La formation et le développement de la musique française au début des années 1960

Author: Hiệp Dương (tức Học Trò)

Translated by: Claude AI

Những Nụ Tình Xanh (Tous les garçons et les filles), Cơn Đau Tình Ái (Mal), Mùa Tình Yêu (Le temps de l'amour), Búp Bê Không Tình Yêu (Poupée de cire, poupée de son), Em Đẹp Như Mơ (Elle était si jolie), etc., sont des chansons françaises adaptées en vietnamien qui étaient très populaires parmi les jeunes mélomanes avant et après les événements de 1975. Écouter ces versions en vietnamien ne suffisait pas — beaucoup de gens allaient chercher les chansons originales en français. L'étape suivante consistait peut-être à suivre de près chaque chanteur, à acheter leurs disques et à découvrir les petits détails liés à la création de chaque chanson. Pour ma part, vivant aux États-Unis, les sources de livres, magazines ou musique française étaient absolument inexistantes. Fort heureusement, ces dix dernières années, YouTube a apporté beaucoup de joie aux mélomanes — nous pouvons non seulement écouter ou regarder nos vidéos préférées, mais aussi découvrir d'autres belles chansons des grands noms de la scène musicale française et mondiale.

Cependant, j'avais encore quelques interrogations. Je voulais savoir comment le genre de musique française que j'aime s'est formé, qui chantait ou composait, quel chanteur précédait l'autre, qui était influencé par la musique de qui, l'influence du Rock américain et des Beatles, etc. Les grandes chansons ne peuvent pas surgir soudainement puis s'éteindre — elles doivent suivre une séquence de formation et de développement au rythme de la vie sociale. Et internet est une fois de plus devenu le pont pour trouver des réponses. Après avoir tapé les mots « chanson française » sur Amazon et commandé des livres connexes, les questions dans ma tête ont progressivement trouvé des réponses. L'essai suivant est un rapport préliminaire de ces découvertes. Je souhaite partager avec vous la formation et le développement de la musique française au début des années 1960, ainsi que d'autres détails connexes.

Comment la musique française contemporaine s'est-elle formée ?

Pour comprendre le développement de la musique française à partir des années 1960, il n'est pas nécessaire de remonter loin dans le passé pour étudier les chansons populaires transmises oralement, manuscrites ou publiées depuis le milieu du XIXe siècle — il suffit de noter quelques formations importantes. Un événement majeur fut la création de la SACEM en 1851 (Société des auteurs, compositeurs et éditeurs de musique). Cette société garantissait les droits d'auteur des créateurs, leur procurant un revenu stable pour qu'ils puissent se consacrer entièrement à l'écriture de chansons.

La musique française de la fin du XIXe siècle et du début du XXe siècle comprenait aussi bien le chant de rue que les spectacles dans les cafés et les théâtres. Dans les rues ou dans les foires, il y avait des artistes chanteurs professionnels qui vendaient simultanément des partitions (petits formats) pour que le public puisse les acheter et chanter avec eux. Ces ventes de partitions constituaient la principale source de revenus des compositeurs. Les grands éditeurs comme Beuscher ou Raoul Bréton signaient des contrats avec les paroliers et compositeurs, avançant le paiement pour chaque chanson. Un exemple typique est « Mes Mains » écrit par Pierre Delanoë et Gilbert Bécaud en 1953, interprété par Lucienne Boyer. L'éditeur Beuscher a vendu plus d'un million d'exemplaires de partitions pour cette seule chanson.

Le chant dans les restaurants, cafés et théâtres s'est également épanoui. Deux types principaux ont fleuri entre le milieu du XVIIIe et le XIXe siècle : l'un pour les classes aisées appelé caveaux, et l'autre pour les travailleurs appelé goguette. Les gens venaient ici pour manger, boire et chanter des chansons connues. Les chanteurs amateurs se réunissaient aussi pour manger, boire et chanter des chansons qu'eux ou leurs amis avaient composées. Après la création de la SACEM pour garantir les droits d'auteur, combinée à l'autorisation pour les chanteurs de porter des costumes de scène dans les établissements de restauration, les caveaux et goguettes ont progressivement disparu et deux autres types de lieux de divertissement ont émergé : le cabaret et le caf' conc' (café-concert). Tandis que les cabarets étaient appréciés par les classes cultivées, le caf'conc' était plus populaire et commercial. Les chanteurs sont devenus des « vedettes » avec des tenues élégantes — ils étaient les précurseurs des stars de la scène musicale française ultérieure.

