singing songs. I taught (he started to sing
the first few words to “The Unknown Soldiers”). Any student who went in for the exam,
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the teacher asked them to sing that song. They gave the teachers two or three song
choices, and the teacher liked that one. And we were at war with the French, so it was in
our spirits. It was great. Almost everyone knew the song and sang it. Later, when I was
older, about 14-15 years old, the French started to retreat from Vietnam. They threw
away all their books, including music books. I picked up a music book that taught in the
French method. I started learning, starting with the shape of notes. How would I have a
piano? I didn’t have one. I just copied the drawing of the piano on the table, white marks
and black marks. And it said, “Do Re Mi,” so I copied “Do Re Mi”. I tried to imagine
the sound. (He sang): “Do Re Mi Fa Sol La Si Do”. Ok, so I pressed down, imagined and
played. I saw some Church hymnals with some lyrics in Vietnamese, and some in English,
and there were music notes. So I took it and looked at the music and pressed, pressed
(imitating striking piano keys). There was no sound; it was just by imagination.
One day in church, between the first and second service, during intermission, I snuck on
the piano to play. I was shocked to hear the sound. So I noodled around. People were
coming out, and some were coming in. I felt a tap on my shoulder, turned around, and
there was an American lady. I thought, oh no. She was the pianist of the church. I was
messing around without permission. I thought I was in trouble. I was going to run away,
but she told me to sit down. She sat down at the other one. She told me what to do. She
was on the organ; I was on the piano. After the service, she asked me where I learned
music. I said nowhere. She was surprised and asked me if I wanted to learn. I said yes,
but I had no money. She said she would teach me music for free. She invited me to come
to her house. So she started teaching me: “This note is round, this is a half note.” I
learned music in French “blanche noir”, but she spoke English. I just stumbled speaking.
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I wondered how I even understood and learned from her at the time. I was about 15 or 16
years old. I learned for about a few months. I brought her a sheet of music to try. Her
eyes widened, and asked, “Where did you copy this?” I said no, I wrote it. She tried to
play it, and it didn’t sound like classical music. She believed me. She bought music
composition and harmony related books from the United States and had them sent back
to Vietnam for me to learn more… So that’s how I got to know and learn music. It was a
shortcut to learning music. (Interview 1)
I then asked him about children’s songs, and I named a few to see if he was familiar with them.
Tina: Do you remember “Kì a Con Bướ m Vàng” (“Yellow Butterfly”, which is the
French children’s song Frè re Jacques with Vietnamese lyrics)?
Khoa: That came later. There weren’t songs like that. Later on, there was. They just
translated it from outside (foreign) music. Songs that were composed originally, there
were some, but not many. (Interview 1)
Khoa eventually told me about landmark events in his adulthood that led him to pursue
music composition. In 1955 at age 20, he had entered a National Music Competition and had
won the competition. However, he had hidden this from his church community, fearing that he
would be chided for occupying his time with matters that were not spiritual in nature. He stated,
“I was afraid people would criticize me for doing stuff outside the church instead of doing holy
work.” In 1955 he won again, and he also won the Presidential Competition between 1968 and
1970 for both composition and photography. He hid all of these from his church community.
However, at some point, it was clear to him that composition and photography were no longer
mere past times. He said, “I felt like I had done something worth being happy for and kept doing
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it.” His plans with some colleagues to open up a music school were forever interrupted in 1975
when he fled to the United States. He continues composition and photography to this day.
Analysis: A child of historical circumstance
Khoa had a very keen sense of how his childhood fit into the historical context. As he
explained his circumstances, he would situate events of his childhood happening as a result of
political moves. His musical exposure, and therefore the formation of his musical identity, was
somewhat dictated by what was happening politically in the country. The songs he learned in
school and that he liked were war songs that were meant to lift people’s spirits. These songs were
reflective of the historical context or the chronosystem affecting the microsystem
(Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006), and the people’s (namely, his teacher’s) sentiments, which
spread to the students by way of music.
Khoa also seemed to understand that his unfortunate circumstances were due to being
socioeconomically disadvantaged. He explained: “Back then, kids didn’t have anything, not even
toys. So when I wanted to play, I took pieces of clay and mud and meshed them together. No
toys were available. There was no money to buy, so I just made my own.” The several times that
he mentioned being poor, I first thought that he, as in his family, was poor. I came to gradually
understand that when he said “we were poor”, he meant that “we” as his country’s people, and
himself. He meant that the country as a whole, with him as part of that, was not doing well.
Khoa looked back on his childhood as a lacking, war-ridden time. He was directly
affected by the lack of resources caused by the war, as he told me that his ill mother could not
receive proper treatment from the hospital because the government did not have enough
medicine to give everyone in need. She subsequently died because of the government’s lack of
resources. His mother’s death changed his outlook on life, which colored his perception of
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childhood and therefore, childhood musical experiences. He perceived both his microsystem as
lacking because of his mother’s death and the macrosystem of government as lacking because of
war (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006).
Khoa saw his musical career choices as a mystery because he remembered his parents as
not ‘being musical’ at all. He posited that his musical identity was not due to home life, Scouts,
or church. He attributed his first musical endeavor when he first picked up a piano book that was
left behind as part of the ravages of war, to a mere action of curiosity. However, his musical
identity began to form, perhaps unbeknownst to him, when his uncle would play French records
for him to listen to. Though implicit in nature (Eraut, 2000), listening to these records had an
impact on him. Although his parents were described as “musically absent”, his uncle was the
person in his microsystem who was guiding musical experiences. Following Hargreaves et al.’s
(2017) music in identity, this eventually led him to become ‘a fan of Western music’, while his
identity in music would lead him to the status of ‘composer’.
Because Khoa is a composer, I probed him about Vietnamese composers who wrote
children’s songs. He listed a few that he knew of (see Appendix E), and also stated that he had
written children’s songs as well (see Appendix F).
The juxtaposition of Hồ ng’s and Khoa’s stories shapes certain characteristics about the
regions they were from, the historical and political contexts which influenced their childhoods,
and the role that socioeconomic status played in their musical experiences; these are not meant to
be interpreted as generalizations. Although Hồ ng, from the northern region of Vietnam, and
Khoa, from the southern region, are not representatives of their home regions, there were
differences between the North and the South, in both geography, natural resources, and political
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differences that defined their experiences as children. These larger themes will be discussed later
on, after all participants’ stories are presented.
Yế n and Bí ch
The next two participants spent a considerable amount of their childhoods as students of
the National Music School or Trườ ng Quốc Gia Âm Nhạ c which opened in 1956 and was
expanded to include dramatic arts in 1960. Though they both attended this conservatory in
Saigon, they studied in different departments; Yế n studied zither in the traditional music
department while Bí ch studied piano and violin in the Western music department. Juxtaposing
the two participants’ experiences in their relative departments elucidates the different
curriculums of each department’s curriculum and how conservatory schooling shaped their
musical identities.
Yế n: The Zither Student
“I know many ca dao verses. It goes into your heart; when you’re young, you don’t know any
better, but it seeps into you.” – Yế n
Yế n was the only participant who was currently residing in Vietnam at the time of the
interviews. An alert woman, Yế n reminded me of the 14-hour time difference while we set up
our two interviews over Skype. Our interviews took place before she went to bed while I was up
bright and early.
We started speaking on the topic of her mother singing to her as a child. To sing with the
intention of putting a child to sleep is called ru. Ru is a verb specific to this parent-child
situation. ‘To sing’ would be another verb, called há t, if one is from the north of Vietnam, while
in the South, people use the verb ca. Mothers often ru their children using musico-poetic verses
called ca dao that come in pairs of specifically metered syllables. The metered verse itself is
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called lụ c bá t; the first line contains six syllables while the second line contains eight syllables.
A lilting feel and a specific tonal structure in the word choice lend a natural musicality to the
verse. There are numerous ca dao verses that are part of the Vietnamese cultural canon. When
parents, typically mothers, ru ca dao to their children, they sing it instead of reciting it, drawing
out syllables as they see fit. They always start with a sort of musical introduction of vowel
sounds, a combination of ‘a’s and ‘o’s that will sound different depending on what region the
parent is from; these vowels are also intermittently interjected between verses as they feel fit.
Parents can take the liberty to improvise and change lyrics or invent new ca dao. When Yế n
mentioned that her mother often sang (ru) her to sleep with ca dao verses, I asked her to share
some with me. She responded, “Sure, it’s very simple,” and began to sing a ca dao verse that
related animals to the garnishes that they were eaten with.:

“À a ơi, à a ơi,
con gà cụ c tá c lá chanh,
con lợ n ủ n ỉ n mua hà nh cho tôi,
con chó khó c đứ ng khó c ngồ i,
Mẹ ơi đi chợ mua tôi đò ng riềng,
à a ơi, à a ơi.”
The translation is as follows:
The chicken clucked, pecked on a lime leaf.
The pig goes, oink, oink, buy me an onion.
The dog cried, standing up, and sitting
down,
Mother, buy me a dime's worth of galangal
root.
She continued:
Yế n: Because I’m from the North, lullabies always start with “à a ơi, à a ơi” (so, la-so, so,
la-do). But if they’re from Huế , they don’t sing like that. You can tell what region the
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mother is from, North, South, or Central, depending on the way she sings lullabies…
(Interview 1)
See Figure 4.1 for transcriptions of the three regional ways of starting ca dao.

Figure 4.1. Three regional ways of starting ca dao.
The South is:

“Ầ u ơ, ví dầ u cầ u vá n đó ng đinh,
cầ u tre lắ t lẻ o, gậ p ghềnh khó đi,
âu ơ, ơ ầ u ơ.”
Translation:
A plank/bridge has nails
A bumpy bamboo bridge is difficult to walk
across
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Once she sang it, I recognized it as a ca dao that my parents had taught me. There was
more to the ca dao verse that she did not sing, but the moral of the ca dao is that while a child
learns lessons in school, its mother learns lessons in life.

The part that she did not sing was:

“Khó đi mẹ dắt con đi
Con đi trường học mẹ đi trường
đời. ”
Translation:
If it’s hard to walk, Mother will help you cross
Child goes to school, Mother is in “life” school
She continued:
And Central is:

“aa ơi, ma ru em em théc cho muồ i,
chu để mạ đi chợ , a ơi,
chu để mạ đi chợ , mua vôi mà ăn
trầ u, a ơi,
chu mua vôi chợ Quán chợ Cầ u
chu mua cau ma Nam Phố , a oi,
chu mua Nam Phố , mua trầ u ma chợ
Dinh. “
Translation:
Singing a lullaby to you to calm you
So Mother can go to the market
To buy lime to eat betel
Buy lime at Quá n market and Cầ u market
Buy areca at Nam Phố
Nam Phố , buy betel at Dinh market
This was a ca dao about trying to lull the baby to sleep so the mother could go to the market and
buy ingredients.
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Yế n: You can tell right away. Each one is a tiny bit different. (Interview 1)
Yế n: …So Vietnamese generally know lụ c bá t, six and eight phrases. Its seeps in.
Everyone knows how to do it. It’s Vietnam’s poem. …if you know lụ c bá t, you can sing a
lullaby. You don’t need anything else. For instance, “bầ u ơi thương lá y bí cù ng, tuy rằ ng
khá ch gió ng nhưng chung mồ t già ng” you see? Six and eight. So… you can change it to
make it yours. (Interview 2)
Yế n: …But babies don’t understand the meaning of it, you grow up, and then you
understand the lessons of your mother (sung in ca dao). My mother sang lullabies often.
So my mom didn’t know how to play music, but she loved listening to the piano, so when I
grew up, she provided me with the means to learn. …Back then… for girls, we were lucky
to go to school. If you wanted to sing and stuff, (she pauses) it was difficult back in the
old days you know. (My dad) didn’t sing but he played “đà n nhị ” (an instrument similar
to the Chinese erhu). When I got older and went to the National Music School, once in a
while, I’d come home and we, father and daughter would play together. I would play
zither and he would play “đà n nhị ”. (Interview 1)
Yế n: (He played) praise drums for “ca trù ”, which is different from drumming for “há t
chè o”. If the singer was good, the drummer drummed a certain way. If she was bad, he
would drum a certain way. That way people would know by the rhythm of the drum if we
were appreciating or not liking the singing. The “ca trù ” drummer was very important.
The listener really had to know how to appreciate it.
Tina: Did you learn the drums when you were little?
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Yế n: No. It is very difficult. And it’s for men. So they would give him the poetry, then he
knew the rules of how to play. There is a list of styles, and you pick from there (she names
a couple of styles). You have to (study) deeply. (Interview 2)
Tina: When you were young, at home, did your parents listen to music?
Yế n: We listened to “há t chè o” (a type of folk singing derived from folk melodies),
recited poetry. Back then, there was no TV. If you had a radio, it was considered
luxurious. We’d turn it on and listen.
Tina: Did you have siblings?
Yế n: Yes, my next youngest brother got into music school, playing monochord, and
graduated, but after he got into medical school, he didn’t have time for it and quit.
Tina: Did anyone play instruments, like the guitar?
Yế n: All my siblings did. My younger sibling played guitar very well. But he didn’t follow
it as a career. He was really good, like if you sang something, he could follow you
immediately with arpeggios.
Tina: How did he learn the guitar?
Yế n: Oh, they taught themselves, or learned by friends. They were not formally trained.
Tina: So they met friends who taught them?
Yế n: Yes, or took some private lessons just for the basics, and then expanded on their
own.
Tina: If you wanted to learn more, but you weren’t in the National Music School, could
you still find a teacher?
Yế n: Yes, there were lots. Lots of classes.
Tina: Did you have to pay?
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Yế n: Yes. The private studios.
Tina: Did the teachers ever come to your house, or did they teach at home?
Yế n: It depended. There are people who have the teacher come to their house. If you go
to a class then there’s the class energy, it’s more serious. It depended. (Interview 1)
Since the other participants had mentioned Scouts, I decided to ask Yế n about Scouts.
Tina: Back then, did you participate in Scouts?
Yế n: I didn’t participate… but I know a lot of scout songs. They’re group songs, they’re
educational, they’re entertaining, and they’re short, and fits very well with children. For
instance, there’s an educational component that’s not heavy-handed, but teaches
children.
She sang a verse from the song “Cá i Nhà Củ a Ta”:

“Cái nhà là nhà củ a ta
Công khó ông cha lậ p ra
Cháu con phả i gìn giữ lấy
Muôn năm vớ i nướ c non nhà”
Translation:
This is my father’s house
He worked hard to build it
The children must take care of it
All year long.
See, it’s only four lines, so it’s easy to remember for children, they like it.
Or “Vậ t Nuôi Trong Nhà ” (“House Pets”), (she sang):

