Author: Học Trò
Translator: Claude Code (Anthropic AI)
In an article collected from the internet, this writer came across observations by composer Cung Tiến about the musical techniques of composer Phạm Đình Chương (PDC), with a passage as follows:
"As for the material and technique of Chương's melodic composition, one can say that his world has escaped the obsession with the 'pentatonic scale,' and is instead the brilliant world of the Western seven-note scale without hesitation, of Western major/minor modes without awkwardness, with tertian chords as the building blocks, with tonality playing the director's role, and with secondary scale degrees playing the role of changing scenery ('modulation'). His manner of modulation, therefore, is also quite gentle and 'classical': the basic formula of tonal music, simple and pure..." (Excerpt from 'The Dream Butterfly' – written by composer Cung Tiến.) Source: website http://cothommagazine.com
Indeed, when examining songs like "Người đi qua đời tôi" (The One Who Passed Through My Life), "Nửa hồn thương đau" (Half a Soul in Pain), etc., we see that composer PDC uses many thirds, fourths, and larger intervals in his music. For example, "người đi qua đời tôi" is C G G E G (1 5 5 3 5), a spread variation of the C minor chord, or "nhắm mắt, cho tôi tìm một thoáng hương xưa" (B B, G E B E B A A) is a spread of the E minor chord (Em) before transitioning to the A note of A minor (Am). The difference is that composer PDC—as composer Cung Tiến explained—spreads them in a "brilliant," "unhesitating" manner, going straight from B down to B an octave lower then back to B, within the same phrase. Truly, his music has escaped the constraints of the five-note pentatonic scale, of the rule against exceeding a fifth within a single phrase.
But composer Trịnh Công Sơn also wrote in the Western seven-note tonal style, so why do we hear two distinctly different musical styles? "B C B B G E G B" of "Mưa vẫn mưa bay trên tầng tháp cổ" (Rain still falls upon the ancient tower) from Diễm Xưa also leaps across the heptatonic scale, doesn't it? So why do I no longer enjoy playing or humming along to Trịnh Công Sơn's love songs, while the compositions of PDC like "Người đi qua đời tôi" (NDQĐT), "Nửa hồn thương đau" (NHTĐ), "Đêm, nhớ trăng Sài Gòn" (Night, Remembering Saigon's Moon) (ĐNTSG), "Mưa Sài Gòn, Mưa Hà Nội" (Saigon Rain, Hanoi Rain) (MSGMHN), keep playing in my head like an old cassette tape, spinning again and again without stopping??? (Please listen to the music at the links at the end of this essay.)
After much searching, I finally found a few explanations, which I would like to share with readers.
The Motive
Composer Phạm Đình Chương has a very simple way of writing music, but it is a crystallization, a refinement—nothing superfluous, nothing lacking. His music has motives with the necessary variations to make the song rich and diverse, thus not boring the listener too quickly.
In the four songs I just mentioned, each one clearly has a motive, with subsequent phrases repeating or developing that motive; and if the notes of the second phrase differ slightly from the first, at least the rhythm remains the same. This repetition is truly important in music, especially in vocal music like Vietnamese music. Because music is an art experienced over time, if there is no repetition, our minds would have no way to 'make sense' of what the composer is trying to say. In contrast, in painting we have time to appreciate the artwork, so perhaps repetition is not as crucial?
The clearest example of motives in PDC's music is the composition "Người đi qua đời tôi" (The One Who Passed Through My Life) (poem by Trần Dạ Từ):
The one who passed through my life,
in those melancholy winter afternoons,
Rain rises to so many shoulders,
Wind rises to so many skies
We see the motive "Người đi qua đời tôi" (The one who passed through my life) has a sine wave / tilde shape, and the following three phrases also have sine or cosine (inverted) shapes, with rhythm following the original motive.
When discussing the importance of motives in these four famous songs, especially since they are songs set to poetry or poetic ideas, we clearly see that no matter how beautiful each individual phrase might be (when examined separately), I humbly believe that if they did not all develop from a single motive, they could not be remarkable when standing together.