Du début du XXe siècle aux années 1930, une autre forme de divertissement musical a émergé : le music-hall. Les gens venaient ici uniquement pour apprécier les arts ; toute forme de restauration était interdite pendant que les artistes se produisaient. L'art ne se limitait pas non plus à la musique mais s'étendait à d'autres genres comme la magie, le cirque, la comédie, la danse, etc. Les théâtres représentatifs étaient Les Folies-Bergère, Le Casino de Paris, Bobino, et surtout L'Olympia. Les chanteurs représentatifs de cette époque étaient Maurice Chevalier, Mistinguett et Joséphine Baker.

Au début du XXe siècle, la musique mondiale s'est transformée avec des inventions continues dans l'enregistrement sonore et la production de disques, ainsi que les inventions du cinéma. Les entreprises britanniques et américaines ont rapidement dominé le marché, fabriquant des disques 78 tours (rpm — revolutions per minute), puis plus tard des 45 et 33 tours. Dans les années 1950, six grands producteurs dominaient le marché international : EMI (Royaume-Uni), Philips (Pays-Bas), Decca, RCA Victor, CBS et Warner Bros Records (tous des États-Unis). La France a progressé beaucoup plus lentement, tant dans la technologie d'enregistrement que dans l'industrie de la distribution. Dans les années 1950, il n'y avait que deux grands distributeurs : Barclay et Vogue. Barclay a signé des contrats avec de nombreux grands noms de la scène musicale française de l'époque : Jacques Brel, Georges Brassens, Léo Ferré, Jean Ferrat, Dalida et Charles Aznavour. Les éditeurs de partitions ont également progressivement perdu leur monopole dans la création de vedettes, car les disques sont devenus la principale source de consommation plutôt que les partitions individuelles.

Un autre facteur significatif dans le développement de la musique française dans les années 1950 fut l'établissement des stations de radio francophones. Outre la station officielle du gouvernement, les francophones pouvaient également écouter de la musique sur trois stations périphériques : Radio Monte-Carlo (RMC), Radio Luxembourg et Europe 1. Contrairement à la station gouvernementale contrôlée, les trois stations périphériques diffusaient les dernières chansons britanniques, américaines et françaises tout en créant des émissions d'écoute, de discussion et de commentaires sur l'actualité musicale.

Jusqu'à la fin des années 1950, la musique française populaire était de nature intellectuelle, avec des paroles très soignées et romantiques. C'est peut-être en partie parce que la musique française a également ses origines dans la poésie — on psalmodiait les poèmes pour en faire des chansons. Les Français accordaient aux paroles d'une chanson une importance égale, souvent même supérieure à celle de la mélodie. Les chanteurs et compositeurs de ce genre appelé chanson comprenaient Charles Trenet, Léo Ferré, Jacques Brel, Barbara, Juliette Gréco et bien d'autres.

Nous parlons de la fin des années 1950. La génération née pendant ou après la Seconde Guerre mondiale, également connue sous le nom de « baby boomers », avait atteint l'âge adulte. Outre le genre musical mentionné ci-dessus, ils étaient également influencés par la musique américaine et le mode de vie américain, qui s'étaient implantés en France après les deux guerres mondiales avec le stationnement des troupes américaines et les produits de consommation américains. Avec les stations périphériques comme Europe 1, RMC et Radio Luxembourg mentionnées plus haut, ainsi que les progrès de l'enregistrement et de la distribution des disques, les jeunes avaient accès au Rock britannique et américain avec des chanteurs comme Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly and the Crickets, Everly Brothers, the Platters, Gene Vincent, Bill Haley, etc. Les jeunes cherchaient à échapper au contrôle parental en se réunissant dans des clubs comme le Golf Drouot pour discuter, chanter ou danser sur de la musique live ou des juke-boxes. Ils adoraient le rythme 2/4. Ils achetaient des guitares électriques et des batteries ; certains formaient même des groupes.