Em có nui mộ t con chó ,
trong no to, như con bò ,
mà nọ keu, râu râu râu,
trưa nó keu râu râu râu,
tố i nó keu râu râu râu
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Translation:
I have a pet dog
It is as big as a buffalo
It barks, bow wow wow
In the afternoon it barks bow wow wow
At night it barks bow wow wow
So children really like it. Read it a little, and they can follow right away.
She continued:
Yế n: And there’s the opportunity to create new lyrics, for instance, when we perform
outside, we divide into two groups, singing, competing. (Call)“Ô nay năm ơi!”
(Equivalent to “Hey everyone!”), (response) “Ơi!” (Equivalent to “Hey!”) (she sings the
children’s song “Con Có c”/ “The Toad Song”, listed in Appendix E). Then over there
they have to figure out what animal we’re singing about. (She sings a verse about a dog)
then the other side has to come up with another animal to sing about (she sings a verse
about a monkey, then a pig), so, kids get older and you make each side think of another
animal to sing about and divide the group in two.
That’s the “Toad Song”. From that song, you invent other animals to teach kids how to
rhyme… It has to fit in the verse… You’re teaching kids songs to teach them to be quick,
think, and respond quickly. Just like the lullabies from all three regions, they’re all in a
rhyme scheme “thơ lụ c bá t”. So if you know lụ c bá t, depending on the circumstances,
you can come up with really good verses. The most common and easiest rhyme scheme in
the Vietnamese language is that scheme. (Interview 1)
She recited a few more songs (listed in Appendix E).
I continued the interview by asking Yế n about her choice to study the zither at the
conservatory. This led into her description of conservatory schooling.
Tina: Why did you choose zither when you were little?
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Yế n: Because first I came in and saw the zither and its appearance seemed serene and
light. Its sound was clear like trickling water. I had an affinity for it. The more I learned
it the more I discovered that it for all its nuances and beauty. You resonate with it and
you feel all of its greatness. So I chose the zither.
Tina: The first time you played it, how did you feel?
Yế n: I was captivated by its clarity. Sometimes when I was playing, I could feel it, like I
was talking to it. When I was sad, I played sad songs; when I was happy, I played happy
songs.
Tina: What year did you go to the National Music School?
Yế n: It was 1958 or something. It wasn’t until then that there was a specialized music
school. Before that, there were no schools. Just once in a while, they’d open up private
lessons and for the most part, people learned guitar or sang “new music”. It would just
be a small room the teacher would open and teach and we’d sign up to learn. It wasn’t
until later that they had special training at the National Music School, it wasn’t until then
that it was clear for people who wanted to take the musical career path, could audition.
Before that, it was more about (music) running in the family.
Tina: How did you take lessons to audition?
Yế n: So there were teachers there to teach you. But the test was simple. Just to see your
potential. So you didn’t have to know music. The teacher would clap (she demonstrates a
ta ti-ti ta ta rhythm) and then you’d repeat. They’d see if you had the potential. If you
were a quick study. Or they’d played a rhythmic melody on the piano and then you’d
repeat. To see your potential. To see if your limbs responded. If you could hear. For
instance, some people have split fingers here (she points to her fingers). Were they fast
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enough, accurate, can they catch the melody? It wasn’t notes, it was just “la, la, la”, then
you get results. Were your fingers appropriate for the piano? It was simple.
Tina: How many years did it take to finish?
Yế n: It depended. For me, four years, and then I studied one more year for a teaching
certificate for a total of five years. Then I went straight into teaching.
Tina: When you were learning, how many teachers did you have, did each teach
something different?
Yế n: There were a lot of teachers. There were teachers for music theory, music history,
musicianship, and then I learned pedagogy and accompanying... So for the
specialization, you learned from the specialty teachers. During that time, the National
Music School was very strict, you couldn’t play “new music”. Only traditional music.
They considered you a blank slate and they wanted to you understand well the traditional
style. If you wanted to play new music, then you would do it outside of school and they
didn’t care but once you were inside… (Interview 1)
Yế n described the two departments in the National Music School in much detail. The
Western music department offered instruction in orchestral instruments, while the traditional
music department offered instruction in the six main Vietnamese traditional instruments. Within
the traditional music department, each student had three applied lesson instructors. Each
instructor was a specialist in one of the three styles of Vietnamese music that were specific to the
geographical region. The northern, central and southern regions of Vietnam each had their own
distinct performance practices. I asked her about transmission methods of music.
Tina: And for traditional music, how did they teach note reading?
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Yế n: So, when I was learning, my teacher was Nguyễ n Hữu Ba, so he had a two-type
notation system that was arranged parallel to each other: above was solfege, Do Re Mi
Fa Sol, and underneath was the Vietnamese system, “hò xư xang xê cố ng lí u”, so two
lines… But the Western style didn’t indicate the nuances of the Vietnamese notes, that’s
why he invented specific signs. For instance, when you speak, you have those accents
when you speak, instruments have that too. So, for example, “so-la, so-la-do,” or “so-
do,” there was a mark so you know to press it (the string) down or “so-do”. Or “so-do-
re-so,” then that mark was as high as the note “so”. So overall, there are many notes
that the Western style notation doesn’t have. So he invented a system so you could see it
and understand how you needed to play. So both systems.
Tina: You mentioned singing. What kind of songs did you using?
Yế n: All traditional songs. For the North, “bà i chè o”, and central, “bà i huế ”. For the
South, “tà i tử ”. The things that went with what we played.
Tina: And when you went to (music) school, you attended that separately from grammar
school?
Yế n: I still went to school outside. So for regular school, I went to school, then when it
was time, I went into music school. …In every school they had music. Even when you
were tiny. But it was simple, they were songs. So the teacher sang and then you repeated.
But it wasn’t thorough like training.
Tina: Did they teach solfege?
Yế n: Now they do, but when I was young, I don’t remember them teaching solfege. Just
singing. Simple singing.
Tina: Was it a public or private school?
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Yế n: Both. You had to sing, because throughout the year, you had holidays, and if you
have holidays, you must have art. So if a student knew how to sing, or a teacher knew
how to play the piano or sing, then they contributed on that occasion. So singing, it was a
group activity.
When I was a kid, I only liked games, doing motions with each other like the game “Dung
dăng dung dẻ , dắ t trẻ đi chơi”... It was simple, back then it wasn’t like today. There
wasn’t TV. Radio was extremely limited… after school, we got together in a big yard, and
we started to play. Lots of games. Games back then, I see that they were very useful. For
instance, kids usually had trouble pronouncing words. So you have to teach them to
speak properly; you had these songs. (She recites “Ông Tiển Ông Tiên”). Or, some
nights we played, we held hands and stood in rows and we’d sing “Dung dang dung de”
(she chanted the rhyme):

“Dung dăng dung dẻ ,
Dắ t trẻ đi chơi.
Đế n cử a nhà trờ i,
Lạ y cậ u lạ y mợ ,
Cho cháu về quê,
Cho dê đi họ c,
Cho cóc ở nhà,
Cho gà bớ i bế p,
Ngồ i xẹ p xuố ng đây!”
Translation:
Dung dăng dung dẻ (no translation)
Take the young ones to go play
To the door of heaven
Pray to uncle, pray to aunt
Let me come home
Let the goat go to school
Let the frog stay home
Let the chicken stay in the kitchen
Sit down flat like this!
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And on the word “đây,” everyone sat down on the ground. Then we’d stand up and sing
again. So it was very innocent, very gentle. And it got our bodies moving. We held hands
and walked, bonded… Or “Nu Na Nu Nố ng”. Four people sit in a row with their legs
straight. (One person taps each sitting person’s foot as everyone chants). Then whoever’s
foot you landed on (at the end of the chant) had to retreat their foot. With the leftover
legs, you started over.

“Nu na nu nố ng
Cái cố ng nằ m trong
Con ong nằ m ngoài
Củ khoai chấm mậ t
Ngon thậ t là Ngon!”

