Read a book with friends: Poetry and music

From ages, poetry and music have been in love with each other. Because music is music, melody. And poetry has inherent rhyme and rhythm that makes it possible to hum like to sing. There is a whole so-called poetry singing. Therefore, it is natural for musicians to compose songs to read poetry and turn on music. But not all poems are easy to evoke music, call music. There must be music in the poem that follows a certain frequency of sound and emotion to create a harmony in the soul of the musician and the poet. At that time, we had popular poetry songs that touched people’s hearts.

Nguyen Ngoc Hanh is a lucky poet who is happy to create a relationship with her poetry and music. “Lullaby” is a music collection of 70 songs by 38 musicians who have popularized his poetry over the past ten years. Musicians both in the South and the North, both in foreign countries, without appointment, find inspiration when reading Nguyen Ngoc Hanh’s poetry and then join hands for his poems.

Musical poetry or popular music? In a song the music flies with the lyrics, both people – the poet and the musician – are the authors. For a long time in our country, popular popular songs have been accidentally or intentionally recorded on sheet music and introduced in performances, missing the poet’s name. That is not right and not good. I remember musician Phan Huynh Dieu in a program for himself on television when asked about the music of poetry he said that the share of poets and musicians here is 50/50. I very much agree with this opinion of him – the musician has many famous popular songs. Therefore, the book “The lullaby” belongs to the poet Nguyen Ngoc Hanh and the 38 musicians who popularized his poetry.

Looking at the table of contents, you can see that the musician who popularized poetry Nguyen Ngoc Hanh with the most songs is Trong Dai (9 songs), then Quynh Hop (7 songs), Trung Kim (5 songs), Nguyen Tran Duc Anh, Trong Luu, Huynh Van Tan (with 4 songs), Duong Van Lot, Nguyen Dinh Even (with 3 songs), Nguyen Cuong, Dinh Gia Hoa, Pham Dang Khuong, Quynh Le (with 2 songs), the rest of the other musicians set one song each. . There are poems written by 4 musicians on the same spectrum with different ways of handling music. Summarizing until this book is printed, Nguyen Ngoc Hanh’s poetry has transformed into 77 songs. A proud and joyful figure for a poet. Before him, as far as I know, only poet Ta Huu Yen (1927 – 2013) had the most poems set to music – according to a statistic, more than 160 songs.

Why is the poetry of this poet from Da Nang so attractive to so many musicians? The answer is in the poetic tone of Nguyen Ngoc Hanh. A quiet, melancholy tone is raised in poems according to the traditional framework of the law, with verses that are multi-voiced with zero. Nguyen Ngoc Hanh’s poetry plays with the familiar levels of affection attached to people’s hearts.

Skinny mother shadow dive

wading the riverbank

Cold night

cry cuddling

Feelings flow

tvertical boat piggy

My mother’s teenage years passed

Don’t call the boat, I call mom!

On this riverbank

Once upon a time mom took a bath

Water at the source

Flowing into the great sea

bring silt

from sweet mother’s milk…

This is a passage from the poem “Through the boat to remember your mother” which was popularized by two musicians Trong Luu and Nguyen Ngoc Tien. The verses read aloud were listened to earnestly. When it is sung, the more earnest it is.

Poet and musician Nguyen Thuy Kha in the article “The soul of poetry offers music” printed at the beginning of the book has carefully analyzed the use of the work of musicians when popularizing Nguyen Ngoc Hanh’s poetry. And he assessed: “The anthology “Song of the bass” with 77 popular poems of Nguyen Ngoc Hanh is a true assessment of the poetic quality of this poet, which many articles about his poetry have not yet finished. It affirms a poetic journey that Nguyen Ngoc Hanh has humbly devoted to life.” I like the two words ‘humble’ for Nguyen Ngoc Hanh here. Nguyen Ngoc Hanh is human and poetry is like that. And his poetic musicians understood him. His poetry was low but music carried his poetry far away.

Sitting alone with the sea this afternoon

The sea is still you, why are you so lonely

The sea with you, a time of waves

Now only remaining sunset?

I’m left with broken sails

Drifting towards the unknown shore

The sea is forever not calm

It was quiet, the storm surged again…

These verses in the song “The Sea of ​​Silence” by Nguyen Ngoc Hanh have become lyrics in two songs by composers Trong Dai and Quynh Hop.

On the evening of May 5, 2022 at the Center of Culture, Sports and Television of Dien Ban Town, Nguyen Ngoc Hanh will have a music night “Lullaby” dedicated to the homeland. The lyrics flying to the music in the singer’s singing will make the feelings of a son, a poet, for the countryside and people of the country even more fluttering.

See you next time with other new books.

Da Nang, 4/5/2022