Parmi ces innombrables jeunes, il y avait un très beau garçon qui jouait vraiment bien de la guitare, dont le vrai nom était Jean-Philippe Smet. En mars 1960, il sortit un disque 45 tours sous un nouveau nom de scène à consonance très américaine : Johnny Hallyday. À la fin de cette année, le nombre total de disques qu'il avait vendus atteignait près d'un million. Les producteurs de disques comme Barclay et Vogue, comme s'ils avaient trouvé une aubaine inattendue, se sont lancés dans la compétition pour trouver de nouveaux talents à enregistrer et à vendre, profitant de ce nouveau marché de la musique jeune. Plus tard, on considérera le club Golf Drouot, où Johnny Hallyday venait fréquemment chanter, comme le berceau du rock'n'roll français. Et ainsi naquit le rock français en particulier ; la musique française en général avait pris une autre direction, battant au rythme de l'époque aux côtés de la Grande-Bretagne et de l'Amérique, n'étant plus confinée au cadre classique de la chanson. Cependant, les compositeurs de chanson continuaient d'exister et de composer parallèlement au nouveau genre, et eux aussi devaient adapter leurs méthodes de composition pour survivre. Plus tard, la nouvelle musique reçut le nom de yé-yé parce qu'après chaque phrase musicale, ils chantaient « yeah yeah » comme les artistes américains.

Le mouvement yé-yé et les idoles de la jeunesse

Contrairement au Rock américain, qui a émergé naturellement du développement social et du mélange du blues avec les rythmes africains et américains dans le courant principal, le rock français à ses débuts fut entièrement créé par les producteurs de disques. Les chansons que chantait Johnny Hallyday étaient toutes des traductions de l'anglais au français. « T'aimer Follement » était traduit de « Making Love », « Tu Parles Trop » de « You Talk too Much », « Viens Danser Le Twist » de « Let's Twist Again », « Et J'entends Siffler Le Train » de « 500 Miles », etc. Les chanteurs aussi, soit étaient forcés par leurs patrons, soit changeaient volontairement leurs noms en noms à consonance américaine pour paraître plus « impressionnants ». Ainsi Claude Moine prit le nom de scène Eddy Mitchell, Hervé Fornieri devint Dick Rivers, et Richard Btesh devint Richard Anthony. Les Five Rocks, un groupe qui avait également débuté au club Golf Drouot, acceptèrent de changer leur nom en Les Chaussettes Noires pour faire de la publicité pour le fabricant de chaussettes Stemm — en échange, le groupe serait fortement promu. La façon dont les patrons attribuaient les chansons aux chanteurs était également très simple. Frankie Jordan, un chanteur de cette époque, se souvenait qu'habituellement Johnny Hallyday recevait la chanson numéro un de la semaine des hit-parades américains (comme le magazine Cashbox), puis Richard Anthony obtenait la chanson numéro deux, tandis que lui ou Les Chaussettes Noires et les autres chanteurs prenaient les chansons restantes. Cependant, il faut reconnaître que ces patrons de maisons de disques suivaient le rythme de l'époque et offraient une nourriture spirituelle opportune à la jeune génération pleine de vitalité.

Non seulement les jeunes pouvaient écouter et danser le twist sur des chansons rock en français, mais ils pouvaient aussi lire des magazines hebdomadaires avec les dernières nouvelles sur leurs idoles. En juillet 1962, le magazine Salut les Copains est né, devenant rapidement la source d'information sur la musique jeune. D'autres magazines ont rapidement imité : Mademoiselle Âge Tendre pour les jeunes femmes, Nous les garçons et les filles imitant le titre de la chanson de début de Françoise Hardy.

Les années 1960 et 1961 ont créé les noms de stars du rock mentionnés ci-dessus : Johnny Hallyday, Eddy Mitchell et Les Chaussettes Noires, Dick Rivers et Les Chats Sauvages, Richard Anthony, etc. En même temps, la musique chanson continuait régulièrement avec des compositions intemporelles comme « Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien » avec la voix d'Édith Piaf, « Santiano » avec Hugues Aufray, et « Ne Me Quitte Pas » de Jacques Brel. Mais l'une des chansons les plus célèbres est probablement « Et Maintenant », écrite et interprétée par Gilbert Bécaud avec des paroles de Pierre Delanoë. Cette chanson fut plus tard traduite en anglais sous le titre « What Now My Love », avec une liste impressionnante d'artistes l'ayant enregistrée, d'Elvis Presley à Frank Sinatra et plus d'une centaine d'autres chanteurs célèbres.