Translation:
Nu na nu nố ng (no equivalent, perhaps like
“Diddle dee diddle doo”)
The drain is inside
The bee is outside
Dip the potato in some honey,
Very very tasty!
They were simple games. At the time, you didn’t think about it. It was just fun. And good
for your body. Not like now, you sit still watching the iPad. There was jumping, moving…
There were lots of games… ages 6–7 and up would play. (Interview 1)
Yế n knew many games such as “Trố n Tì m” (Hide-and-seek), and she proceeded to tell
me about them, the chants involved, if any, and how to play them. These chants and their
translations are in Appendix E. Next, I changed the subject to community and leisure activities.
Tina: Did you ever go to church or temple when you were young?
Yế n: Yes, temple, but just for holidays. We have a lot of Vietnamese holidays, but just the
important ones. Like Tế t (Vietnamese New Year). Kids loved Tế t because you could wear
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nice clothes, get li xi money, you didn’t have to go to school. If you did something silly,
your parents let it slide. Kids loved Tế t first, then second, they loved Tế t Trung Thu (Mid-
Autumn Harvest Moon Festival for children), that’s the Tế t for kids. When I was little, I
loved it. You would make a big arrangement of food piled all the way up. Grapefruit,
flowers, candy, cakes. Children loved it. And kids especially loved the lanterns.
Kids gathered at anyone’s house at night, who had a big yard. We played “Bị t Mắ t Bắ t
Dê” (“Cover your eyes and capture the goat”, a blindfolded version of tag) or “Rồ ng
Rắ n Lên Mây” (Dragon and Snake to the Sky). Now, there are too many forms of games
to play.
And during the Mid-Autumn Harvest Moon Festival, I’d hear the drums pounding, “tung
tung tung tung”, I’d run outside to look. That was fun.
Tina: To see what?
Yế n: Lion dancing. I’d hear “tung tung tung tung” on the drums and run out to see.
Tina: They danced in the village?
Yế n: At people’s houses. People invited us to see… when I was young, I played around so
much. It was so funny. (Interview 2)
After sharing with me her childhood stories, Yế n told me about her teaching career, the
concerts she led and the competitions her students won. She informed me that she authored a
collection of instructional books on beginning zither method and wrote books for college-level
zither students as well. Her collection includes her own compositions, arrangements of popular
children’s songs, and modified lyrics to adult songs to make them appropriate for kids to sing
and play. Four of her compositions are included in Appendix G. The many ca dao and children’s
songs that Yế n mentioned during the course of the interview can be referred to in Appendix E.
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Yế n attained a music teaching certificate at the National Music School and teaches zither to this
day. At age 77, Yế n is surrounded by music and teaching and shows no signs of slowing down.
Analysis: A bounce in her step and a song in her heart
Yế n reconstructed her childhood as one filled with excitement and fun. She loved games,
anticipated holidays with excitement, and recalled many scouting songs with great pleasure even
though she did not participate in Scouts. She recalled numerous lullabies or cao dao verses and
children’s songs with ease. Yế n is currently a zither teacher to children and also arranges songs
for their musical study. Her regular contact with children could be one reason why children’s
songs came so quickly to her.
Although her identity in music (Hargreaves et al., 2002) was definitely ‘zither student’ as
a child, she had many experiences in various areas of her immediate environment or
microsystem (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006), including the home, the schoolyard, and the
conservatory. She did not stress preferences for listening to any particular kind of music, but she
reported being surrounded by musicians and their traditional instruments such as her father and
his đà n nhị (similar to a Chinese erhu), her brother and his monochord, and her zither, along with
all of the students who studied various traditional instruments at the conservatory. Her exposure
to these instruments influenced her choice of instrument study, and consequently, her musical
identity.
Transmission of songs and games on the playground were oral and aural as is consistent
with Marsh’s (2008) findings; scouting songs were also learned and taught orally. Yế n’s siblings
learned guitar casually aurally, yet since she was a conservatory student, she learned two
notation systems, Western and Vietnamese. Her professor had created books for students to learn
both notation systems side by side, a ‘bi-notational’ systems of sorts. With so much exposure to
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music through her father, siblings, and conservatory schooling, I wondered if she might be of a
middle-class family. This will be discussed more in Chapter 5.
Yế n described with some detail the role of creativity and improvisation in ca dao,
children’s songs, and games, which is also reflected in Marsh’s (2008) findings. Making up new
words, entire verses about animals, and the general normalcy of improvising verses in ca dao is
generally recognized to be a regular part of Vietnamese cultural practices. Engaging with her
musical culture, she and other children merged existing games and songs with their own
creations and ideas, which played a role in their musical development (Hargreaves et al., 2017).
In the interviews, Yế n mentioned several times the gender roles involved not only in
music performance, but in society. She remarked how her mother did not sing because of certain
gender roles of the time, and that girls were considered lucky if they could go to school at all.
Her father was a drummer, but she was not allowed to drum. Although boys and girls both
learned zither, all of her professors were men. She referred to a special ‘willowy-ness’ in the
image of a girl with long hair and a long traditional dress sitting down to play the zither, alluding
to a feminine ideal that is common in Vietnamese culture. In this way, cultural values affected
her childhood musical experiences. She saw through a certain lens specific to the female
experience. Despite, or perhaps in light of, the gender roles of the culture, Yế n attributed her love
of music and eventual success in music to her mother, who sang many lullabies to her as a child,
and was a fan of music, and made choices that would enable Yế n to study music.
Bí ch: The Violinist
“We didn’t listen to that music. We just liked listening to classical.” – Bí ch
As I stepped up to the spacious two-story house in the suburbs, I noticed an elaborate
collection of healthy plants in the front yard. Bí ch welcomed me into his large living room,
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where a shiny baby grand piano sat. As I set up for the interview, he asked me what music school
I went to, where I taught, and what my music training was like here in the United States. I was
amused to find that the interviewer had become the interviewee, and I told him about my music
program a bit before I turned the focus onto him and his musical childhood. Little did I know
that he had his share of intense musical training in Vietnam.
Tina: When you were little, at home, did your mom or dad sing?
Bí ch: My parents didn’t sing and didn’t know music.
Tina: How about your siblings, did they sing?
Bí ch: In my house, all eight people, (me and my siblings) studied music. Six people
studied piano, one person studied zither, and I studied the violin. My older sister played
piano at first, but at home, there was only one piano and five or six of us studying piano.
So she asked to quit piano and switched to the zither.
Tina: But your parents didn’t study music?
Bí ch: They knew nothing. My mother was from the North and did sing lullabies, but I
don’t remember them.
Tina: How did you and your siblings come to like music?
Bí ch: Because the house was next to the school and when they established the school, my
dad was a General Secretary of Education, and I came with him to cut the banner for the
grand opening… He took me and my older sister. We saw it and liked it so much so we
asked if we could learn. I was twelve. The school had just opened, so students weren’t
playing, but the teachers were playing, cutting the banner and everything, talking, and
we liked it. My mom and dad knew all the teachers and administrators, so I asked to
learn. So I studied for two months and I passed the entrance audition. Testing was just
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for piano. And then once you were in, you’d learn other topics. At the beginning, testing
was easy. Not many people studied piano. People studied other stuff more. Because back
then, not a lot of people had enough money for a piano, so it was easier for me
(insinuating that his family was more well off and therefore had money to buy a piano, so
testing was easier because he had something to practice on). (Interview 1)
Bí ch’s father had studied abroad in France and returned to Vietnam to hold several
administrative positions in schools that were run by the French. Because his father worked for
the French government, his family was quite well off, and he and his siblings had some
advantages.
Tina: So, what was a typical school day like?
Bí ch: It was in the afternoons. At first, we studied solfege for eight hours a week. Then,
piano was half hour lessons. Then later, we studied history. In the fourth year, I signed
up for harmony. I took two years of that and then I signed up for counterpoint.
Tina: Over there, did you learn fixed solfege or movable solfege? (I explain it when he
seems unclear about it).
Bí ch: Oh, that, starting the second year, we learned the six keys, in French, it’s called
“clé”. At first, it was just GM and FM. Then, the second year, third year,… each year we
learned another key. In the end we learned seven keys. They’d make us read a section,
and every two measures it would change keys. It was the same song, but it would change
keys. That’s what made it difficult, because if you were to read it from beginning to end
(in one key), that would be easy.
Tina: So when you studied solfege, what did you study, did you have to do sight-reading,
dictation?
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Bí ch: Dictation, then you had to read a part or melody, then two parts and play it, then
intervals, Do-Mi, Re-Fa, Mi-So (thirds), like that, then “Do Mi Sol”, three-note chords,
then 4 note chords. Each day you studied more. I was pretty good, because pianists could
easily hear two voices; other kids couldn’t. I had studied piano for three years already. I
was used to hearing polyphonic music.
Tina: Back then, when they taught you piano, what method did you use?
Bí ch: It followed the French system, it was “Classiques Favoris”. There were a dozen
books per collection. At first, there was Méthode Rose. I learned Volumes One, Two,
Three, and then I quit. I switched to the violin. (Interview 1)
Tina: What method did you use for the violin?
Bí ch: I think it was Magas. That was for the first two years of instruction. Then after
that, I studied other books. Then we studied concertos, and the pianists accompanied… In
one year, we had to test twice. We had to go on stage too. They started that from the first
year. Every year had two semesters. They followed the French system, semesters. So at
the end of the semester, we had to test. If you failed, you could retest or get expelled. If
you passed, you went on to year two. If you passed year two, you would go on to year
three. Like me, I had to test three times. I failed (laughs). Fail once then you have to
study at home over summer and retest. I was so scared for recitals.
Tina: What kind of music did you study?
Bí ch: A lot of stuff: Beethoven, Vivaldi, for violin it’s Vivaldi: Spring, Autumn, it’s been
so long it’s hard to remember. The Four Seasons, I learned all of them… Bach I also
studied, but less, in the sixth and seventh year. Vivaldi more. Baroque (He hums a
baroque tune).
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Tina: Did you play in an orchestra with others?
Bí ch: Yes, that was the fifth year. Everyone in the school played together. First violin,
second violin, viola, cello, contrabass. We played together, we started to learn from the
basics and easy songs. When we were in the seventh year, it got harder. It gradually
ascended.
Tina: When you studied music history, what history did they teach?
Bí ch: First they taught Baroque, then, um, Gregorian chant. Then the great composers:
the life of Mozart, the life of Beethoven, the life of J.S. Bach, stuff like that. We learned
about different musical periods, one by one. Vietnam is heavy in theory. (Interview 2)
Tina: Did you or your parents ever sing?
Bí ch: I didn’t know how to sing! (laughs) My parents didn’t like music. Not that they
didn’t like it, but they just listened only, didn’t participate.
Tina: What did they listen to?
Bí ch: I don’t remember. Back then there was no radio, TV.
Tina: How did you listen?
Bí ch: Only rich families had a record player. You turn it on, there are a few large discs.
Dad liked to listen to French music because he studied there. Mom liked Vietnamese
music.
Tina: And that was on records too?
Bí ch: (Nods). Every time we put it on, neighbors would come over to listen. We didn’t
dare listen to it a lot because we were afraid of wearing out the disc. It would bounce on
the grooves and wear out. And you’d have to replace the needle. There were only a few
songs, because they were expensive very time you bought one. When I was at music
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school, I had to starve for three months to be able to buy a disc. Skipped breakfast. It was
expensive. Then you ordered it from France and had to wait several months for it to
come… Each person bought one, then we went to each other’s house, took turns to listen.
My friends, they each had only one or two discs. I remember one song my dad liked to
listen to, (Maurice Ravel’s) Bolero. It took a whole hour to finish listening to.
Tina: When you were young, do you remember what people sang out in the town? Did
they? Or musicians performing?
Bí ch: Yes, but I don’t know. Back then, those who studied classical studied so hard, so
we didn’t really pay attention. And we didn’t listen to that music. We just liked listening
to classical. (Interview 1)
I wanted to explore his musical life outside of the conservatory, so I proceeded with some
other questions, only to find out that many aspects of life revolved around his music schooling.
Bí ch had been in Scouts for only three or four months before he had to leave due to his music
schooling. He attended the National Music School three days a week from Mondays through
Fridays, after going to regular grammar school. He then spent Saturdays and Sundays catching
up with regular school work or preparing for the week ahead. It seemed that studying music was
his choice rather than his parents’ choice, in contrast to some of his classmates, who were forced
to go to music school. I then turned to his scouting experiences.
Tina: What did you do in Scouts?
Bí ch: Played games. I had to quit because I studied so much music, my grades started
slipping. My dad told me, now if you want to study music, you need to study regular
school. If you study and place first to fifth in the exams, then ok. If you placed first
through tenth place, ok. If you get below tenth place, you need to stop music.
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Tina: So those who studied music with you, they must have loved music?
Bí ch: They didn’t know to love it, some of them their parents forced them. After studying,
they’d complain so much. After three or four years, solfege was reduced from eight to
four hours a week, because people complained so much, they couldn’t stand to study it.
Tina: In school, did they make you sing?
Bí ch: Yes, sight-singing. Give you the music and you read it immediately.
Tina: When you were studying orchestra, what did you play?
Bí ch: Symphonies. We studied one symphony a year. So I was there two and a half years;
we only learned three symphonies. (Interview 1)
He proceeded to share with me that all Western instruments except for the saxophone
were offered at the conservatory. After conjecturing that it was probably because the saxophone
was not an orchestral instrument, he said there were saxophonists, but you had to seek lessons
outside of the conservatory. I turned the conversation to the home again, trying to find more bits
of musical life outside of the conservatory.
Tina: Did you play music with siblings at home? Did you practice together?
Bí ch: We practiced regularly with each other. One piano and there wasn’t enough time
for everyone to practice so that’s why I switched to violin.
Tina: Did you ever play solo with a piano accompanist?
Bí ch: Yes, sometimes, we did play together. But at home, each person had to study their
own thing a lot, with a lot of effort.
Tina: With the siblings, there must have been someone playing at home at any given
hour?
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Bí ch: Yes, it was fun, but noisy. At all hours, morning to night. The neighbors
complained all the time. In the morning, we practiced from eight in the morning to noon.
At noon exactly we stopped because in Vietnam, naptime is from noon to three, then from
three to six was practice. When we were in school, I made a schedule, who would
practice which hours. Whoever studied at night would practice earlier. Then whoever
didn’t go to school would practice at night. You had to stop at eight at night. On
weekends it was free choice. Whoever wanted to play could.
Tina: Was it all classical study at (music) school?
Bí ch: All classical. Back then, they forbade modern music. (The music) was strange, so
that’s why it was bad. If you played that, then they expelled you and you couldn’t go
participate anymore.
Tina: So you went through classes with the same people, one cohort through the years?
Bí ch: Yes.
Tina: You must have been close?
Bí ch: Close. Seven years. For solfè ge we studied together, there were about 20–30
people, but for private lessons, it was almost like we didn’t see each other. One person
would have lesson then leave, just the two people back to back, the person would sit
outside and wait, alternatively, in case you were late, but we didn’t really see them. For
solfege, theory, and history classes, we did see each other.
Tina: So each year, each age was a separate class?
Bí ch: No, they didn’t do by age like they do here. I was studying with people older than
me. Because the school had just opened, so it was like college, so 16 years, 12 years, 18
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years, so my friends might be older than me by some years. It was by ability. Who every
learned first advanced first.
Tina: So, what was the youngest age admitted?
Bí ch: Six or seven years old. Because my younger sibling graduated at 14 years old and
studied for seven years.
Tina: So the program is seven years long?
Bí ch: Seven years. There are older and younger students.
Tina: How old was the oldest?
Bí ch: I don’t remember the oldest, but later on they limited the number of older students
they admitted. They started admitting just younger students. When they first opened, they
took all ages… (Interview 2)
Fascinated that his music schooling was modeled so closely to the French conservatory
style, I asked him what he did after he graduated from seven years of study at the National Music
School. He had taken a year off from school, then took a position as a music instructor at the
Conservatoire de la Musique in Huế , central Vietnam, for two years. At age 22, he moved to
Saigon and participated in the cả i lương theater troupe for approximately two years, where he
would play violin in a Western band on one side of the stage while a traditional ensemble of
zithers, monochords, and flutes would play on the other side of the stage. Although he no longer
plays at the age of 75, he and his wife occasionally host dinner parties with musical friends.
Gathering in the living room after dinner, some jump at the opportunity to sing while someone
accompanies them on his baby grand piano.
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Analysis: An advantaged child
Bí ch’s identity in music (Hargreaves et al., 2002) was very clearly defined as ‘student of
Western classical music’ at the National Music School. Every aspect of his life revolved around
music school. He attained good grades to stay enrolled in music school. He attended on
weekdays, and also practiced on weekends. The obligations at the school took up much of his
time, but he wanted to be in it and loved classical music. Growing up studying Bach, Beethoven,
Mozart, Vivaldi, and others, he mentioned several times that he preferred classical music.
Considering Hargreaves et al.’s (2002) music in identity, Bí ch was certainly an avid fan of
Western classical music. Bí ch’s strong music preferences were key indicators of his musical
identity, which denoted the social group he perceived himself to be a part of (Tarrant et al.,
2001).
His conservatory-style music schooling dictated a music education that was
predominantly enacted through written notation. Dictation, solfege, sight-singing, harmony, and
counterpoint were all part of his seven-year education at the school. He later mentioned that he
would listen to classical radio every night and transcribe every melody he could until the hour of
programming was over; he would then share the transcription with his friends who did the same,
and together they would discover new classical pieces an excerpt at a time.
Bí ch’s microsystem (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006) centered around the music school
and home, where his teachers played a large role his musical development and where all seven of
his siblings played instruments and created a practice schedule to be able to get their practice
time in, creating a structured home environment. The conservatory clearly played a large role in
constructing his identity, its curriculum dictated by the government under French rule, the
macrosystem (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006), that had enabled the opportunity for him and his
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siblings to learn music tuition-free. It was also the French government that imposed Western
culture which heavily influenced Bí ch’s musical identity; in brief, the macrosystem affected
Bí ch’s microsystem (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006).
Though not necessarily spurred on by his parents, Bí ch’s conservatory experiences were
deliberate in intention (Eraut, 2000). His yearly re-enrollment and passing of exams were a
testament to his agency, tenacity, and sense of responsibility in remaining in music school for the
entirety of the seven-year program, earning him a music degree in the end. Through his actions,
it was apparent that he was the creator of his musical identity. The carefully constructed music
curriculum by his music teachers ensured that every musical experience was intentional, to the
point of dictating what music students should not listen to or play. His implicit musical
experiences (Eraut, 2000) were facilitated mainly through his Father, who loved French classical
music and would listen on the home record player. These two levels of intention helped mold his
overall musical exposure and experiences.
Bí ch was able to take advantage of attending music school for two main reasons. First, he
lived right next to the school and this proximity made transportation unproblematic for his
parents; the spatial dimension (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000) was one of fortunate convenience.
Second, having received an education in France, his father was favored by local French
government officials, earned a position high in the ranks of administrators, and therefore was
afforded certain privileges. It was this specific link between his parents and administrators at the
conservatory, part of his mesosystem (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006), that he was afforded the
opportunity to learn music formally. As a well-to-do family, they owned a record player and a
piano, two things that were material indicators of status, although he still went to great lengths to
save up for additional records. Bí ch’s family’s socioeconomic status consequently secured not
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only him, but all seven of siblings, certain educational advantages. In Bí ch’s childhood, the
spatial, temporal, and sociopersonal dimensions (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000) together created
an environment for him as a young Vietnamese boy to have a full French conservatory-style
education.
Though Yế n and Bí ch both attended the National School of Music, their individual
experiences differed. They did not attend formal music programs for the same amount of years,
being students of different departments because they studied different instruments: Yế n studied a
traditional Vietnamese instrument and Bí ch studied a Western orchestral instrument. Yế n
recalled many ca dao, children’s songs, and games, while Bí ch held a noted preference for
Western classical music throughout his childhood. Yế n described gender roles in music as well.
As noted, these issues and other emerging themes will be further discussed later in the
dissertation, after all participants’ stories are presented. I now turn to my last pair of
interviewees: Thú y and Hằ ng.
Thú y and Hằ ng
The church played a significant role in the musical childhoods of the next two
interviewees. Both Thú y and Hằ ng were born in the north of Vietnam and were raised in
religious households. However, Thú y’s musical experiences were influenced by her status as a
student of a Catholic school, while Hằ ng’s musical experiences had more to do with her
experiences as a child of a musical family who participated in the church choir. These different
experiences demonstrate two ways in which religion played a role in each participant’s musical
childhood.
Thú y: Taught by Nuns
“In my house, the intention was that I went to the church, so I didn’t go out.” – Thú y
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Thuy was a nurturing figure, welcoming me into her home with a warm smile and a soft
voice. She offered me a drink and a cake and affectionately called me “con”, which is a term
usually reserved by northerners for their children.
Thuy’s father had dedicated his life to the church, but due to health issues, the Priest
urged him to leave the church to relieve his issues. Thuy informed me that when one leaves the
church, one generally teaches. Consequently, her father was a teacher and directed the church
choir. She was enrolled in religious school, which she distinguished from private school and
public school. She attended one school for the entirety of her school education. At the religious
school, she would learn Catholic doctrine, sing in the church choir, and participate in school
celebrations.
Tina: When you were young, did you sing when you were little, in the church?
Thú y: I was young so I followed my dad to church. He was a choir director of the
church. I followed him, and I listened to singing. When I went to the South there was a
church in Phú Nhuậ n, they also had a church called Phá t Diểm too, so I joined the
children’s choir back then they called it Thiế u Nhi Thá nh Thể/Nghĩa Binh. Back in the
day, they called it Nghĩa Binh, then they changed it to Thiế u Nhi Thá nh Thể.
Tina: How old were you?
Thú y: It was from ‘46–’54, so I was about eight or nine years old. So then I didn’t follow
my dad anymore but I joined the children’s choir in the church; the nuns taught.
Tina: What music did you sing?
Thú y: Just church music, not “life” music. Totally just church music.
Tina: Did the nuns teach you music?
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Thú y: No, the nuns sang and we sang back, teaching like in the style of the old days, it
wasn’t like “teaching music”.
Tina: Was there solfege, singing, and learning?
Thú y: No. If there was a special school event like a remembrance service or picnic, then
the nuns would teach us to dance. Sing and dance.
Tina: So you sang in the choir but did you sing in the classroom?
Thú y: No. Back then, in Catholic schools, they didn’t teach music. They taught religion.
If you wanted to learn music, you had to go elsewhere. (Interview 1)
I decided to ask her about the choir experiences.
Tina: So how long were you in the children’s choir?
Thú y: From about eight to about fifteen years old. Then I switched to the adult choir.
Tina: You sang different songs?
Thú y: For the adults, there was four-part singing, and I was an alto.
Tina: For children, it was only one voice?
Thú y: Yes.
Tina: Do you remember any songs? Can you sing for me songs from back when you were
young?
Thú y: The nuns taught (the song) “Cầ u Xin Chú a Thá nh Thầ n” (“Pray to the God”), it
was just general stuff like that, little kids didn’t sing, uh (specific children’s songs), and
songs like “Con Thờ Lạ y Chú a Giêsu, Đang Ná u Thân Trong Hì nh Bá nh” (“I Worship
Jesus, His Image Hidden in the Bread”).
Tina: When you were young, did you join Scouts?
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Thú y: No, I was in the Church Youth Group, not Scouts. (They) are similar, just one is in
life and the other one is religion… in my house, the intention was that I went to the
church, so I didn’t go out.
Tina: Did your dad sing at home?
Thú y: Yes, he sang at the church, he sang religious music.
Tina: At home, did he sing for you to listen to?
Thú y: Mmm (looking doubtful), he had to go rehearse, so he had to practice first before
going to church, so when I was young, I listened.
Tina: Did your mom sing?
Thú y: No, back then, my mom didn’t sing. Back then, mothers watched over kids. They
stayed in the house, doing housework. Generally, women stayed in the house.
Tina: Did she ever sing for fun, say while doing dishes, or singing you to sleep?
Thú y: Yes, she sang us to sleep.
Tina: Do you remember those songs? I’m interested in those.
Thú y: She’d often sing “à ơi, con ơi con ngủ đi con, để mẹ đi cà y ở đò ng sâu cho bà ”
that means going to work for your mother-in-law. Kinda like that, lullabies.
Tina: When you heard it, how did you feel? Sad, warm, sleepy, happy?
Thú y: I liked it. When I got older and had my own kids, I copied and sang the same
lullabies.
Tina: How old were you when she sang to you?
Thú y: About three or four years old.
Tina: Were there private lessons, like studios, in Vietnam?
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Thú y: That was later on. (There was a music school) opened by Fathers... and they hired
people to teach music.
Tina: What year was it opened?
Thú y: Before 1960.
Tina: So the Fathers opened the school?
Thú y: Yes, it was the Fathers’ school, not a private school. (Interview 1)
Thú y was quick to point out a difference between a private music studio and a religiously
affiliated music school that priests had opened, distinguishing between secular and religious
schools. Her husband was listening nearby and interjected, pointing out that there was also
another religiously affiliated music school called the Bach School that had been named after
Johann Sebastian Bach. As we continued with the conversation, I asked her about her musical
preferences outside of the church.
Tina: Did you like “cả i lương”?
Thú y: No. I didn’t pay attention to that. I liked “tân nhạ c”(new music) a bit.
Tina: What is “tân nhạ c”?
Thú y: It’s newer music. “Cả i lương” is older.
Tina: Like who’s music (is “tân nhạ c”)?
Thú y: (She names the songwriters) Ngô Thù y Miên, Phạ m Duy, later musicians. There
are many, they write “tân nhạ c”.
Tina: Where did you experience it? Listening on the radio or outside?
Thú y: Usually the singers sang on the radio and we listened.
Tina: Did they sing outside? Like concerts?
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Thú y: Yes, like concerts. People did sing “tân nhạ c” songs. “Cả i lương” they also had
programs for. A lot of people liked that. But I didn’t watch that because at my age, there
was already “tân nhạ c”.
Tina: Did aunts, uncles, or siblings like to sing at home? Like singing for you to listen
to?
Thú y: No, it was just my dad singing. And my oldest brother went to religious school to
become a Father. He’d come home, I was very young, to visit during the summer and
play his guitar and sing to me.
Tina: What did he sing?
Thú y: I still remember. I was young. Every summer he would come home and play
guitar. He wasn’t a Father yet, was a teacher. He’d come home from school, and sing.
(She sang a line from the song “Giọ t Mưa Thu” or “Autumn Raindrops”) “Ngoà i hiên
giọ t mưa thu thanh thoá t rơi, trờ i lắ ng u buồ n mây hắ t hiu ngừ ng trôi...” It’s been so
long I don’t remember. He would hold me in his arms, and he’d sing that song for me to
listen to. (Interview 1)
I had asked other participants about dancing with and to music and received meager
responses, but Thú y did participate in dancing as a young girl. She reported dancing to guitar
accompaniment and while singing, and the dance form was taught by the nuns. When I asked if
she ever danced to music on a radio or pre-recorded cassette tape music, she said she did not and
that radios were very rare in her day, but there were record players.
We talked about holidays and festivals. Thú y reported that she was the one who would
gather the other kids in the neighborhood to go out and play. She would buy them cakes, take
them out, light lanterns and walk around the neighborhood sing the well-known song “Rướ c Đè n
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Thá ng Tá m,” which was also mentioned by the other participants. This brought us to the topic of
children’s games. She shared a game, one that Yế n had mentioned as well, called Ô Ăn Quan or
“Square Capturing Mandarin”.
Thú y: Ô Quan, you draw an “O”, then in each “O”, you put 10 rocks. Each end is a
“mandarin”. You put some rocks on your side, then some on my side. You really have to
calculate; your brain has to be smart. We do rock paper scissors to see who goes first. So
let’s pretend I go first. The rock travels, then you spread them. You take the one on your
side, or other’s side. You get yours and the others. The fun part is taking other person’s
rocks. But it’s still fun when you take yours back. (Interview 1)
She sketched a picture of the board and explained the rules of the game. She
recommended I redraw a clearer picture of the board to share (Figure 4.2 and Figure 4.3).

