The dàn tre, translated simply as ‘bamboo musical instrument’, is the invention of Minh Tam Nguyen. Made from available materials first in Vietnam, then in the Philippines and then in Australia, the instrument was developed into its current form over 16 years. The inventive, dynamic and flexible nature of the dàn tre’s hybrid musical organisation is a reflection of Minh’s interest in and knowledge of a number of different musical traditions.

Minh Tam Nguyen was born in Binh Dinh Province of central Vietnam on 25 November 1947. He began learning to play guitar when he was about thirteen years old, studying the theory of modern and classical music. Minh then studied music with the Redemptionist Order, a Catholic order founded in Italy in 1732. He eventually left the order and taught music theory to high school students for a number of years.

During the 1970s, Minh fought as a lieutenant with the South Vietnamese forces, known as the Army of the Republic of Vietnam. He began his service in 1968, graduating from the Political Warfare College of Dalat. He was captured by communist forces on 20 March 1975 and placed in a North Vietnamese ‘re-education’ camp in the Central Highlands of Vietnam.

While in captivity, Minh created a musical instrument inspired by the traditional instruments of the Central Highlands, but with a greater number of strings.^[33] As Minh states: ‘The dàn tre was invented at the Tea Plantation KTK in Pleiku Province, during the time the Vietcong forced me to [do] hard labour with many other prisoners as well.’ Minh later recognised the significance of making an original bamboo musical instrument in those conditions, with music being a central part of Vietnamese tradition. In his words: ‘[There is] a lot of music [and] folk song in Vietnam…the Communists like to make a different way…we turned back to our music.’^[34]

National Museum of Australia: nma.img-ci20082088-190.

A piece of bamboo, wire and a tin were used to create the first dàn tre. The strings of that instrument were the hard wire found inside black telephone cable used by the US Army. The instrument, as Minh explained, evolved from 18 to 21 and then finally to 23 strings. Minh was moved to a number of different camps during his time as a prisoner of the North Vietnamese. During that time, Minh was able to make improvements to the instrument, mainly increasing the number of strings, and to teach one of his fellow prisoners how to play the dàn tre.

The instrument, as donated to the National Museum of Australia, features 23 strings attached to a bamboo tube, 800 mm long. A four-litre olive-oil tin acts as the resonator at the base. The number-one guitar strings are attached to metal tuning keys in the form of Australian-made stainless-steel screw assemblies. The length of bamboo is reinforced with Australian-made metal bracing (hose clamps commonly used in cars).

The dàn tre has been inscribed with details of the instrument’s musical interpretation. Western notation is ascribed in lead pencil to each string, numbered one to 23. The complex arrangement of strings is organised into six groups and played in the C major scale.

There are many traditional and hybrid stringed instruments or chordophones in Vietnam and throughout Asia that exhibit similarities to Minh’s dàn tre. These include the dàn bãu, a single-stringed instrument, and the dàn tranh, a 16-string zither. Minh’s instrument is also similar to the gu zheng, a Chinese zither with 16–23 strings, reflecting the influence of Chinese forms and theory on Vietnamese music. Other possibly closely related instruments are found in Japan, Korea and Mongolia.

When speaking with the museum’s curators about the dàn tre, Minh noted that he had made the instrument with the intention of playing Asian and European music, as he had been educated in both forms and their variations. He observed that the instruments of his reference from the Central Highlands had five knots, or strings, and the European scales had seven notes. The 23 strings of the dàn tre allowed Minh to cover a greater range of notes, and therefore a greater range of music, than if he had used less strings.

Interestingly, while Minh had not given a public musical performance as a student or teacher of music, during his imprisonment under the Vietcong, he performed before approximately 4500 prisoners with his dàn tre. When Minh was released after six years, he left that instrument behind.

In August 1981, Minh escaped from Vietnam by boat with his eldest son, Anton Nguyen, still fearing for his life under communist rule. In Minh’s words: ‘It was a miracle we escaped.’ It was also a miracle that they made it to the Philippines by boat, as they encountered strong storms en route and the boat nearly sank twice.

Minh made his second dàn tre while in the Palawan refugee camp in the Philippines. He recreated the instrument from memory, again using the materials on hand: bamboo, an olive-oil tin and some electrical line. Minh initially used bamboo tuning keys in this instrument, making them from sharpened or shaped pieces that were placed through holes in the body of the instrument. There was an abundance of bamboo available at Palawan, and it was a building material utilised for a number of different purposes.

Minh and Anton lived in difficult and overcrowded conditions at Palawan for 17 months. Minh recalled that there were 7000 refugees in the camp when he arrived, with numbers increasing to more than 10,000 during his stay. Minh recalled: ‘All the people were lucky, we had enough food…but the situation was so bad because we didn’t have any houses to live in…we had to build our houses ourselves…make something to live in—we used trees from the forest.’

Minh acted as an information officer and translator in the camp. His knowledge of English, and the fact that he had an uncle living in Australia, helped secure his transfer with his son to Australia in December 1982. Minh was able to bring the second dàn tre with him, although Australian quarantine authorities held it for three weeks.