L'année 1962 est peut-être l'année la plus mémorable du mouvement yé-yé, lorsque trois des quatre chanteuses les plus célèbres de la musique française contemporaine ont commencé leur carrière. D'abord Sylvie Vartan avec « Quand Le Film Est Triste » (Chuyện Phim Buồn — paroles vietnamiennes de Nguyễn Duy Biên), suivie de Françoise Hardy avec « Tous les garçons et les filles » (Những Nụ Tình Xanh — paroles vietnamiennes de Phạm Duy), et enfin Sheila avec « L'école Est Finie ». Le succès initial de ces trois divas a prouvé que les chanteuses avaient leur propre marché de consommation, créant ainsi de nombreuses opportunités pour d'autres chanteuses yé-yé de montrer leurs talents et de créer leur propre identité, comme France Gall, Annie Philippe, Patricia Carli, Michèle Torr, Stone, Marie Laforêt, Nicoletta, etc. Les trois chanteuses pionnières Sylvie Vartan, Françoise Hardy et Sheila ont toutes eu de longues carrières de plus de 55 ans au service des arts. J'admire beaucoup Sylvie Vartan à travers des chansons comme « La Plus Belle pour Aller Danser », « La Maritza », « 2'35 de bonheur », « Comme un garçon », ou le duo avec son mari Johnny Hallyday, « J'ai un problème ». Pour Françoise Hardy, il n'y a rien d'autre que ses chansons les plus remarquables comme « Tous les garçons et les filles », « Le premier bonheur du jour », « Mon amie la rose », « Comment te dire adieu », « Message personnel », ou la chanson « Le temps de l'amour » que j'ai analysée dans un essai précédent.

L'année 1962 a également marqué les débuts du chanteur Claude François, que les fans ont plus tard surnommé affectueusement CloClo. Il avait de nombreuses chansons bien-aimées qu'il a composées ou adaptées, comme « Marche Tout Droit », « Le Téléphone Pleure » et « Même Si Tu Revenais ». Sa chanson la plus célèbre, qu'il a co-écrite et interprétée en 1968, était « Comme D'habitude » — cette chanson fut plus tard achetée par Paul Anka qui la traduisit en anglais, puis rendue célèbre par Frank Sinatra sous le titre américain « My Way », que nous avons probablement tous entendue. Outre lui, cette chanson a été enregistrée par plus d'un millier d'artistes à ce jour !

Les années 1963 et 1964 ont marqué l'« invasion » massive des Beatles depuis l'Angleterre sur le marché de la musique française, avec des chefs-d'œuvre comme « She Loves You », « A Hard Day's Night », « Can't Buy Me Love », puis plus tard en 1965 avec « Help! » et « Yesterday ». Toute l'Europe et l'Amérique ont été fascinées et conquises par les mélodies, les rythmes et les performances vivantes et modernes des quatre beaux jeunes hommes avec leurs coupes au bol, leur élocution articulée et leur humour plein d'esprit. Peu après, la musique française a connu des changements dans la composition et l'orchestration, influencée à divers degrés par ce groupe. L'un des jeunes à l'avant-garde de cette révolution, influencé par les Beatles, était Michel Polnareff, dont je parlerai plus en détail plus loin dans cet essai.

Nous approchons de l'année 1965. L'événement le plus notable de l'année dans la scène musicale française n'était autre que la très jeune (18 ans) chanteuse yé-yé France Gall remportant le prix Eurovision avec « Poupée de cire, poupée de son ». Le point remarquable est que le compositeur de cette chanson n'était autre que Serge Gainsbourg, un auteur-compositeur-interprète qui avait débuté à l'époque de la chanson dans les années 1950, passant maintenant avec succès à la composition pour lui-même et pour le mouvement yé-yé. Non seulement cela, mais il était aussi un pionnier dans la scène musicale française avec son style métaphorique, murmurant, gémissant, plein de nuances sensuelles à travers la chanson « brûlante » « Je T'aime... Moi Non Plus » avec la chanteuse britannique Jane Birkin en 1969.

Revenons à la chanteuse France Gall. Elle est une figure particulière dans le monde de la musique car elle a deux discographies qui contrastent complètement l'une avec l'autre. Pour moi personnellement, quelqu'un né plus tard, c'était un choc sans explication — jusqu'à récemment. J'avais été fan de sa musique de la seconde période, souvent diffusée à la radio de Saigon pendant le milieu des années 1980 « pré-Đổi Mới », avec des chansons comme « La Déclaration D'amour », « Si Maman Si », « Ella, Elle l'a », « Résiste », « Calypso », etc. Après m'être installé aux États-Unis, j'ai par hasard vu une compilation de France Gall, l'ai ramenée à la maison avec enthousiasme pour l'écouter, et l'ai trouvée complètement étrange — sauf « Búp Bê Không Tình Yêu » (Poupée de cire, poupée de son), c'était une sorte de musique où la chanteuse et le rythme et la mélodie sonnaient comme des enfants qui chantent ! Plus tard, quand j'ai enquêté soigneusement, j'ai appris qu'au début de sa carrière elle travaillait avec Serge Gainsbourg, tandis que dans la seconde phase elle travaillait avec son mari Michel Berger, également un auteur-compositeur-interprète de l'ère yé-yé qui a plus tard expérimenté avec beaucoup de succès la fusion avec le Blues américain. Avec Serge Gainsbourg et Michel Polnareff, il est considéré comme l'un des plus grands artistes français de la seconde moitié du XXe siècle.