Figure 4.2. Drawing of the game “Ô Quan” by Thú y.
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Figure 4.3. Re-drawing of Ô Quan as suggested by Thú y.
Thú y shared another game to me, “Đá nh chá t đá nh chuyền” with a similar idea to the
game Jacks, which was the same one that Hằ ng had explained to me (in the following story). The
only addition was that she said if the player one then they got to hit their friend’s hand. I found
this amusing. She said that the previous games she described were generally played by 5-7-year
olds, then went on to explain that older kids aged 11-12 years would play different games, which
she described one to be “Rò ng Rắ ng Len May” or “Dragons and Snakes Go Up to the Sky”, the
same game that Yế n described. Thú y explained that there were games that boys and girls played
separately as well. The separation was also reflected in the school setting, where the Fathers
would teach the boys and the nuns would teach the girls. If a class was too small to separate, then
they would all be taught by a nun, with the boys sitting on one side of the room and the girls
sitting on the other. The youngest grades would generally be co-ed, but older grades were
separated.
When I asked her if she sang to her children the same songs her mother had sung to her,
she said at first, she did, but later she sang “life” music and religious music. Her preference was
to sing church songs to the babies. Likewise, when I asked what she might sing to a baby today,
she preferred religious songs. She recounted that after she had come to the United States, she was
singing ca dao to her daughter but her daughter kept crying until she sang a happy sounding
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Western-style Vietnamese song such as “Bứ c Hoa Đồ ng Quê” (“Countryside Painting”). She
commented, “I think she was scared because she was in America and had never heard that
music.”
As the conversation went on, I sang a few songs that I knew to be Scout songs and asked
her if she was familiar with them. She was familiar with some, and when I asked how she knew
them, she said that they were passed on orally. I shared with her a book of Vietnamese
children’s songs titled, Sing and Learn Vietnamese (Nguyen & Yoon, 1998) that I had brought
with me, and she remarked that at Vietnamese grammar schools there are many of these types of
books. As we went through it, she noticed a few typos and remarked that there was no music
notation. Thú y was trained to read music and preferred to see written notation to identify songs.
She commented on these types of books:
Thú y: There are no notes so I can’t tell what the melody is. There are a lot of typos in
these books. Once I told the teacher at Vietnamese Grammar School that there were so
many typos, you’ve gotta fix them. She said thank you. If you have a book, it should be
correct, otherwise, if you print the wrong this, people will teach the wrong thing, you’re
dead (the equivalent of “you’re screwed”). (Interview 1)
Thú y’s musical experiences continued on throughout her life. She mentioned that as an
adult, she took zither, organ, and conducting lessons. Zither was learned by rote, and she thought
perhaps with written notation too (her memory was failing her), while the organ teacher taught
with written notation using solfege. Once she came to the United States, she conducted and sang
in Vietnamese choirs and has most recently been singing in an American church choir.
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Analysis: On being the daughter of the choir director
Thú y’s identity was clearly defined by her religious upbringing. She joined the children’s
church choir as a child, graduated to joining the adult choir at age 16, and has continued singing
until this day at the age of 73. She followed in the footsteps of her father, becoming a church
choir conductor for several churches in her adulthood. Proximal processes (Bronfenbrenner &
Morris, 2006) centered around the Catholic faith, influenced by her father and an older brother
who were leaders in the church. Her identity was further sculpted by the Catholic school and the
nuns who taught her as she attended what would be considered the equivalent of Kindergarten to
twelfth grade. She distinguished her participation in the Church Youth Group from Scouts. The
microsystem in which Thú y’s childhood was situated, including the three spatial dimensions of
her home, schooling, and community, macrosystem of the larger cultural beliefs (Bronfenbrenner
& Morris, 2006), and her social and personal connections were all tied to the church. However,
her musical childhood identity was broader in scope.
In our interview, Thú y remembered not only religious songs, but also secular children’s
songs and games. Her childhood was spent playing the neighborhood with other children,
running, chanting, leading a lantern walk-and-sing for the Mid-Autumn Harvest Moon Festival.
As a ‘leader’ in her childhood social circle, she initiated the deliberative environment for other
children, with the intention to create a musical environment (Eraut, as interpreted by Young &
Ilari, 2012). She listened to “life” music, popular singers of the time, and sang these and lullabies
to her children that her mother sang to her. Sometimes listener, sometimes singer, sometimes
leader, Thú y held many different roles at any given time. Her musical identity attested as
flexible, performative and social (Hargreaves et al., 2017).
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At one point, Thú y described ‘new music’ or tân nhạ c, a modern, Western-style music,
which was becoming more widely popular in contrast to an older style of theater music, cả i
lương. The description and historical placement of her thoughts on tân nhạ c are in line with
scholarly research from Reyes (1999) and M. Nguyen (2012) in that it was an emerging new
genre of music that gained the favor of young people. By the time Hằ ng, the next and youngest
participant of this study, was born (approximately six years after Thú y), Western music and tân
nhạ c was widely heard and loved by young Vietnamese.
Hằ ng: An Eager Chorister
“I’d sit on the pews and watch my siblings sing.” – Hằ ng
Hằ ng was a sunny, perky woman with a bounce in her step and a smile on her face. With
much animation, she told me about the games she would play, the songs she would sing along
with on the radio, and her family’s involvement in the church. As the youngest of six siblings,
she would watch as they participated in musical endeavors, and she portrayed her excitement and
eagerness when it came time for her to be part of the activities. For perspective, Hằ ng was born
in 1952, 21 years after the oldest participant, Hồ ng, was born. Although she too was born in the
North, at age two her family migrated to the South like many other northern families as a result
of the Geneva Accord, which split the country in two.
Hằ ng: My family really loved music because my dad, in the north of Vietnam, was a
tenor solo at Phá t Diệ m Church. When he went to the South, my dad practiced with the
choir group with Phú Nhuậ n Church. My oldest brother was a choir leader for many
years. Before 1975, my siblings in the family sung in the church from age 13–14. One of
my older sisters married a choir leader who created a religious choir group, so my
siblings sang a lot.
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Outside of church singing activities, of course, my siblings and I also sang for fun, for
example, like you know in the church you would sing, but at parties, you would sing
“life” songs (referring to secular music). I did sing in the choir group “Ca Đoàn Trùng
Dương” when I was 17 years old, I learned piano when was 12, because when I was
smaller about 10–12 years old I followed my siblings to church and stood there in the
choir, I climbed at the level where they placed the piano inside the Notre Dame
Cathedral, just climbed up there and stood, but I didn’t sing.
Then I went to Scouts at around 12–13 years old, and I also sang in the scout’s
entertainment programs. (Interview 1)
I asked Hằ ng how the choir learned their songs. She said that most of the choir,
composed by 20–30 people, would sing along, listening by ear, and following the few choristers
who knew how to read music. Everyone received sheet music, but only a few actually read the
music on it. Others just read the lyrics. When I inquired about Scouts and how kids learned songs
there, she mentioned that there were little booklets that were printed on a Roneo printer, with
lyrics to songs but no actual music notation, and people also just learned by listening to song
leaders singing and following along.
Tina: Do you remember any songs from Scouts?
Hằ ng: There's a few lyrics, for example,… (she sings a few lines from “Anh Em Ta Về”/
“We Are Coming”, see Appendix E): “Anh em ta về cùng nhau ta quây quầ n, nè, mộ t,
hai, ba, bố n, năm, anh em ta về cùng nhau ta xum họ p, nè, năm, b ố n, ba, hai, mộ t.”
There are a lot of children’s songs, if you went to Scouts, then you would sing a lot of
songs. Now it’s been more than 50 years, I don’t remember much anymore.
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Tina: Before that, when you were little, do you remember the music your parents sang at
home?
Hằ ng: Because my dad sang in a choir group at church from the northern region (and)
the southern region, so he wrote short songs that would be sung in church. As he wrote
them, he had to noodle about to sing the notes that he wrote. My mom sang “hành vân”,
a type of folk music. I don't remember all the songs she sang, but there’s a line she sang,
“mộ t đôi lờ i, mộ t đôi lờ i nhắ n bạ n tình ơi ”... At home, my dad listened to the radio, to
Vietnamese music. My brothers and sisters listened to American music and French music.
I listened to a lot of music, so I knew a lot of American music, French music, Vietnamese
music, almost any of the songs before 1975, Whoever sung a phrase, I would know the
name of the song and which artist wrote that song… Because of my family’s love for
music, it made me remember certain things more than others.
Tina: What songs played on the radio? Like rock and pop?
Hằ ng: Mostly oldies at the time… The Platters, Only You, Elvis,… (Interview 1)
I name a few songs and ask Hằ ng if she is familiar with them. She affirms that she knows
these songs, some of which are scouting songs. When I ask her if she know the names of the
songwriters, she stated that if the songs weren’t published through the southern publishing house
Nhà Xuất Bả n Tinh Hoa Miền Nam (Southern Publishing House), then it was very difficult to
know who wrote it. I then asked her about lullabies, or ca dao, and she recited two from memory
(see Appendix E).
Tina: Did your mom sing these?
Hằ ng: Yes, for the children to sleep. Singing ru. It was so sad. The lyrics of ca dao for all
three regions of Vietnam are so sad.
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Tina: Why?
Hằ ng: The country of Vietnam was in war time and so poor. (She recites a few “ca dao”,
see Appendix E). Oh god, they’re so sad (laughs). I don’t know why. My mother, brother
and sister, I’m the youngest, when I was six months old, they would sing to me “à a ơi, à a
ơi,” and I would cry, and then they would switch and sing Western music and I would
listen, then they would sing “à a ơi”, and I would cry again.
Tina: Would you “ru” to your grandchildren?
Hằ ng: Oh my god, my grandchildren would laugh at me! (laughs)
Tina: When you played out in the street, did you play games or sing?
Ha: Oh, our Vietnamese language, everything has a melody about it. There was “oẳn tù
tì (1,2,3) ra cái gì, ra cái này!” (the equivalent of “rock, paper, scissors”). There was
“đánh chuy ền” where there are ten chopsticks with a ball, (you toss one chopstick and
the ball and have to catch them both, then toss two chopsticks, etc.), and there was
hopscotch… “Chi chi chành chành” is a northern game. They say a sentence and try to
trap our opponent’s hand just when they end the phrase. “Chi chi chanh chanh,…
aaaaaaahhhhh, ap!” If your hand is trapped inside the palm, then you lose. If you can
pull your hand out, then you win. It's a northern game, not a southern game. The South
may have games that I don’t know about. I learned games from my sisters who used to
play them. (Interview 1)
So far, there has been a consistent distinction between the North and the South in various
aspects, but Hằ ng specifically mentioned that there were songs specific to the regions of
Vietnam. She described another game:
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Hằ ng: There's a game where the siblings sit all in a row with their legs out sitting in a
row with four or five people (she chanted while pointing to imaginary legs one at a time,
like “duck-duck-goose”): “Sỉ a cá mè đù đè cá chép chân anh nà o đẹ p thì đi buôn men,
chân anh nà o hè ở nhà là m chó là m mè o ngũ bố n chân có chân thì rù t,” then the last
person pulls out. Then you recite it again. Whoever pulls out first wins.
Tina: Did you have musical instruments or toys?
Hằ ng: In Vietnam, we didn’t have any, so children had to use sturdy tree branches and
use with stretched rubber bands to play. It was sad; just stretch the rubber bands. For
example, if the branch is curved, the rubber band is stretched lengthwise, then it will
make a different sound. If the curve is different with the rubber band less stretched, then
it will make a different sound. We were very poor. Then you can take a bamboo tube and
puncture it with two or three holes with a knife so you can blow, from there it becomes a
bamboo flute. You can use a bamboo leaf to stick it in the holes to make a tongue to blow
on it, making various sounds. It was sad; no toys. But because there were no toys, kids
had to create, invent, and come up with ideas. (Interview 1)
I ask Hằ ng about her experiences at school, and she shared the distinction between public
and private schools in Vietnam.
Hằ ng: During my time when I studied, I tested to go into sixth grade for public school. In
Vietnam, the system is strange. Usually, private schools are for those who can't pass (the
exam) to get into public schools, so they would go out and apply for private schools. For
private schools you have to pay; public school, I didn't have to pay but you have to be
very good (studious) so you can test and pass in order to be accepted. Every year there
were thousands of students who took the exam but they only accepted a few hundred. So
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the students who didn't pass had to go to private schools. I went to public school. I
remembered during those years they had music classes from sixth grade to ninth grade,
music and art.
Tina: In school, how did they teach music? Did they do solfege?
Hằ ng: Do Re Mi, yes, exactly like the French system. But no hand signs.
Tina: Did you have dictation?
Hằ ng: No, it wasn’t that thorough. Only if you did private lessons. If you were in public
school, no. One class would have 60 people plus… no one could skip, it was mandatory.
(Interview 1)
Hằ ng insinuated that because of the high volume of students, music instruction in schools
was only at a basic level.
Tina: Do you remember the songs the teachers taught? Vietnamese Songs or exercises?
Hằ ng: They taught Vietnamese songs (she sings a verse from “Khú c Nhạ c Ngà y Xuân”/
“Music for a Spring Day”, see Appendix E). Then students would have to transfer to
solfege (she sings): Re, sol sol, si si, so la, oh goodness (laughs). Back and forth, lyrics to
solfege, back and forth.
There were many songs, but I can’t remember them all. In four years, an hour every
week. So there were many songs, but there’s no way I could remember them all.
Tina: Before sixth grade, was there any music?
Hằ ng: No, there were no music classes before sixth grade. Before sixth grade, we just
worried about math and language. At least at my school, there was none.
Tina: For holidays like Tế t (Vietnamese New Year) and Tế t Trung Thu (Mid-Autumn
Harvest Moon Festival), how did they celebrate?
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Hằ ng: For Tế t Trung Thu (Mid-Autumn Harvest Moon Festival), every family had a
radio and every place was playing “Rướ c Đè n Thá ng Tá m” (“Let’s Get Our August
Lanterns”). Parents would buy children lanterns with candles inside and they would
carry them around in the street. I don’t remember the kids singing but it was always on
the radio. For Vietnamese New Year, the most famous song that played on the radio in
every household was “Ly Rượ u Mừ ng” (“The Happy Wine Glass”). One week before
Vietnamese New Year, 60–65 kids in class would ask the teacher, “Let us play let us play,
no more learning!” Play meaning sing! One at a time (at the front of class), not like a
bunch of kids up front.
Tina: What songs would you sing?
Hằ ng: Songs about Tế t (Vietnamese New Year), springtime, like “Xuân Đả Về” (“Spring
is Here”). Normally friends knew who sang well and they’d tell their friends to come up.
“Teacher, tell Hằ ng to sing!” I was really shy. I did go up and sing for them all. I was
shy, but I did sing. Because my classmates and teachers requested it.
Tina: Did young people go see “cả i lương” theater?
Hằ ng: During that era, I liked listening to American and French music. The maids who
worked at my house, asked to work quickly so they could watch “cả i lương” on TV. So
we reserved that time for them to watch “cả i lương”. At the time, to me, I was young and
looking down at it, like it had no class. That’s what I thought. Because the sound was like
‘eeehhhh’ (she imitates a nasal vowel sound). On stage, actors got knocked down on
stage then got up and sang a few lines of soap opera. I didn’t like it during that time.
(Interview 1)
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With such animated responses, I could envision how Hằ ng’s spunk could transfer onto
the stage. No longer a shy youngster, Hằ ng had found a place in her community in Southern
California as a local singer, and occasionally performed in concerts in Little Saigon. She
continues to sing in church and on stage to this day.
Analysis: A well-rounded experience
Hằ ng’s childhood experiences were quite different from the other participants who were
two decades older than her, in the availability of radio technology, what was broadcast on the
radio, and in their disparate tastes in music. Hằ ng loved American and French pop music and
much of her musical taste centered around songs that she heard on the radio. Her participation in
the church and Scouts rounded out her childhood musical experiences.
Hằ ng also looked to her siblings for musical experiences. All of her siblings sang in the
church choir, and her father and older brother were choir leaders. She viewed her entrance into
the choir as a sort of rite of passage, something that she watched all her siblings do and that she
was excited to finally join them in. This was indicative of proximal processes influencing her
music identity (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006).
Regarding song transmission, methods of teaching and learning in the church choir,
Scouts were oral and aurally learned, as were games. Piano lessons and music classes in public
school were taught with solfege, in the style of French teaching, as influenced by French
colonialism.
Hằ ng’s childhood musical identity was defined by her love for American and French pop
music, and she and her classmates saw herself as a singer (Hargreaves et al., 2002). She
specifically mentioned how she did not like cả i lương theater. However, she admitted to me that
when she came to the United States, she began to appreciate and eventually love cả i lương
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theater because the lyrics were often about the love for her homeland. As a refugee, she now felt
that cả i lương was a potent, touching form of art, especially because she was forced to leave her
country. This was congruent with Reyes’ (1999) estimation that cả i lương thrives from the
cherished position that refugee-resettlers hold it to, as an act of remembering the past. She
learned how to sing cả i lương and sang a few examples for me, explaining the specific ways one
uses breath for excellent phrasing and emoting. In line with Hargreaves et al. (2002), the
development of her identity proved to be flexible, changing over the course of a lifetime. Hằ ng
also took time to compare Vietnamese and French methods of piano pedagogy to American
methods of music teaching, because she had taken some piano lessons in the United States. She
joined Vietnamese and American church choirs in the United States and compared rehearsal
methods she learned in Vietnam to the methods employed in the United States.
Socioeconomically, certain experiences pointed to Hằ ng being more advantaged than
other families. Although she had private piano lessons, she mentioned that lessons were
generally a financial burden to families, especially if they already had to pay for their children to
go to private school. She also mentioned that although many young girls made dolls out of twigs
to play, she happened to be lucky enough to have a brother who could afford to buy her ‘real’
dolls to play with.
Both Thú y and Hằ ng were active in their church activities, but Thú y’s family was much
more deliberate about her religious education by enrolling her in Catholic school, while Hằ ng
seemed to perceive her religious activities as more social. Both participants had fathers and an
older who held leadership roles in the church. However, Thú y’s father and brother main
prerogative in the church was spiritual, Hằ ng’s father and brother were more musical. These
affected their inherent perceptions of their childhood musical experiences.
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Chapter Summary
This chapter included the narrative analyses of Hồ ng’s, Khoa’s, Yế n’s, Bí ch’s, Thú y’s
and, Hằ ng’s musical childhoods. Issues pertaining to musical identity, childhood development,
immigrant identity, gender roles, religion, cultural and historical context, and transmission were
presented as they were reflected in each participant’s story. Each pair of narrative profiles
illustrated the participants’ respective musical childhood experiences through spatial, temporal,
social, and personal dimensions.