In Australia, Minh struggled to find employment, at first unable to understand the difficult Australian English pronunciation. He worked for the Commonwealth Employment Service in Brisbane and then for a law firm in Sydney.

Minh began playing his dàn tre at public events, and appeared on Channel 7’s State Affair program in 1984. In January that year, he explained the making of his dàn tre to a conference of the Ethnic Communities Council of Queensland concerned with locating and fostering different and endangered art forms among migrant groups. Minh told his story in Vietnamese and English, commenting that he could play Vietnamese folk songs, European songs such as those by Chopin and Australian songs such as Waltzing Matilda on the instrument. He then performed a song from each musical style, concluding his performance with Waltzing Matilda.

Minh’s story and his dàn tre earned him a certain amount of fame, and he attempted several times to patent his invention. During this period, he replaced the bamboo keys, which were prone to slipping, with Australian-made screw assemblies, also reinforcing the bamboo and replacing the tin. He was very pleased to finally place guitar strings on the instrument, believing the quality to be better than the wire he had been able to find in Palawan.

In 1985, Minh began working as an immigration consultant, assisting Vietnamese and Chinese families who were having difficulty coming to Australia. He took on a number of music students, but in order to support his family financially he was unable to concentrate on his own music.

Though Minh travelled to Australia with his eldest son, he could not be reunited with his wife and three other children for many years. Feeling loneliness and separation from his family, Minh did not wish to part with his dàn tre; through it, he remained connected to the life he had left behind in Vietnam. The instrument was first loaned to the National Museum of Australia for a temporary exhibition. Shortly after this initial contact, however, Minh’s family—his mother, wife and three children—were able to join him in Australia. Once they were reunited, he was happy to donate the dàn tre to the museum.

Photo: Dr E. F. Kunz for the National Museum of Australia: nma.img-ex20082168-002.

Minh feels a strong emotional attachment to the instrument that has played such an important role in his life. The dàn tre was, for Minh, a potent means of expression. In the mountains of Vietnam, in the Philippines and in Australia, he was able to bridge the cultural differences he encountered by modifying and adapting the instrument and his use of it, and retelling his story as he played it.

The history and cultural significance of Vietnamese music is a large area of research, beyond the scope of this discussion. Much of my research into this aspect of the dàn tre’s history has been drawn from the work of Vietnamese musicologist Le Tuan Hung. According to Hung, traditional Vietnamese music is based on the concept that music is ‘a means for emotional expression’.^[35] Tài tử music, the chamber music of southern Vietnam, features four modes of expression: happiness, sombreness, tranquillity and sadness.^[36] Put simply, by applying certain sets of technical conventions to their music, Vietnamese musicians are able to evoke these recognisable emotions for their audience.

Originality is highly considered in the Vietnamese tradition, with performers elaborating from a given framework in their own style. According to Hung, ‘Musical compositions in Hue and Tài tử traditions are flexible and dynamic entities…the act of composing a piece is a continuing process in which the performers add their final touches to the work.’^[37] In the case of the dàn tre, this continuing process can be seen in the creation of the instrument and the performances undertaken by Minh.

There is a long history of adaptation and invention in Vietnamese music and instrument making. As Hung states, ‘[B]etween the 1920s and 1940s a number of Tài tử musicians began to experiment with [W]estern instruments in their search for new qualities and colours of sounds.’^[38] Most prominent among those instruments were the acoustic guitar and the violin. Vietnamese musicians adapted the Western instruments to enable them to produce the ornaments typical of Hue and Tài tử musical compositions. Bamboo forms the basis of many of these instruments, in their historical and modern forms. In many places, the physical and musical qualities of the new instruments are explained as part of a broader cultural tradition. For example, the character of a half or flat zither is often attributed to the splitting of a tube or round zither through the act of a god or mystical being or a related event.

Of course, music itself is an active agent in the story of the dàn tre, be it of Vietnamese, European or Australian origin. When performing in Australia, Minh played compositions from various traditions to illustrate the musical range of the dàn tre and the story of the instrument that had evolved in places related to those traditions. Titles included in recordings of the dàn tre made by Minh are Clementine, Waltzing Matilda and various Vietnamese folk songs (including Hòn Vọng Phu).

When Minh made his valuable donation to the National Museum in 1990, he also provided recordings of his dàn tre music, an explanation of the instrument and its musical scales and an oral history outlining his story and the story of the dàn tre. The musical recordings chosen by Minh presented the range of the instrument and his own interests. He was proud to visit the National Museum at its temporary site at Yarramundi Reach and see his dàn tre on display.

As part of my research for the Australian Journeys Gallery, I re-established contact with Minh to learn more about the instrument and his life since the donation. He has returned to Vietnam on several occasions, maintaining contact with friends and family. Poor health and a continuing commitment to support his family have meant that he has not been able to pursue many of his musical interests. It is clear that Minh retains a strong connection with the dàn tre and continues to think of ways in which he could improve the quality and range of the instrument. In fact, he is in the process of making another dàn tre, this time using a plastic pipe and wooden-box resonator. The tradition of innovation in Vietnamese music continues in Minh’s Sydney home.