Song Structure
In these four songs, each has at least three distinctly different musical sections. This shows us that the composer intentionally made the song rich, not monotonous like the ABAB form (verse, chorus, verse, chorus). All lyrics are by PDC, except for the final section which is based on the poetry of Thanh Tâm Tuyền:
(a) Close my eyes, let me find a fleeting fragrance of the pastLet me return to the poetic old roadLet me meet the one I dreamed of long ago
(b) Or is it just a dreamI hear love dying within meLeaving my heart with regret and sorrow for a lifetime
(a') Close my eyes, oh why does half my soul suddenly acheOh why must we be forever apartOr shall we promise to meet in another life
(c) Where are you? Where are you?Perhaps only the sorrowful rain darkens deep eyes
(d) Close my eyes, I see only a purple horizonI see only a heart overflowing with longingAnd singing and tears
(e) Sometimes I want to believeSometimes I want to believeOh those people, oh those peopleWeeping alone by themselves
We see the song has five sections a b c d e that are distinctly different from each other (only a and a' are similar, differing only in the last two notes), yet why do they remain so connected to each other???
Motive Development (1)
The composer has a very interesting way of developing the motive. In the four songs I selected for analysis, each has its own method of development. For example, in "Nửa hồn thương đau" (Half a Soul in Pain), we see "nhắm mắt" (close my eyes) as the opening, followed by "cho tôi tìm một thoáng hương xưa" (let me find a fleeting fragrance of the past). We notice the last two syllables are a repetition of "nhắm mắt" but with two lower notes (B B => A A), then comes another downward translation: "cho tôi về đường cũ nên thơ" (let me return to the poetic old road), going even lower (A A => G G), and finally "cho tôi gặp người xưa ước mơ" (let me meet the one I dreamed of) (G G => G F). We clearly see the musical section has a very logical, tight development with a sense of inevitability.
In another composition, 'Đêm, nhớ trăng Sài Gòn' (Night, Remembering Saigon's Moon), set to poetry by Du Tử Lê, because the composer wanted to imitate the sound of wheels rolling slowly, wheels turning round, he made the opening six-eight verse into 2/4/4/4 (Đêm về/theo bánh xe lăn/tôi trăng viễn xứ/hồn thanh niên vàng - Night falls/following the rolling wheels/I, the moon in exile/golden youthful soul) as one large musical arc, followed by three smaller arcs with notes separated by seconds (F B / F G F F / E E F F / B C C B)
With "Mưa Sài Gòn, Mưa Hà Nội" (Saigon Rain, Hanoi Rain), a song with a Latin American rhythm, PDC gave us a V-shaped motive with two thirds on "Mưa hoàng hôn" (Twilight rain), then he cleverly repeated that V motive (on "trên thành phố buồn gió" - over the wind-sad city) then concluded the phrase.
After that, he brilliantly recalls the motive (... heo may vào hồn, thoảng hương tóc em ngày qua, - the autumn chill enters my soul, a whiff of your hair from days past) then steers the melody through common tones to strange chords not in the F major scale, like Eb, Ab, then Db, and finally arrives at C7, which is the dominant seventh (V7) of F major.
Truly a master of modulation, he created feelings of an ancient capital city, seemingly distant yet strangely also very close in one's thoughts, because Eb major is only a second away from F major, yet why does it sound so infinitely far!
Motive Repetition
If we follow closely the two songs NDQĐT and NHTĐ, we will see the motive "Người đi qua đời tôi" as well as "Nhắm mắt" are repeated after they have been developed to the end of the section. This method of development (period) is very standard in classical music as well as other songs from the 60s. The difference is that the song structure (form) in PDC's music is diverse as mentioned above, making the song dynamic rather than rigidly framed in forms like AB, ABA, or ABAB. This further shows that setting poetry to music is not easy at all—it must be based on the rules of melodic development, not simply adding ornamental notes up and down following the poetry!