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Chapter 5: Discussion and Conclusion

This study concludes with a discussion of the findings presented in Chapter 4, along with
the limitations of the study. Here, I also address the research questions posed in Chapter 1:
1. What experiences encompassed Vietnamese children’s music making between 1931-
1975?
2. What songs did children sing in Vietnam between 1931-1975?
3. How do the research findings inform existing knowledge about Vietnamese American
culture?
4. What implications do Vietnamese children’s songs and music making have on American
music education, particularly in areas of the United States that are densely populated by
Vietnamese Americans?
5. What contributions to world music curriculum might this research provide?
Next, I present the conclusion of the study, along with implications for future research
and practice in music teaching and learning.
Discussion
The following section involves the exploration of themes and patterns that emerged from
six participants who shared their childhood experiences. Data were analyzed through analysis of
narrative, also known as paradigmatic analysis (Cleaver, 2009). This analysis focused on the
broader areas of historical and social context (chronosystem and macrosystem), microsystems
and mesosystems (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006), and musical practices, repertoire, and
experiences. Within the area of historical and social context were the themes of immigration and
social class, gender roles, and religious upbringing. Within the area of the microsystem and
mesosystem were the themes of temporal and spatial dimensions such as regional differences and
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generational issues, social and personal factors, music preferences, community, and Scouts.
Within the area of musical practices, repertoire and experiences were the themes of transmission
methods, improvisation, music learning in schools, and song literature. A representation of the
central phenomenon, main areas, and emergent themes are depicted in Figure 5.1.

Figure 5.1. Map of central phenomenon, main areas, and emergent themes.
Emergent themes Main areas Central phenomenon
Childhood musical identity
Historical and social
context (chronosystem/
macrosystem)
Immigrant vs. non-
immigrant perspectives
Social class, gender
roles, religious
upbringing
Microsystem &
mesosystem
Temporal and spatial
dimensions
(generational, regional
differences)
Social and personal
factors, muisc
preferences, community,
Scouts
Musical practices,
repertoire and experiences
Transmission methods
Improvisation
Music learning in schools
Song literature
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Historical and Social Context (Chronosystem and Macrosystem)
Historical Context Affecting Musical Development
Vietnam is often mentioned as a country that was perpetually involved in war for
thousands of years (Kiernan, 2017). The years of focus for this study were also chosen with war
as a temporal framework, as 1931 was at the height of French colonial power and Vietnam was
part of French Indochina, while 1975 was the official fall of the country to the Communist Party.
In this study, the historical context that the participants were born into shaped their musical
experiences. Additionally, two dates were marked important events in the participants’
childhoods, events that would affect their opportunity for musical development and affect their
musical identities.
The Japanese attacked the French in Vietnam in 1945 when Hồ ng was 14 and Khoa was
12. The event colored their experiences greatly because they were old enough to remember the
immediate physical effects of war and violence. Both participants spent a considerable amount of
time framing their reconstructions around war; Khoa in particular described his lack of musical
experiences as an effect of the war. Both participants described the country in a state of abject
poverty and suffering. Khoa recalled that music was absent in schools because “art didn’t have
much to do with our lives at the time.” Khoa also mentioned that a high amount of migration into
the South resulted in large class sizes and limited academic facilities. Bí ch and Yế n were much
younger than Hồ ng and Khoa during the Japanese invasion. Bí ch was one and Yế n was three.
Thuy and Hang were not born yet; their childhoods would be affected by the Geneva
Conference.
The Geneva Accords of 1954 officially dismantled French Indochina and divided
Vietnam in half at the 17
th
parallel, resulting in great mass migration from the North to the South.
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Hằ ng and Thú y were part of this migration, both being born in the North. Hằ ng framed her
childhood in a historical context as she began her first interview, stating, “When the Geneva
Agreement split the country in two, I was about 2 [years old] at the time, my parents carried me
to the South”. Thú y mentioned her move in relation to moving from one church in the North to
another in the South. It was within this historical context that the participants lived their
childhoods. They seemed keenly aware of how war had affected their families. The participants’
lifetime of hindsight enabled them to consider their childhoods in light of the events and place
themselves within a temporal dimension that was meaningful to their own narratives.
This broader look at the historical placement of events in relation to the participants’
chronologies aids in understanding the influence of temporality in terms of a macrotime, or
changing events in society, and the macrosystem as influenced by politics and the Zeitgeist (see
Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006). The historical context of the participants’ childhoods also
places them in various positions of “developmental outcomes” as defined by Bronfenbrenner and
Morris (2006) through dysfunction or competence, from lack of opportunity for musical
development to opportunities despite the larger political issues. Bronfenbrenner and Morris
(2006) write: “The greater developmental impact of proximal processes on children growing up
in disadvantaged or disorganized environments is to be expected to occur mainly for outcomes
reflecting developmental dysfunction” (p. 803). In Hồ ng’s and Khoa’s narratives, evidence of
dysfunction is inconclusive due to lack of information on the specifics of their childhoods and
their parents. However, the possibility for dysfunction often exists in war-ridden environments.
Differences Between Refugee/Immigrant and Non-Refugee/Immigrant Perspective
Through analysis, a difference between Yế n’s and the other participants’ reconstructions
emerged. Her perspective on life, her ability to vividly reconstruct childhood memories, and her
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attitude toward her childhood differed from the other participants in at least three distinct ways.
First, Yế n was the only participant who did not flee Vietnam in 1975 and did not describe her
childhood in relation to historical events, perhaps because she had grown accustomed to avoiding
the discussion of politics in a country that is sensitive about its past. Second, she was able to
describe her musical childhood in much more detail than other participants. This could have been
due to her daily involvement as a zither teacher in the musical lives of Vietnamese children.
Other participants did not have daily interactions with Vietnamese children and music in the
same way. Additionally, the other participants did not sing complete songs all the way through,
often stating that they had forgotten or could not recall complete songs. These were challenges
that Yế n did not face. Yế n’s accounts about which songs were sung and what games were played
were congruent with much of what the other participants reported. In this way, what the other
participants had forgotten in terms of song lyrics or how to play games, or even the names of
certain games, Yế n was able to fill in those gaps. For instance, Thú y remembered a game’s name
as being “Ô Quan”, yet Yế n had called it “Ô Ăn Quan”. Upon an internet search, “Ô Ăn Quan”
appeared to be the “correct” or most common name of the game.
A third and unique element relates to how geographical context may have affected Yế n’s
reconstructions of musical memories of childhood. Because she was living in Vietnam at the
time of the interview, Vietnamese stories and songs naturally surrounded Yế n and were very
much ‘alive’ in her life. In contrast, the other participants were no longer surrounded by
Vietnamese culture, having been displaced for 30-40 years during the time of the interviews. The
other participants, who were former refugees or immigrants, seemed to view their past in a
different light than Yế n did, which is understandable.
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One issue that former refugees and immigrants face is dissociation. Satterlee’s (2004)
exploration of issues of Vietnamese immigrants describes two definitions of dissociation. The
first definition she attributes to Canadian psychiatrist Lawrence Kirmayer, who states that
dissociation "implies a narrowing or splitting of consciousness... Dissociation refers to the gap in
the normal integration of memory, identity, and experience" (cited in Satterlee, 2004, p. 142).
Satterlee goes on to share American psychologists Sivers, Schooler, and Freyd’s definition of
dissociation as "a psychological state involving alterations in one's sense of reality and one's
identity" (cited in Satterlee, 2004, p. 142). Satterlee (2004) writes, “each definition describes the
sense of doubling or splitting of the self; there is an overlap of two different realities, often past
and present…” (p. 142). It is possible that Hồ ng, Khoa, Bí ch, Thủ y and Hằ ng experienced
varying degrees of dissociation. Their preoccupation with building a new life as refugees and
immigrants divided their life stories into two sections: before 1975 and after 1975. Whereas it
seemed like their life in Vietnam was part of a long gone past, with Yế n it seemed very much
like her narrative was one continuous strand; apparently, there was not as large a distance
between herself and her childhood memories.
Regarding immigrant identities, Ilari (2006) mentioned how adapting to new situations
can color the past, where one person might remember their past as “idyllic,” and another person
sees their past as “detestable” (p. 128). This dichotomy was evident in the participants’
interviews. Of the participants who were former refugees or immigrants living in Southern
California, Hồ ng remembered and portrayed his childhood as “idyllic” whereas Khoa
remembered it as more so “detestable”. It was also noticeable how those who were former
refugees of 1975, Hồ ng, Khoa, and Hằ ng, stated multiple times how poor their country was,
while immigrants Thú y and Bí ch, who both came to the United States in 1989, did not mention
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the country being poor within their narratives. Perhaps the different environmental conditions or
macrosystems (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006) under which the participants left the country
colored how they perceived the past as well. Differences between refugee and immigrant
perceptions of their home country would be an area for further research.
Socioeconomic Status
Another emergent finding was related to socioeconomic status and musical childhoods.
The participants’ backgrounds are clarified here to give a better perspective of each participant’s
childhood regarding developmental opportunity and musical opportunities. The participants’
childhoods were affected not only by historical context but also possibly by socioeconomic
status relative to where they grew up. Hồ ng mentioned that the small town he grew up in, Phá t
Diệ m, was poor. He stated, “Only in the cities, Hà Nộ i, Nam Đị nh, Ninh Bì nh it was well-to-do.”
Coincidently, Thú y grew up in the same town. The nearest big city, Ninh Bì nh, was 27
kilometers away, and this was where Hằ ng was born. Hằ ng’s family moved from one big city to
another, down to Saigon in the south. Yế n was born in a big city as well, Nam Đị nh, and also
moved down to Saigon. Bí ch, born in the small southern town of Cầ n Thơ, moved to Saigon as
well. With Hằ ng receiving private piano lessons and Yế n and Bí ch attending the National Music
School in Saigon, it seemed that there were more opportunities for musical experiences in the big
city than in small towns. In Phá t Diệm, even though music lessons existed, Hồ ng’s mother could
not afford them. Khoa, who grew up in Cầ n Thơ, which was approximately 200 kilometers away
from the nearest big city, Saigon, mentioned that his hometown was a poor city as well. There
seemed to be a link between social class and geography, but more information would be needed
to gain a clearer picture. The only participant whose interview revealed a more unambiguous
picture of his family’s standing and social class was Bí ch, as described below.
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The differences in socio-economic status affected the opportunities that each participant
was afforded in their childhood. Bronfenbrenner and Morris (2006) reflected on this in their
statement, “… parents living in a middle-class world are themselves more apt to possess and
exhibit the knowledge and skills they wish their children to acquire. They also have greater
access to resources and opportunities outside the family that can provide need experience for
their children” (p. 803). Most poignant was Bí ch’s father, whose family was financially well-off
and provided him a study-abroad education in France. Upon returning, Bí ch’s father was favored
by the French. This led to Bí ch and all six of his siblings received a musical education at the
conservatory. His family was able to afford a piano as well, which has been reported as a status
marker (Rubino & Rael, 2019). Other markers of socioeconomic status included being able to
own a record player and being able to purchase records and having a radio in the house.
Although by the 1950s, many Vietnamese households had radios, just one or two decades earlier,
the act of owning either was considered by the older participants to be special.
Gender Roles Affecting Musical Identity
Although only explicitly mentioned by Yế n and Thú y, gender roles in music were
something of note because interestingly it was two female interviewees who pointed out the
musical limitations and expectations imposed on females. Yế n mentioned the feminine ideal of
the image of a girl playing the zither. She also noted that girls were not permitted to play praise
drum for ca trù . She specifically mentioned that during that time period, “it was difficult for
girls”.
Thú y mentioned the gender separation in her Catholic school, and that this was also
reflected when children played games. There were certain games that only girls played and other
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games that only boys played. She and other participants also mentioned that lion dancing was
mostly limited to boys because of the highly physical nature of the activity.
It was also noticeable that the fathers of all of the participants played a performative and
sometimes a leadership role in music in some way (this is described in more detail in the section
Social and Personal Factors Affecting Musical Identity). The mothers were not performers of
music; their role was to stay in the home. This gave interesting nuances to how their mothers
were perceived when singing lullabies.
The mother and ru ca dao or singing lullabies. The idea of the mother’s only role being
to “stay in the house” and “take care of the kids” was mentioned. When asked if their mothers
sang, to them as children, or for fun, it seemed that this was not only not present in the house, but
I got a sense that it was not ‘possible’. However, I received affirmative responses when I asked a
different question, if their mothers ru or sang them lullabies to sleep. Perhaps then, that the ru or
singing of lullabies was seen not as an act of musical engagement, but rather a duty inherent in
the role of a mother. In this study, the mother was assumed the role of being the person to put the
children to sleep in each of the participant’s stories. The father would hold the performative role
of ‘music lover’, ‘musician’, or ‘music director’. The mother was seen to be associated with the
idea of ru ca dao much more strongly than the father.
When I asked participants if their parents sang to them at home, all said “no”. However,
when I asked them, “did your mother ru (sing lullabies) to you”, they said yes. It became clear
that there was a distinction between singing lullabies, which was usually done by the mother, and
singing children’s songs, which was done with other children in the neighborhood or at Scouts.
Listening was a separate activity in which various participants reported hearing their father
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practicing for a church performance (Hằ ng, Thú y), a relative playing guitar (Thú y), or to the
radio.
Religious Upbringing
Despite the history of religious persecution concerning Catholics (Cooke, 2004), there
were a number of Vietnamese families, including most of those of the participants of this study,
who were Catholic. The religious upbringing of the participants affected their musical
experiences and musical identities in various ways. Thú y, Hồ ng, Khoa, Bí ch, and Hằ ng were all
Catholic. Hồ ng recalled holiday festivities such as Christmas being an exciting and musical time
as he recounted singing Christmas songs at the church. Although Hồ ng, Khoa, and Hằ ng
mentioned that they attended church, it didn’t seem to monopolize their musical experiences;
however, Thú y’s musical identity and musical experiences seemed to revolve around the church.
Yế n was the only participant who attended temple, but she also recalled musical experiences in
her environment. All participants recalled Tế t (Vietnamese New Year) and Tềt Trung Thu (Mid-
Autumn Harvest Moon Festival) as times when specific songs were heard, and celebrations for
these holidays was related to their church or temple. These holiday celebrations permeated their
lives at church, in the neighborhood, and at home, and connecting all three environments of the
microsystem.
Musical Identities in Childhood: Influences From the Microsystem and the Mesosystem
The formation of musical identity was seen in multiple dimensions: the chronosystem, or
the temporal dimension of what decade the participant was born in; the spatial dimension,
including their regional identity which in some cases associated them with specific types of
music and their spaces of their home, school, church, and community; and the social and
personal dimension, including their interactions with people surrounding them. These closer
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proximities are considered part of the individual’s microsystem, while the interactions between
them are considered the mesosystem (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006).
The Temporal and Spatial Dimension
