Quan Ho singing is one special kind of traditional art of Vietnam. In each family and each village, each generation quietly send love and continue teaching Quan Ho singing for many people today and tomorrow. For many centuries, Quan Ho Bac Ninh folk songs have been still full of love, love for each other throughout singing. Quan Ho folk songs become a valuable non-material property of Vietnam which is very difficult to find in other forms of art and culture.
1.The origin of Quan Ho:
According to many historical sources, Quan Ho originated from Bac Ninh province from the 13th century. Quan Ho folks is one of the typical and popular songs of the Red River of the Northern part in Vietnam. It is established and developed in the “Kinh Bac” ancient culture, especially the boundary area of 2 provinces Bac Giang and Bac Ninh.
2. The form of singing Quan Ho:
Singing Quan Ho need to have “they” which includes “men” or “women”. In one village, they usually have many “men” and “women”. Each group always have 4,5 or 6 people and are named in the order such as: Second, third and forth sister, or second, third or forth brother. Accroding to Quan Ho singing’s rules, the members call each other by the name they are given instead of real name.
Quan Ho is a singing form of response between “men” and “women”. A lady of this village sing with a gentleman of that village in a same song with the same melody but different of lyrics and voices. “Singing people” allocate the role of one team. In one team always includes two persons, the vocalist and the lead vocalist. The voices of two people must be compatible into one voice to create a unified voice.
3. The characteristics of Quan Ho singing:
Quan Ho singing has 213 different voices with over 400 songs. The lyric of one song has two parts: the main lyric and the part lyric. The main lyric includes poetry and folk songs of Vietnamese. This is also the core which reflects the content of one song and the love. The part lyric includes every lyric which is outside the main lyrics, such as the buffer, or the sound of steam.
Quan Ho singing exists in the environment which has private social customs. The first custom is making clan among Quan Ho villages. From this custom, among these clan, one other social custom appears, especially the custom of making friendship. Each clan of each village always build friendship with other clans of other villages. In the principle, men make friendship with women and vice versa. They must not marry each other.
In Quan Ho singing, the costumes of “him” and “her” are different. The costumes for female includes flat palm hat with fringes, towels, kerchiefs, dresses, skirts, belts and slippers. About men’s costumes, they awalys have turban, umbrella, short jackets and five outer dress, pants and sandals.
4. The Quan Ho village:
In 2016, there are 67 Quan Ho villages in the list of preservation and development of cultural heritage. In Bac Giang province, there are 23 villages and in Bac Ninh province, there are 44 Quan Ho villages.
Quan Ho is asscociated with Lim festival, a big festival of Kinh Bac area which is held in Tien Du district, Bac Ninh province. Lim festival is opened from the 12th to the 14th of January according to Lunar Calendar, in which the 13th is the main festival. Let's Viet Unique Tours join in this festival once to experience the Quan Ho singing on the naked eye.
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Tour relate:
- Hanoi City Tour and cooking class.
- Hanoi traditional village tour