Motive Development (2)
The above was about developing the motive within a section, but what about between sections? Composer PDC has a very distinctive and interesting way of developing the motives in subsequent sections. He takes the same motive but bends the ending to turn in a different direction. The clearest example is "Người đi qua đời tôi" (The One Who Passed Through My Life). After developing section 1, the melody descends:
The one who passed through my life,
in those melancholy winter afternoons,
Rain rises to so many shoulders,
Wind rises to so many skies
In section 2, the melody soars up in phrase 2, then continues developing with the same rhythm, so the listener does not feel a drastic change that would disrupt the coherence of the song.
The one who passed through my life,
soul drifting through freezing cold regions,
The gold of the past full of footprints,
darkness in the realm of oblivion.
In "Nửa hồn thương đau" (Half a Soul in Pain) it is the same—while the melody descends in section "a":
Close my eyes, let me find a fleeting fragrance of the pastLet me return to the poetic old roadLet me meet the one I dreamed of long ago
In section "c," we see a different development with the melody rising:
Close my eyes, I see only a purple horizonI see only a heart overflowing with longingAnd singing and tears
"Economizing" the Motive
Not only using the motive in the opening section, he also finds ways to incorporate it into the chorus as well. Perhaps this is a small part of why his music is so tight and cohesive? We see the motive "Người đi qua đời tôi" that opened the song has been cleverly embedded in the middle of the chorus with two variations of that melody:
And who passed through my life
Afternoon echoing with a thousand waves
The ending of the chorus is the same—nothing other than taking a motive-form development from "trong những chiều đông sầu" (in those melancholy winter afternoons):
then using the same intervals and rhythm (F G D F C) to write a sequence of three descending phrases, then using augmentation to conclude the section.
On the road to the cemetery,
hearing the words of souls,
hearing the words of souls,
in the grave ... dark ... dark ...
Repeating Lyrics, Changing Melody
Unlike classical music, popular music—in addition to repeating rhythm and motive while creating variations to prevent monotony—also repeats lyrics either exactly or with slight modifications to give the song a tighter structure. These words serve as connections between phrases. In "Nửa Hồn Thương Đau" (Half a Soul in Pain), we see the repeated phrase "cho tôi" (let me) functioning as a common denominator, a kind of "motive" that allows the composer to develop the latter half of each line:
Cho tôi tìm một thoáng hương xưa(Let me find a fleeting fragrance of the past)
Cho tôi về đường cũ nên thơ
(Let me return to the poetic old road)Cho tôi gặp người xưa ước mơ
(Let me meet the one I dreamed of long ago)
In another composition, "Đêm, Nhớ Trăng Sài Gòn" (Night, Remembering Saigon's Moon), the phrase "Nhớ mưa ôi nhớ mưa" (Missing the rain, oh missing the rain) in the middle of the section, besides being repeated twice to affirm the poetic meaning of "missing the highway," "missing Hàng Xanh district," "missing you," serves two other purposes. First, it breaks the conventional six-eight meter structure of songs adapted from lục bát poetry; second, it functions as a temporary rest, creating a transition and introducing another longing—the longing for rain: "sadness throughout Thị Nghè" all the way to Trương Minh Giảng Street, then circling back to Tự Do Street!
This longing resonates deeply with me, for throughout my youth and adulthood, my close friend and I would often wander from Lê Thánh Tôn Street to Tự Do, then to Lê Lợi, Nguyễn Huệ, Pasteur—all of them. Oh, those tall trees with green leaves, the tamarind trees lining Lê Thánh Tôn, Đồn Đất, Gia Long streets—where are they now for us to cherish and miss?
Conclusion
The subsections above with their illustrative examples are, in my humble opinion, the essential elements that anyone wishing to be recognized as a composer must master—to create a song that remains in the hearts of music lovers. These are crafts that anyone can learn, refine, and practice through many exercises before presenting their works to the world. What is encouraging for those learning to compose (like myself) is that three of the four songs above were set to music from poetry by composer Phạm Đình Chương. Though he was close friends with the poets and could easily absorb the spirit of their poems, beyond the musical ideas and motives inspired after reading the poems—gifts bestowed upon him by nature—he still had to toil, losing sleep to take that initial heaven-sent musical idea and shape it, sculpt it, add and subtract words, to transform the poem into a song. So if you work diligently, you too can compose music—if not brilliantly, at least following the basic rules of songwriting.
♫