Although the temporal and spatial dimensions are related to the macrosystem, they
influence the microsystem and mesosystem. As such, I will include the temporal and spatial
dimensions in this section to illustrate their influences on the microsystem and mesosystem.
Generational differences. The changing trends of music preference are indicative of a
sense of temporality within the study. The participants’ ages spanned 44 years, enough time for
many changes and developments in musical production. The decade in which each participant
was born influenced the formation of their musical identity. Hồ ng, the oldest participant, recalled
loving cả i lương; Hằ ng, more than twenty years later, recalled thinking of cả i lương as
something old, preferring instead American and French popular music. Here, the sense of an
ever-progressing temporal sphere contributes to the flexibility of musical preference, and
therefore musical identity (Hargreaves et al., 2002).
Distinct regional differences. There was a sense of regional identity displayed by the
participants. For instance, when Hồ ng stated where he was born, he stated the city name, then
said, “in the North”. Hằ ng, Yế n, and Thú y did the same. This distinction of regional identity has
carried over to the United States. As an insider having been raised among a large Vietnamese
community, I remember that it was natural to describe someone as a northerner, southerner, or
from the central region. A person’s regional identity is also clear when they speak, as the tonal
accents in the language and sometimes the vocabulary from each region are different. For
instance, a northerner would call their mother “mẹ ”, a southerner would say “má ”, and a person
from the central region would say “mạ ”. Because of this, one can identify through songs lyrics
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where a song or a ca dao or comes from. The strong sense of regional identity may be attached to
musical identity.
Dys, Schellenberg, and McLean (2017) conducted an empirical study in which ethnicity
and geographical location were found to be determinants of musical identity. Although the study
was conducted with 330 American and Canadian undergraduate students, this may engage
thought on the participants of this study regarding their regional identities as related to their
musical identities. Yế n described in detail the three distinct ways of singing ca dao when ‘ru’-
ing, ̣or singing, to one’s child. The manner of singing, the introductory sounds, and the words
themselves are different depending on the region the mother was from. This is the beginning of
implicit listening for a child who is being sung to. The child hears the distinct regional musical
style and language used, the one they will identify with as they grow up.
In addition to explaining the differences in regional ca dao singing styles, Yế n mentioned
that at the conservatory, she studied all three regional styles of music, from different professors,
on her instrument and also singing of musical theater styles. She studied: northern há t chè o
theater, an outdoor musical theater production using folk songs, dance and poetry; há t bộ i, a style
of Vietnamese classical ‘opera’ from the central region of Vietnam, cả i lương. Because of this,
when I asked Yế n if she was interested in cả i lương as a child, she said no, her reason being that
she was from the North. However, cả i lương theaters must have traveled to the North by the time
of Hồ ng’s childhood, because although he was from the North, he remembered cả i lương theater
troupes traveling to perform in his hometown. While evaluating the participants’ varied
responses to songs they liked, Yế n attributed liking particular types of music to being from a
certain region, while Hồ ng did not.
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Personal and Social Factors Affecting Musical Identity
Although Clandinin and Connelly (2000) refer to the sociopersonal dimension in
narrative research, this study will separate the sociopersonal dimension into the social and the
personal dimensions to better clarify issues that influence the participants. The participants’
identities were influenced by the actors in their immediate environments (Hargreaves et al.,
2002). In the family, the father of the participants had a prominent role in their musical
inclinations. Hồ ng’s father was a church musician, Khoa’s father sang in the church, Hằ ng’s
father and brother were both choir directors, Thú y’s father was a choir director, and Yế n’s father
was a praise drummer for ca trù , a specific type of music. It was interesting to note that none of
the interviews revealed a relationship consisting of musical responsive co-play between either
parent and the child (Young & Ilari, 2012). Instead, the father was often observed by the
participant to be engaged in musical activities while the mother was generally not, except for
singing them lullabies to sleep.
Teachers played a part in shaping the participants’ identities in various ways. They also
affected the development of the participants within their microsystem (Bronfenbrenner & Morris,
2006). In the conservatory, Bí ch and Yế n had clear guidance from many music teachers who
curated their musical education. For Khoa, the general classroom teacher imposed his musical
preference on the students by choosing his favorite revolution song as the examination song. For
Hằ ng, the teacher was the one who decided whether or not the class would sing for fun as part of
a holiday celebration. For Thú y, the nuns played multiple roles: teacher, director of the
children’s choir at church, and dance teacher.
Musical preferences. Identities in music may be linked to social influences such as
family dynamics and educational contexts (Hargreaves et al., 2002). These social and family
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contacts include parents, family, friends, and others closely involved in one’s life. As such, the
actors in the participants’ childhoods may have had sway on their music preference. Thú y leaned
toward religious music because of her father’s involvement in the church; she later sang ca dao
songs to her children just as her mother did with her. Hằ ng sang in the church following her
father, but also following her siblings. Her siblings also influenced her love for American and
French pop. Yế n’s father played traditional music, and she eventually followed by choosing the
zither. Khoa reported listening to his uncle’s French records and learned Western classical music
from his American piano teacher. Bí ch’s father had studied in France and liked Western classical
music, leading Bí ch to love it exclusively as well.
Community. Though the participants did not report their musical games as playground
culture (Marsh, 2008), a few mentioned that they played with friends after school in their
neighborhood. These games were sometimes paired with songs or chants. Yế n remarked on how
music moved children’s bodies and helped them be active and healthy. This comment connects
to the general idea of music and movement being connected, which was emphasized by music
educators such as Orff, Dalcroze, and Kodaly (see Gault and Abril, 2016). The link between
music and movement has been studied from the very young (Young, 2003) to adolescence
(Burnard, 1999). Bí ch, Hằ ng, and Thú y also mentioned the difference between children’s
recreational activities back then and today. More than once, someone stated something similar to,
“now they’re just staring at the iPads, playing games through the TV.” These participants’
observations speak to what they perceive as a missing social interaction among children today
that was present in their childhoods. Social bonding within a group was achieved by the
participants’ interactions with other kids in the neighborhood. Another integral place for music
learning and social bonding was in Scouts.
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Scouts and youth groups. Scouts emerged as the main source of where children’s songs
were learned and sung. Vietnamese Scouts was officially formed in Vietnam by the inaugural
Troop Lê Lợ i in 1930 (International Central Committee of Vietnamese Scouting, 2019), although
reports of scouting activities began as early as the 1920s (World Scouting, 2019). Scouting
practices and songs were reported to have been imported by the French (Gibbs, 2003). Scouts
was officially banned in Vietnam in 1975, resulting in the revoking of membership by the World
Organization of the Scout Movement (WOSM). However, the WOSM has recently readmitted
membership to Scouts in Vietnam. Today, scout.org reports over 5,000 Scouts in Vietnam, while
the International Central Committee of Vietnamese Scouting (2019) reports over 6,000
Vietnamese American Scouts throughout the United States. The mission of Scouts is “to preserve
and promote the Vietnamese tradition, kinship, and cultural heritage” (International Central
Committee of Vietnamese Scouting, 2019). As Hồ ng and Hằ ng described, Scouts during their
time was a hub of social activity, community building and in some cases was related to spiritual
goodness in addition to moral goodness. They also reported that music in Scouts was used to
teach morals, create a positive atmosphere, and promote social bonding.
Four of the six participants were involved in Scouts or the Church Youth Group, which
operated very similarly to Scouts. The perception of the role that Scouts played in various
participants’ lives differed. Yế n stated that she did not participate in Scouts, but seemed to
admire the purpose of Scouts greatly, saying that the songs taught in Scouts were educational,
entertaining, and appropriate for children. Hằ ng and Hồ ng, who attended church and participated
in the church choir, stated they were part of Scouts, which was part of the church. However,
Thú y stated that she was not in Scouts, but in the Catholic Youth Group, which did the same
things as Scouts but was foundationally religious. Thú y seemed to perceive her participation in
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the Catholic Youth Group as one aspect in the general scope of her religious studies, while Hằ ng
and Hồ ng seemed to perceive their scouting activities as a social and community building entity
that was related to the church. These different perspectives on how they categorized that part of
their life in the greater scheme of their childhood was telling in how they identified themselves.
Thuy seemed to clearly identify as ‘a Catholic student’, where music played the role of
enhancing her spiritual closeness to God, whereas Hồ ng identified himself as ‘a music lover
from a young age’, considering his participation in the church choir and Scouts as part of his
ultimate trajectory in becoming a professional musician. Hằ ng became an amateur singer who
learned cả i lương singing and Western classical opera later in life. Knowing this, it might be
reasonable to infer that as a child, she was beginning to see herself as a ‘good singer’, and her
participation in church choir and Scouts led to a love of singing itself. Being ‘a Scout’ not only
was an identity marker but also a place that formed one’s musical repertoire and consequently
contributed to one’s use of music in identity (Hargreaves et al., 2002) revealed much about each
participant’s narrative as they saw it.
Musical Practices, Experiences, and Repertoire
Songs and games existed in various ways in the participants’ experiences. Oral and aural
transmission were prominent with listening being a primary mode of learning music, both
implicitly, reactively, and deliberately (Eraut, 2000, as interpreted through Young & Ilari, 2012).
Written notation and music literacy played a role in participants experiences among those who
sang in the church or studied at the conservatory.
Oral and aural transmission methods. Oral and aural transmission methods of songs
were a primary way the participants learned their children’s songs and games. In Scouts, song
leaders taught call-response songs by rote, singing one line and having the younger Scouts
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repeat. Hồ ng mentioned the lack of printing presses in his childhood, while Khoa and Hằ ng all
mentioned basic printers that were used, but only to print the lyrics of Scouting songs, not the
sheet music. Games learned in the neighborhood were also taught and learned by oral and aural
methods.
Participants told of watching live performances such as Hồ ng’s stories about watching
cả i lương and watching musicians play in dance bands, listening to record players such as
Khoa’s and Bí ch’s experiences, and listening to the radio, such as Yế n and Hằ ng’s experiences.
The gradual change of musical experiences is indicative of the the evolution of music
technology. Another form of implicit listening could be found in mothers singing ru, siblings
playing guitar (Yế n and Thú y), fathers rehearsing for church (Thú y and Hằ ng), and playing with
friends in the neighborhood and at Scouts. Music listening appeared to be considered part of a
social context, rather than for music learning as a specific goal.
Improvisation. Yế n described the improvisatory nature of one children’s song “Ra Mà
Xem” (“The Toad Song”), which included spontaneously inventing rhyming verses about
various animals. This creative improvisation spurred by group activity is observed by Marsh
(2008) and is an example of “shared intentionality” as termed by Kanellopoulos (1999), with
distinct rules of what is appropriate to compose in consensus with the group. Yế n also mentioned
that improvisation helped children to think and respond quickly. This reflects Pressing’s (1984)
and Campbell’s (1991) suggestions that improvisation helps develop higher-order cognitive
skills and strengthens interconnecting knowledge structures. Marsh (2008) noted a number of
studies (Barrett, 1996, 2003; Borstad, 1990; Burnard, 1999, 2002, 2006; Christensen, 1992;
Davies, 1986, 1994; DeLorenzo, 1989; Glover, 2000; Kanellopoulos, 1999; Loane, 1984; Pond,
1992; Stauffer, 2001, 2002; Sundin, 1998; J. H. Wiggins, 1994, 1999, 2003; and Young, 2003)
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that have also acknowledged the “greater complexity of the cognitive and metacognitive
processes involved in children’s creative activity, whether composition or improvisation, and to
emphasize the proclivity of even quite young children to shape sounds quite consciously into
formal structures” (p. 30). Marsh (2008) remarked that children’s ability to “‘play around’ with
the texts, movements, melodies, and rhythms of games in a constant effort to create something
new” was noted in all field locations of her studies in different areas of the globe over 15 years
(p. 262). Yế n’s observation was congruent with that of existing research.
Music learning in schools. Music in school was taught in both oral forms and written
notation, depending on the school context. While Hồ ng, Khoa, and Thú y reported no music
education in schools during their time, Bí ch and Yế n reported ‘singing, but no music’, indicating
the oral/aural nature of the singing process. Hằ ng, the youngest participant, described music class
in her public school, with notation literacy via solfege as a focus, but no hand signs. Yế n and
Bí ch both learned written notation in the conservatory, while Yế n was bi-literate in musical
notation, having an instructor who taught both the Western notation system and the Vietnamese
notation system.
Older participants generally regarded music in the school setting as “singing, not music”.
They distinguished the difference between musical training and casual singing. For instance,
when I asked Bí ch, Yế n, and Thú y, “did you have music in school?” they generally responded
something similar to, “no, we didn’t have music, we just sang”. To them, there was an inherent
regard of music as a study or specialized training that was done separately from the school. The
act of singing was seen as a means to enhance school festivities and celebrations. The only
person who experienced music as a class was Hằ ng, the youngest participant, who was taught to
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sing in solfege as part of music class. Hồ ng and Thú y learned solfege from their church directors,
Khoa learned in private lessons, and Bí ch and Yế n learned at the conservatory.
Children’s song literature. Khoa and Hằ ng both stated that there were very few
children’s songs in existence during their time, while Yế n knew many children’s songs. This
discrepancy could be due to differences in subjective memory or living in different
environments. Despite this discrepancy, a plethora of children’s songs, games, chants, and
lullabies (ca dao) were mentioned or sung by the participants throughout the interviews.
Although all participants except Yế n mentioned at one point that their memories were failing
them because it had been anywhere between 50 and 70 years since they had sung those songs as
children, they were all able to recall at least few songs and recognize some songs that I had
collected in a previous study (Huynh, 2016). Regarding Scouting songs, I discovered an online
songbook and archive of Scouting songs created by a Vietnamese American troop (Liên Đoà n
Thăng Long, n.d.). The archive consisted of a booklet with American and Vietnamese Scouting
songs. The booklet included song lyrics only, congruent with what Hằ ng and Thú y described.
The online archive contained 18 songs with sheet music. Some of the songs mentioned by
participants in this study were included within the book and archive. While all songs, ca dao,
games, and chants that were referred to throughout the entirety of the study are listed in
Appendix E, only a small selection of these songs and ca dao were featured throughout Chapter
4. Ca dao, or musico-poetic folk poems, some of which are used as lullabies, are distinct to
Vietnamese culture.
Ca dao. Ca dao, which are used to ru or sing children to sleep, are not necessarily
considered songs in themselves. First and foremost, they are folk poems that touch many topics,
some of which are about addressing a child to go to sleep. The tonal nature of the language and
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the fact that people can perform or enact them in a melodic manner makes them music-poetic.
Subsequently, there are actual songs that are composed to turn ca dao into music. But when the
mother is ru-ing, this is neither considered a song or singing, it is specifically ru, which can
perhaps best be described as ‘somewhere in between lullaby and poem’. Ca dao as a genre is
wide and not only used to ru. It is considered folk poetry (Balaban, 2003). The topics of poetry
vary widely, from love to nature to war, and are often moralistic. Therefore, to call them lullabies
would be inaccurate. They are what was sung to the participants as children, but they are not
lullabies in the sense that they are songs written specifically for children to help them to go to
sleep. The content of ca dao is most often of an adult nature and from the perspective of an adult;
the mother sings it then, for herself and her baby. An example of this is found in the lyrics of the
ca dao that Thú y sang:

Cá i ngũ mà y ngũ cho lâu
Để mẹ đi cá y ruộ ng sâu cho Bà .

Translation:
Sleep, sleep for a long time
So that I (mother) can work in the fields for
grandma.
In this ca dao, the mother is telling the baby to go to sleep so that she can work. She is singing
the song for herself, telling the baby what she wants. But she is singing it in a way that is also for
her baby to sleep.
During interviews, the topic of ca dao received mixed responses. Although all
participants knew ca dao and had been sung ca dao to as children, some seemed to relish and
respect ca dao, while the mention of it saddened others. Yế n stated that her mother had ru ca dao
to her, and that ca dao were, in a sense, the ‘backbone’ of Vietnamese music and poetry,
portraying a sense of pride in this unique Vietnamese folk poetry. Thú y stated that her mother
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sang ca dao to her and that she continued this with her first child, carrying on, and, in a sense,
respecting, a cultural practice. However, Hằ ng emphasized repeatedly how sad ca dao were, and
that her grandchildren would laugh at her if she were to sing ca dao to them. When Hồ ng’s
memory of his mother singing ca dao to him was rekindled, he recalled being sung to in the heat
of the summer, then associated ca dao to Vietnam, and responded, “it’s a sad memory,
remembering my homeland,” to which he quickly changed the subject. Though there is an
inherent quality to ca dao as a distinct Vietnamese art form, participants’ attitudes toward ca dao
were varied and highly personal.
Research Questions
By circling back to the research questions, the main goals of the study are reviewed and
the questions answered.
Research Question #1
The first research question, “What experiences encompassed Vietnamese children’s
music making between 1931-1975?” was addressed within the individual narratives of each
participant and in the above discussion. These experiences included singing, playing games,
playing instruments both alone and with others, watching cả i lương, listening, being sung to,
learning orally, aurally, through rote and through written notation, improvising, and composing.
These experiences occurred in a multitude of ways in various temporal, spatial, social, and
personal dimensions, which were also explored within each narrative and in the above
discussion.
Research Question #2
The second research question, “What songs did children sing in Vietnam between 1931-
1975?” is also answered within Chapter 4; however, only key excerpts from the interviews were
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included which featured certain songs, games and ca dao poems that best exemplified the
participant’s narrative. A complete list of songs, games, chants, and ca dao poems that were
mentioned by the participants is included in Appendix E.
Research Question #3
The third research question, “How do the research findings inform existing knowledge
about Vietnamese American culture?” is answered in two parts. First, through the narratives, it
became clear that the participants’ childhood musical identities were dependent on several
factors, including the home, school, church, Scouts, historical context, parents, siblings, teachers,
and friends. I argue that these kinds of musical memories are the basis of what Vietnamese
American musical culture is based on. Vietnamese American culture is rooted by the older
generations who came to the United States as refugees and immigrants. Preserving their
memories helps preserve the musical traditions, genres, and repertoire carried over from Vietnam
to the United States. In brief, these musical memories embody the essence of Vietnamese
musical culture.
Second, though Vietnamese American culture is built on memories of Vietnam, these
memories change depending on the person. As the Vietnamese American story is one that started
with the trauma and loss that many refugees, and some immigrants, faced, memories are subject
to dissociation. It is important to analyze memories with a critical eye, as refugees’ and
immigrants’ memories are colored by their experiences. Although some may reconstruct their
past as idyllic while others as detestable, those reconstructions reveal the humanity of refugee
and immigrant life experiences.
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Research Question #4
The fourth research question, “What implications do Vietnamese children’s songs and
music making have on American music education, particularly in areas of the United States that
are densely populated by Vietnamese Americans?” can be answered in several ways.
There are several implications that Vietnamese children’s songs and music making have
on American music education. First, in the broader sense of music making and song and game
transmission, oral and aural methods of teaching and learning of songs and games were
consistent with findings in many places around the world (Marsh, 2008). This supports the
notion that written notation is not necessarily inherent in children’s musical learning; instead,
learning by seeing, listening, and doing were evidenced in multiple narratives. This holds
implications on how music educators might consider teaching music to students, taking into
account oral, aural, and written methods.
Second, although oral and aural methods of song and game transmission were reported in
schools, the neighborhood, and Scouts, Western-style, notation-based learning held a strong
presence in the churches, in the conservatory, and later on in schools, as a result of French
colonial influences. There are a number of Vietnamese Americans living in the United States
who have had extensive French conservatory-style training on Western classical instruments, and
these members of the Vietnamese community have upheld the Western tradition in music
schools throughout the nation. This implies that there are younger Vietnamese Americans, of
school age and older, who have been raised to value the Western tradition. This is important
background information for music educators who have Vietnamese American students in
understanding where they come from, the history of their culture in relation to Western-style
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instruction and transmission methods, and the possibilities in family understanding and support
of music education programs in the United States.
Third, a certain repertoire of children’s songs may or may not be remembered in
Vietnamese communities across America. In areas across the United States that are densely
populated by Vietnamese Americans, such: as Los Angeles, Orange County, San Jose, and San
Francisco, California; Houston and Dallas, Texas; Washington, D.C.; Arlington, Virginia;
Alexandria, Maryland; Seattle, Tacoma and Bellevue, Washington; Atlanta, Georgia, and
Boston, Massachusetts, there may be people who remember or vaguely remember their
children’s songs. The findings of this study can help improve the memories and add to existing
collections of Vietnamese children’s songs and games. In these areas where Vietnamese
Americans are a visible presence in student populations, making available resources in
Vietnamese children’s songs and games will be a first step in the freedom to choose to visit or
revisit the songs of their ancestry. Reimer (2002) reminds us that “as children of school age bring
with them the experience of musics of their increasingly diverse family households, that
experience calls out for recognition and respect” (p. 4). Music educators and researchers are the
bridge to making these resources available to enable these experiences; the findings in this study
provide a wealth of information including historical and cultural background for integration into
music lessons and song and game repertoire for practical applications of Vietnamese children’s
music to their curriculum.
Research Question #5
Finally, the fifth research question, “What contributions to world music curriculum might
this research provide?” also generates several answers. Contributions of this research to world
music curriculum are manifold. The song literature that has been collected throughout the study
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provides a healthy introduction to Vietnamese children’s songs, games, and ca dao which may
be used in multiple ways as music educators see fit, from activities, co-curricular lessons,
performance, or listening activities, or other creative ways. Though the findings are focused on
children’s repertoire, plenty of information is appropriate for secondary and tertiary musical
study, including ethnomusicological studies. For instance, a unit on the uses and function of ca
dao and analysis of its rhyme scheme and structure, units on any of the other art forms
mentioned, including há t chè o, há t bộ i, cả i lương, ca trù , or a survey of all of these styles;
arranging the songs to be appropriate for any playing level, composition or improvisation in the
style of any of these styles, gender studies on musical roles, and integration of other subject areas
into music lessons such as history, politics, language, culture, or religion. These include
discussions of ways to use the information from multicultural, intercultural to transcultural ways.
Inversely, other subject areas may be informed by these findings as well. These narratives, rich
with possibilities for historical and political discourse, might be a relevant and poignant
supplement for other subject areas (see Beevi, Lam & Matsuda, 2003).
Study Limitations
Being an insider in Vietnamese culture afforded me advantages, one being that I was able
to interview my participants in their native language. However, my own sense of regional
identity imposed a limitation. Although I was born in Southern California, within the Vietnamese
ethnicity, I identify with southern Vietnam, as my parents both grew up in the south of Vietnam.
I realized only after interviewing that one interview question that I asked was regionally biased. I
had asked the participants if they liked or watched cả i lương, which is a musical theater
originating from southern Vietnam. I only realized that my question was regionally skewed after
Yế n responded, “no, because I’m from the North”. Interestingly enough, although I considered
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my question flawed, I received varying answers from participants from the northern region
which provided insight into the different musical preferences of participants despite identifying
with a certain region. Hồ ng was from the North, but he loved cả i lương as a child. Hằ ng, also
from the North, didn’t like cả i lương as a child, but later as an adult grew to love it and learn it.
In hindsight, if I were to rephrase the question, I would have asked about musical theater (or
musical genres) of all three regions, not just the South.
Because the data gathered in a retrospective study rely heavily on memory, inherent
limitations regarding memory are unavoidable. The participants made an effort to recollect
memories ranging from 50-70 years prior; naturally, there were gaps in their memories. Some
participants had a difficult time recalling certain details such as song titles, composers, song
lyrics, the names of games, and how to play the games. Certain popular ca dao were sung
differently from what was found in other resources. Through collective memories and print and
online resources, it might be possible to find the “correct” version of certain songs, games,
chants, and ca dao; that said, there are often several versions of the way these are performed or
played. Perhaps accuracy is not the only problem in terms of memory, but completeness as well.
At the start of the study, I had chosen three participants with whom I had an
acquaintanceship and three whom I did not know. I was expecting that I might receive more in-
depth answers from the participants I knew; however, this was not the case. Yế n provided very
detailed answers to my interview questions although I had never met her before. Thú y was also
sincere and open in her answers although we had never met. Bí ch was the only participant who
needed about ten minutes before he started feeling comfortable in the interview. Perhaps these
three participants felt comfortable with me because someone they knew well had introduced me.
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It is possible that if I had chosen participants with whom I had no social connection, the
interviews may have progressed differently.
A Note on Generalizability
Although findings in this narrative inquiry are not considered to be generalizable, certain
patterns emerged that warrant further study. For instance, no participants reported responsive co-
play with their parents. Lancy (2007) suggests that the idea of the parent as a play-partner is a
contemporary and Western phenomenon; this might provide an explanation as to why no
participants reported their parents playing with them. Further research would have to be
conducted in order to study the presence or lack of presence in parent-child co-play in Vietnam
more deeply. This cautiousness toward generalizing applies to other findings presented in
narrative cases where a majority of participants experience similar phenomena.
Finally, the small number of participants involved in this study posed a limitation as well.
Collecting data from more participants would serve to strengthen the findings. Widening the
scope of participants to Vietnamese Americans living in areas other parts of the United States, or
even reaching internationally to Vietnamese living in France, Australia, or Canada would reveal
a wide array of experiences and stories. Including people who are not currently involved in
music would surely reveal even more perspectives. In brief, this study could be replicated with
another group of Vietnamese American elders or diasporic Vietnamese with different
backgrounds.
Implications
In terms of music education research, narrative inquiry offers invaluable insights into the
musical lives of diverse groups of people. Not only do we become better informed about the uses
and functions of music of a collection of personal lives, contributing to a deeper understanding of
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the nuances of various societies, but we are also able to represent the individual voice, whether
they are young or old, rich or poor, from a local community or one far away. Narrative inquiry
infuses meaning and purpose into stories and broadens existing research knowledge by offering
unique viewpoints that would otherwise be overlooked. This study helped me delve into the
musical childhoods of six Vietnamese American elders, understand the contexts in which they
lived and experienced music, and recognize the role that music played in infusing meaning into
their lives as children. This narrative study opened up many possibilities for future studies, which
I outline in the next section.
Suggestions for Future Research
Vietnamese scouting. There is much to be explored in the uses and functions of not only
Vietnamese scouting, but scouting in general; this may include its role in musical development,
music making, music creation, and music as a leisure activity, and music as a tool for social
bonding. Further research can be done in this area regarding song repertoire, activities revolving
around music, team building through music, and investigating culture through music.
Ca dao. English-language research regarding this form of Vietnamese folk poetry is
lacking. A deeper exploration of the many uses and functions of ca dao in Vietnamese culture
would be enlightening for ethnomusicological and literary purposes, particularly an exploration
of the relationship between ca dao, the mother, and the child.
Immigrant studies. Comparing the nuanced responses of the participants who were
refugees, those who were immigrants, and the non-refugee/non-immigrant were insightful as to
their varying perspectives of the past concerning their perception of their musical childhoods.
Attitudes, memories, and perception of the past are colored by the trajectory of our own life story
and the choices we make. In the spirit of Satterlee (2004), who writes, “in the same way that
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identity is fluid and changing, so too the past is not fixed and continues to be shaped by the
present for immigrants,” (p. 146), further exploration in immigrant identity and memory through
the lens of music can enrich existing studies in this area. Of particular interest would be
expanding the existing research literature regarding how the musical childhoods of immigrants
have affected their musical identities as adults, in a similar vein to studies from Berrios-Miranda
(2013), Cho (2018), and Ilari (2006).
Vietnamese children’s songs, games, and chants. It occurred to me that Yế n, because
of her proximity to young children, was a human resource with a wealth of information
concerning children’s songs, games, and chants. For further study into this area, it might be
useful to confer with or continue qualitative research choosing participants who are Vietnamese
teachers of Vietnamese children, to gain more resources and get a better sense of how children in
Vietnam play these games today, and what new games they might be playing now, on the
playground at school, and at home.
Conclusion
After conducting this study, several ideas became clear. The narrative inquiry experience
in itself is an act of cultural preservation. It revives, rekindles, reconstructs, and reconceptualizes
memories, knowledge, and layers of meaning that are then presented as research to be shared,
preserved, and hopefully acted upon. Additionally, narrative inquiry is an interactive process, but
only by permission. In the process of constructing meaning, I was aware that this was only
possible because the participants had allowed themselves to be vulnerable to me. In the
emotional moments of research, including the chuckles, laughs, moments of introspective
thought, sadness, or tears with participants, with their memories, or with my own insights, I
realized that it is the specific kind of engagement between the researcher, participant, and data
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that make narrative inquiry unique and valuable, in this case, to the field of music education.
Someone once said, “writing about music is like dancing about poetry”. Perhaps capturing the
essence of musical childhoods long gone is difficult to do in writing, as some ineffable moments
remain intimate while others are forever forgotten. Nevertheless, this should not dissuade music
education researchers from the quest to find knowledge and meaning in musical stories. It is
through people’s individual stories that we can celebrate diversity and music. Through these six
participants’ narratives, I was able to understand my own culture better, appreciate the musical
gems that my culture can contribute to a society of diverse cultures, and reflect on my personal
narrative within in the context of those who came before me.
The findings were derived from primary sources. Humans as resources are invaluable to
learning how a game is played, how a song is sung, or what ‘life was like’. For instance, Patricia
Shehan Campbell, who curates and teaches World Music Pedagogy courses, stresses the
importance of human resources by selecting knowledgeable musician/culture bearers to teach
and share the music of their culture. Learning from people who had intimate experiences with
Vietnamese children’s music also contributes to the active preservation of the musical culture.
Tran Van Khe (1977) stresses: “To be fully preserved, musical tradition must be a living thing,
readily received by the young from the old who have mastered it and are prepared to transmit it
whole and entire. In other words, preservation must be an active process.” (p. 64). Whether it be
through singing, playing, listening, or improvising and composing in the style of the musical
culture, as researchers, music educators, and students experience diverse music cultures, we are
helping to preserve them.
In conclusion, I believe that to address issues on diversity in depth, it is necessary first to
know one’s historical and cultural roots, reflect on how we identify ourselves, and explore our
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biases; it is also just as imperative to learn about and understand the people around us. Using this
research to curate lessons in the classroom will help Vietnamese American students learn about
themselves, but will also help others learn about them, bringing teachers and students of diverse
cultures closer to compassion, cultural sensitivity, and cultural responsiveness. Teachers and
students alike can share the songs that tell the story of one another’s cultural roots, in effect
celebrating diversity by sustaining musical cultures.

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212

Appendix A: List of Criteria for Qualifying Participants

1. The participant must have been born in Vietnam between 1931-1954.
2. The participant must have lived their childhood in Vietnam.
3. The participant must be of sound mind.
4. The participant should be able to recall at least five musical memories in childhood. This
may include but is not limited to knowing songs, singing alone and with others, playing
instruments alone and with others, playing games with chants, listening to any kind of
music or watching musical performances, composing music, and/or experiencing musical
events during holidays or rituals, and in any environment.

213

Appendix B: IRB Study Approval Letter

University of Southern California Mail - Study Approval Notice Sent

Reply-To: istar-DoNotReply@usc.edu
To: ilari@usc.edu, tinaahuy@usc.edu
University of Southern California Institutional Review Board
1640 Marengo Street, Suite 700
Los Angeles, California 90033-9269
Telephone: (323) 442-0114
Fax: (323) 224-8389
Email: irb@usc.edu
Date: Dec 26, 2018, 09:36am
Action Taken: Approve
Principal Investigator: Tina Huynh
THORNTON SCHOOL OF MUSIC
Faculty Advisor:
Co-Investigator(s):
Beatriz Ilari
THORNTON SCHOOL OF MUSIC
Project Title: The Musical Childhoods of Six Vietnamese American Senior
Citizens
Study ID: UP-18-00837
Funding: N/A - no funding source listed
This study has been determined to qualify for the USC Human Research Protection Program Flexibility Policy. If there are
modifications that increase risk to subjects or if the funding status of this research is to change, you are required to submit an
amendment to the IRB for review and approval.
The University Park Institutional Review Board (UPIRB) designee determined that your project qualifies for exemption from IRB
review under the USC Human Research Protection Program Flexibility Policy. The study was approved on 12/26/2018 and is not
subject to 45 CFR 46 regulations, including informed consent requirements or further IRB review.
If there are modifications that increase risk to subjects or if the funding status of this research is to change, you are required to
submit an amendment to the IRB for review and approval.
Consent and recruitment documents are not required to be uploaded for exempt studies; however, researchers are reminded that
USC follows the principles of the Belmont Report, which requires all potential participants to be informed of the research study,
their rights as a participant, confidentiality of their data, etc. It is recommended that you utilize the Information Sheet For Exempt
Research and revise the template to be specific to your study. This document will not be reviewed by the IRB. It is the
responsibility of the researcher to make sure the document is consistent with the study procedures listed in the application.
**Per USC Policy, someone may not collect data about people he or she oversees in a professional capacity. Please ensure that
someone on the study (represented in 2.1, with the required human subjects certification) is able to serve as an independent data
collector. Further, data must be stripped of any identifying information before being provided to people who have the supervisory
relationship in order to protect the confidentiality of the participant responses.**
**Note: Data stored on a cloud service must comply with USC policy**
You are responsible for ensuring that your project complies with all federal, state, local and institutional standards. Please check
with all participating sites to make sure you have their permission (including IRB/ethics board approval, if applicable) to conduct
research prior to beginning your study.

214

All submissions, including new applications, contingency responses, amendments and continuing reviews are reviewed in the order
received.
Information Sheet for Exempt or Flex-Exempt Studies, dated 07-01-2018 (1).doc
Attachments: Updated IRB Contact Information.doc
Guidance for Recruitment Tool.doc
Social-behavioral health-related interventions or health-outcome studies must register with clinicaltrials.gov or other International
Community of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) approved registries in order to be published in an ICJME journal. The ICMJE will
not accept studies for publication unless the studies are registered prior to enrollment, despite the fact that these studies are not
applicable “clinical trials” as defined by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). For support with registration, go to
www.clinicaltrials.gov or contact Jean Chan ( jeanbcha@usc.edu, 323-442-2825).
Important
The principal investigator for this study is responsible for obtaining all necessary approvals before commencing research. Please
be sure that you have satisfied applicable requirements, for example conflicts of interest, bio safety,
radiation safety,
biorepositories, credentialing, data security, sponsor approval, clinicaltrials.gov or school approval.
IRB approval does not convey approval to commence research in the event that other requirements
have not been satisfied.
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manner cannot be answered. If you have further questions, please contact iStar Support at (323) 276-2238 or istar@usc.edu.
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215

Appendix C: Information Sheet for Research

University of Southern California
Information Sheet for Research

The Musical Childhoods of Vietnamese American Elders
Raised in Vietnam between 1931-1975

You are invited to participate in a research study conducted by Tina Huynh at the University of Southern
California. Please read through this form and ask any questions you might have before deciding whether
you want to participate.

PURPOSE OF THE STUDY
This research study aims to understand the musical aspects of the lives of Vietnamese American senior
citizens when they were children living in Vietnam. This includes musical activities including singing,
playing instruments, listening to music, or creating music in any setting (home, religious places of worship,
school, in public). This study aims to understand the value of children’s music in Vietnamese culture and
children’s song repertoire between 1931-1975.

PARTICIPANT INVOLVEMENT
If you agree to take part in this study, you will be asked to participate in 2-3 interviews that will be audio-
recorded. You do not have to answer any questions you don’t want to. You will also be asked to keep a
journal to write down any musical memories that you remember after the first interview and share those
memories in subsequent interviews.

PAYMENT/COMPENSATION FOR PARTICIPATION
You will receive a $20 gift card upon completion of all interviews and passing your journal to Tina Huynh.

CONFIDENTIALITY
Any identifiable information obtained in connection with this study will remain confidential. At the
completion of the study, direct identifiers will be destroyed, and the de-identified data may be used for
future research studies. If you do not want your data used in future studies, you should not participate.

The members of the research team and the University of Southern California’s Human Subjects Protection
Program (HSPP) may access the data. The HSPP reviews and monitors research studies to protect the rights
and welfare of research subjects.
216

INVESTIGATOR CONTACT INFORMATION
If you have any questions or concerns about the research, please feel free to contact Tina Huynh at
tinaahuynh@gmail.com or (714) 675-8609.

IRB CONTACT INFORMATION
If you have questions, concerns, or complaints about your rights as a research participant or the research in
general and are unable to contact the research team, or if you want to talk to someone independent of the
research team, please contact the University Park Institutional Review Board (UPIRB), 3720 South Flower
Street #301, Los Angeles, CA 90089-0702, (213) 821-5272 or upirb@usc.edu.

217

Appendix D: Interview Questions

First semi-structured interview
1. What city were you born? What year were you born?
2. Did your parents sing to you when you were young (ru)? Did aunts, uncles, or siblings
sing to you? Did you sing?
3. Did you or anyone around you play musical instruments?
4. Did you learn music at school? How did they teach music in school?
5. Did you take music lessons when you were growing up?
6. If you wanted to take music lessons, how would you go about that?
7. What did you do during the holidays? Did you and your family or friends sing? Did you
see lion dancing or hat dancing?
8. What musical things did you do as a child: singing, playing music instruments (what kind
of instruments), playing in the neighborhood, watching others, or listening?
9. What games did you play?
10. Did you like or watch cả i lương theater?

Second semi-structured interview
Question for anyone who went to conservatory
• What was your daily schedule like at the conservatory? (Classes, practice, lessons,
masterclasses)
Questions for those who played instruments:
• Why did you chose your main instrument?
• How did you feel the first time you played the instrument?
Question for those who attended church:
• What were church choir rehearsals like?

For everyone:
1. What kind of holidays or festivals do you remember celebrating in your town? What was
New Year like? Mid-Autumn Harvest Moon Festival? What songs did you sing during
these times? What musical performances did you watch? Did people dance to recorded
music or live music? Did people play or sing music in the streets (out in town)? Was it
similar to today or different?
2. What specific moments or stories do you have about music? Singing or being sung to,
etc.
3. Tell me about Scouts. What did you do/sing/play/what was the purpose/who taught
you/how often did you go/at what ages did you attend/was it religiously affiliated?
4. What were your favorite songs when you were young?
5. What did you sing to your kids when they were babies?
6. What would you sing to a baby if I gave you one to hold right now?
7. Who wrote Scout songs?
8. Do you know of other children’s songs? Songwriters who wrote children’s songs?
9. (Show them a list of children’s songs that I know) Do you know these songs?
10. Will you sing for me some children’s songs you know?

218

Appendix E: Children’s Songs, Games and Ca dao Mentioned in Interviews

Children’s Songs
“Bà Tư Bá n Hà ng Có Bố n Người Con”/ “Mama Tư Sells Things Has Four Kids” by Lê Thương
“Cá i Nhà Củ a Ta”/ “My House”
“Chim Chích Chòe”/ “The Warbler”
“Con Cò Bé Bé”/ “The Little Stork”
“Con Có c”/ “The Toad”
“Con Mè o”/ “The Cat”
“Đế m Sao”/ “Counting Stars”
“Em Yêu Ai”/ “Who Do I Love” by Hù ng Lân
“Em Bế Quê”/ “Baby of Motherland” by Phạ m Duy
“Hai Chú Gà Con”/ “Two Chicken”
“Há t Vui Theo Cha”/ “Singing Happily with Father” by Lê Cao Phan
“Hai Con Thằ n Lằ n Con”/ “Two Little Lizards”
“Kìa Con Bướ m Vàng”/ “Yellow Butterfly” (adapted from French Frè re Jacques)
“Khoẻ Vì Nướ c”/ “Healthy Because of My Country” by Hù ng Lân
“Mú a Vui”/ “Happy Dance” by Lưu Hưu Phướ c
“Ông Ninh Ông Nang”/ “Mr. Ninh Mr. Nang” by Lê Thương
“Rướ c Đèn Tháng Tám” / “Get Our August Lanterns” by Đức Quỳnh
“Họ c Sinh Hành Khúc”/ “March of the Students” by Lê Thương
“Thằ ng Cuộ i”/ “Mr. Cuộ i” by Lê Thương
“Tí a Em Má Em”/ “Mother and Father” by Văn Lương
“Vậ t Nuôi Trong Nhà ”/ “House Pets”
219

Patriotic Songs for Youth
“Hộ i Nghị Diên Hồ ng”/ “Diên Hồ ng Conference” by Lưu Hữu Phướ c
“Ải Chi Lăng”/ “(Destination) Ải Chi Lăng” by Lưu Hữu Phướ c
“Tiế ng Gọ i Sinh Viên”, “Call of the Students” by Lưu Hữu Phướ c, which became the South
Vietnam national anthem

Scout Songs
“Trông Kìa Con Voi”/ “Look, There’s an Elephant” by Nguyễ n Xuân Khoá t
“Gặp Nhau Đây Rồ i Chia Tay”/ “We Meet and Say Goodbye”
“Anh Em Ta Về ”/ “Brothers and Sisters, Come”
“Ta Cù ng Nhâu Đi”/ “Let’s Go Together”

Contemporary/Adult Songs
“Bức Họ a Đồ ng Quê”/ “Countryside Painting” by Văn Phụ ng
“Chiế n Sĩ Vô Danh”/ “The Unknown Soldiers” by Phạ m Duy
“Chú Cuộ i”/ “Mr. Cuộ i” by Phạ m Duy
“Đem Vương Biề n”/ “Vương Biề n Night” by unknown
“Giọ t Mưa Thu”/ “Autumn Raindrops” by Đặng Thế Phong
“Hè Về ”/ “Summer is Here” by Hù ng Lân
“Hò n Vọ ng Phu”/ “Vọ ng Phu Mountain” by Lê Thương
“Khú c Nhạ c Ngà y Xuân”/ “Music for a Spring Day” by Nhậ t Bằ ng
“Ly Rượ u Mừ ng”/ “The Happy Wine Glass” by Phạ m Đì nh Chương
220

“Xuân Đả Về ”/ “Spring is Here” by Minh Kỳ

Religious Songs
“Cầ u Xin Chú a Thá nh Thầ n”/ “Pray to the God”
“Con Thờ Lạ y Chú a Giêsu, Đang Ná u Thân Trong Hì nh Bá nh”/ “I Worship Jesus, His Image
Hidden in the Bread”

Children’s Games
Chi Chi Chà nh Chà nh/No equivalent translation
Bị t Mắ t Bắ t Dê/Cover Your Eyes and Capture the Goat like tag
Đá nh Chắ t Đá nh Chuyề n/Ten Chopsticks, like Jacks
Mè o Đuổ i Chuộ t/Cat and Mouse
Nhảy Lò Cò /Hopscotch
Nhảy Day/Skip Rope
Ô Ăn Quan/ Mandarin Square Capturing
Tạ t Lon/Tip the Can. Boys only
Trố n Tì m/Hide-and-Seek
Trồ ng Nụ Trồ ng Hoa/Planting Bulbs Planting Flowers/Jumping Over Limbs. Girls only

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Chants

Rồng Rắn Lên Mây/ Dragon Snake Up to the Clouds
Cả nhóm :
Rồng rắn lên mây
Có cái cây lúc lắc
Có cái nhà điểm binh
Có thà y thuố c ở nhà không? / Co chủ ngà
khong?

Ông chủ: Có !
Cả nhóm : Cho xin tí lử a.
Ông chủ: Xin lua lam gì ?
Cả nhóm : Xin về kho cá .
Ông chủ: Cho thà y khúc đầu?
Cả nhóm : Những xương cùng xẩu .
Ông chủ: Cho thà y khúc giữa?
Cả nhóm : Chả có gì ngon .
Ông chủ: Cho thà y khúc đuôi?
Cả nhóm : Tha hồ mà đuổi.
Everyone:
Dragons, snakes, up to the clouds
A tree is shaking
There is a house
Is the medicine man/ owner home?
Medicine man: Yes!
Everyone: May we have a little fire?
Medicine man: For what?
Everyone: To fry some fish.
Medicine man: Give me the head.
Everyone: The bones are ugly
Medicine man: Give me the middle.
Everyone: Nothing yummy there.
Medicine man: Give me the tail.
Everyone: Chase us all!

222

Ông Tiển Ông Tiên/ Mr. Tiển, Mr. Tiên
Ông tiển ông tiên,
Ông có đ ồ ng tiền,
Ông gài mái tai,
Ông cài lưng kh ố ,
Ông ra hàng phố ,
Ông mua miế ng trầ u,
Ông nhai tóp tép,
Ông mua con tép,
Về nhà ăn cơm,
Ông mua mớ rơm,
Về nhà ông thổi,
Ông mua cái chổi,
Về ông quét nhà,
Ông mua con gà,
Về cho ăn thóc,
Ông mua con cóc,
Về thả gậ m giườ ng,
Ông mua nén hương,
Về nhà cúng cụ .
Mr. Tiể n, Mr. Tiên,
He has a dollar,
He plugs his ears,
He put on a cloth,
He went out to town,
He bought a betel nut,
He chewed “tó p té p”, (sound)
He bought a shrimp,
Went home to eat,
He bought straws,
At home he blew,
He bought a broom,
To sweep the house,
He bought a chicken,
And fed it rice,
He bought a toad,
And dropped it on the bed,
He bought some incense,
To pray for grandpa.

223

Dung Dăng Dung Dẻ/ No Translation
Dung dăng dung dẻ ,
Dắ t trẻ đi chơi.
Đế n cử a nhà trờ i,
Lạ y cậ u lạ y mợ ,
Cho cháu về quê,
Cho dê đi họ c,
Cho cóc ở nhà,
Cho gà bớ i bế p,
Ngồ i xẹ p xuố ng đây!
Dung dăng dung dẻ ,
Take the kids out to play.
To the doors of heaven,
Say goodbye to aunts and uncles,
Let me go home,
Let goats go to school,
Let toads stay at home,
Let the chicken stay in the kitchen,
Sit down right here!

Nu Na Nu Nống/ No Translation
Nu na nu nố ng
Cái cố ng nằ m trong
Con ong nằ m ngoài
Củ khoai chấm mậ t
Ngon thậ t là Ngon!
Nu na nu nố ng
The drain is inside
The bee is outside
Dip the potato in some honey
Very very tasty!

224

Xúc Xắc Xúc Xẻ/ No Translation
Xúc xắ c xúc xẻ , năm mớ i năm mẻ ,
Nhà nào còn thứ c mở cử a cho chúng tôi.
Xúc xắ c xúc xẻ , năm mớ i năm mẻ ,
Nhà nào còn thứ c mở cử a cho chúng tôi.
Bướ c lên giườ ng cao thấy đôi rồ ng ấp.
Bướ c xuố ng giườ ng thấp thấy đôi rồ ng
chầ u.
Bướ c ra đằ ng sau thấy nhà ngói lợ p.
Voi ông còn buộ c, ngựa ông còn cầ m.
Ông số ng mộ t trăm linh năm tuổi lẻ .
Vợ ông sanh đẻ đứ a con tố t lành.

Xúc xắ c xúc xẻ , New Year’s here,
If any house is still up, open the door for us.
Xúc xắ c xúc xẻ , New Year’s here,
If any house is still up, open the door for us.
Getting on the high bed, I saw two “ắ p”
dragons.
Getting off the low bed, I saw two “chầ u”
dragons.
Stepping out to the back, I saw the rooftop
tiles.
His elephant was still tied, his horse was still
held.
He lives a hundred and five years old.
His wife gave birth to a good, sweet child.

Tạ p Cầ m Bong/ Practice Holding Flowers by Lê Cao Phan
Tạ p cầ m bong,
Tay không tay có ,
Tạ p cầ m bó ,
Tay có tay không
Practice holding flowers,
One hand has none, the other hand has some,
Practice holding the bunch,
One hand has some, the other has none.
225

Ca Dao Poetry
1. Cái cò cái vạ c cái nông
Sao mày giẫm lúa nhà ông hả cò
Không không, tôi đứ ng trên bờ
Mẹ con nhà nó đ ổ ngờ cho tôi

2. Cái ngủ mày ngủ cho ngoan
Để mẹ đi cấy đồ ng xa trưa về
Bắ t đượ c con cá rô trê
Thòng cổ mang về cho cái ngủ ăn

3. Ví dầ u cầ u ván đóng đinh
Cầ u tre lắ t lẻ o gậ p ghè nh khó đi
Khó đi M ẹ dắ t con đi
Con đi trườ ng họ c Mẹ đi trườ ng đờ i

4. Chim quyên ăn trá i nhả ng lò ng
Thia thia quen chậ u, vợ chồ ng quen hơi

5. Con gà cụ c tá c lá chanh
Con lợ n ủ n ỉ n mua hà nh cho tôi
Con chó khó c đứ ng khó c ngồ i
Mẹ ơi đi chợ mua tôi đò ng riềng
226

6. Bầ u ơi thương lá y bí cù ng
Tuy rằ ng khá c gió ng nhưng chung mộ t già n

7. Ru em em théc cho muồ i
Để mà đi chợ mua vôi ăn trầ u,
Mua vôi chợ Quán chợ Cầ u
Mua cau Nam Phổ mua trầ u chợ Dinh
Chợ Dinh bán áo con trai
Triều Sơn bán nón, M ậ u Tài bán kim

10. Con ơi muố n nên thân ngườ i
Lắ ng tai nghe lấy những lờ i mẹ cha

11. Bồ ng bồ ng mà nấu canh tôm
Ăn vào mát ru ộ t, đi mua về/lạ i bồ ng
Râu tôm nấu vớ i ruộ t bầ u
Chò ng chan vợ hú t gậ t đầ u khen ngon

12. Anh đi anh nhớ quê nhà,
Nhớ canh rau muố ng, nhớ cà dầ m tương.
Nhớ ai dãi nắ ng dầ m sương,
Nhớ ai tát nư ớ c bên đườ ng hôm nao
227

13. Công cha như núi Th á i Sơn
Nghĩa mẹ như nướ c trong nguồ n chả y ra
Mộ t lòng thờ mẹ kính cha
Cho tròn chữ hiế u mớ i là đ ạ o con

14. Con ơi con ngủ đi con
Để mẹ đi cay đò ng sâu cho bà

Songs Composed by Khoa
“Chim Non”/ “Little Bird”
“Hát Cho Ngày Mai”/ “Sing for Tomorrow”
“Nế u Ć o Ai Hỏ i Em”/ “If Anyone Asks Me”
“Sáng tôi hát sol la si do ”/ “In the Morning I Sing Sol La Si Do”

Songs Composed by Yế n
“Con Chim Non”/ “Little Bird”
“Và o Đường Hoa”/ “Lane of Flowers”
“Nụ Hoa”/ “Flower Bud”
“Trăng, ơi trăng xuố ng chơi vớ i em”/ “Mr. Moon Come Play With Me”
“Câu Và Kiế n”/ “Pigeon and Ant”

228

Traditional Songs for Traditional Instruments
“Lưu Thụ y Chường”
“Phú Lụ c Chấ n”
“Xuân Đì nh”
“Xứ Đẹ p Cảnh”
“Hà nh Vân”
“Hổ Nố i Thượ ng”
“Phạ m Tuyế t”
“Huyên Tiệu”
“Liên Huầ n”
“Cá c Hai Lắ ng Kệ”
“Đà o Liể u”
“Xe Chỉ Luậ n Kim”

229

Appendix F: Khoa’s Compositions

Song 1: “Đề n Đỏ , Đè n Xanh”/ “Red Light, Green Light”

Song #2: “Chim Non”/ “Little Bird”

230

Song #3: “Con Chó Con”/ “Little Dog”

231

Song #4: “Con Cò Mà Đi Ăn Đêm”/ “The Stork Went Out to Eat at Night”

232

Song #5: “Con Công”/ “The Peacock”

233

Song #6: “Đà n Chim Nhỏ ”/ “Flock of Small Birds”

234

Song #7: “Gia Đì nh Em”/ “My Family”

235

Song #8: “Gọ i Dạ Bả o Vâng”/ “Say Yes”

236

Song #9: “Ngườ i Có Tông”/ “People with a Place”

237

Appendix G: Yế n’s Compositions

Song #1: “Bồ Câu Và Kiế n”/ “The Dove and the Ant”

238

239

Song #2: “Hoa Dạ Lý Hương”/ “Night-blooming Jasmine”

240

Song #3: “Hoa Thiên Lý ”/ “Divine Jasmine”

241

242

Song #4: “Lý Bong Sen”/ “Lotus”

Abstract (if available)

Abstract The presence of world music education in classrooms is fundamentally motivated by the goal of broadening students’ musical experiences beyond the western canon and influenced by the nation’s increasingly diverse population. Research surrounding world music education and resources for teaching music of the world’s cultures is ever-growing

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University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses

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Asset Metadata

Creator Huynh, Tina Agnelli (author)

Core Title The musical childhoods of Vietnamese and Vietnamese American elders raised in Vietnam between 1931-1975

School Thornton School of Music

Degree Doctor of Musical Arts

Degree Program Music Education

Publication Date 09/17/2019

Defense Date 08/14/2019

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag elders,immigrant,musical childhoods,musical identity,OAI-PMH Harvest,refugee,Vietnamese,Vietnamese American,Vietnamese music,world music,world music education

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Ilari, Beatriz (committee chair), Spencer, Scott (committee member), Webster, Peter (committee member)

Creator Email tinaahuy@usc.edu,tinaahuynh@gmail.com

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c89-217180

Unique identifier UC11674930

Identifier etd-HuynhTinaA-7816.pdf (filename),usctheses-c89-217180 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-HuynhTinaA-7816.pdf

Dmrecord 217180

Document Type Dissertation

Rights Huynh, Tina Agnelli

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the a...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

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