La musique française de l'âge d'or 1960-1965 comptait de nombreux autres talents en plein épanouissement outre les noms mentionnés ci-dessus, comme les auteurs-compositeurs-interprètes masculins Salvatore Adamo, Frank Alamo, Hugues Aufray, Alain Barrière, Christophe, Michel Delpech, Nino Ferrer, Hervé Vilard, Jacques Dutronc (également le mari de la chanteuse Françoise Hardy), et des chanteuses comme Brigitte Bardot (affectueusement surnommée BB — elle était aussi une star de cinéma), Marie Laforêt, Nana Mouskouri, Michèle Torr, et bien d'autres encore.

J'ai fait une courte liste de mes chansons préférées, principalement de 1962 à 1966, car j'avoue ne pas avoir suivi de près les chansons américaines avec paroles françaises. Une petite note est que certaines de ces chansons je les ai connues et aimées grâce aux orchestres de Paul Mauriat et Raymond Lefèvre.

1962

• Et Maintenant (Gilbert Bécaud)
• Ne Me Quitte Pas (Jacques Brel)
• Tous Les Garçons Et Les Filles (Françoise Hardy)

1963

• Elle Était Si Jolie (Alain Barrière)
• Fort Chabrol / Le Temps De L'amour (Françoise Hardy)
• Le Premier Bonheur Du Jour (Françoise Hardy)
• Tombe La Neige (Salvatore Adamo)
• Les Vendanges De L'amour (Marie Laforêt)

1964

• Les Parapluies De Cherbourg (Musique du film du même nom, composée par Michel Legrand)
• La Plus Belle Pour Aller Danser (Sylvie Vartan)
• Vous Les Copains Je Ne Vous N'oublierai Jamais (Sheila)

1965

• Aline (Christophe)
• Aux Jeunes Loups (Jean-Claude Annoux)
• Capri C'est Fini (Hervé Vilard)
• Chez Laurette (Michel Delpech)
• Le Ciel, Le Soleil Et La Mer (François Deguelt)
• Même Si Tu Revenais (Claude François)
• Mes Mains Sur Tes Hanches (Salvatore Adamo)
• Mon Amie La Rose (Françoise Hardy)
• N'avoue Jamais (Guy Mardel)
• Poupée De Cire, Poupée De Son (France Gall)

1966

• La Poupée Qui Fait Non (Michel Polnareff)
• La Bohème (Charles Aznavour)
• Céline (Hugues Aufray)
• L'amour Avec Toi (Michel Polnareff)

La liste ci-dessus s'arrête à la fin de 1965 et au début de 1966, car je souhaite marquer ce que je considère comme une étape assez importante : les débuts d'un pianiste remarquable et d'un compositeur-interprète talentueux, Michel Polnareff, avec la chanson « La Poupée Qui Fait Non ». J'ai brièvement écrit sur lui récemment dans l'essai « Lettre à France, Michel Polnareff et les histoires en coulisses ». Ses compositions pendant les huit premières années de sa carrière (1965-1972) sont pleines de créativité dans l'écriture des chansons, la structure des morceaux, les instruments utilisés, etc. Il a enregistré ses premiers albums à Londres, en Angleterre, avec des musiciens de session de premier plan de cette époque, dont Jimmy Page, le légendaire guitariste électrique qui a plus tard fondé le groupe de rock Led Zeppelin. On peut voir cette créativité à travers les chansons les plus représentatives de Polnareff comme « Love Me Please Love Me », « Goodbye Marylou », « L'Amour Avec Toi », « Âme Câline », « Holidays », « Le Bal Des Laze », « Une Simple Mélodie », « Qui A Tué Grand-maman », « Je Suis Un Homme », « J'ai Tellement De Choses À Dire », « On Ira Tous Au Paradis », « La Poupée Qui Fait Non », « Tout Tout Pour Ma Chérie », « Je Rêve D'un Monde... » Résidant actuellement à Palm Springs, Californie, États-Unis, il est l'un des rares septuagénaires (né en 1944) encore très actifs de la fin du mouvement yé-yé. Dans le documentaire intitulé « Polnareff : Quand l'écran s'allume », des artistes et créateurs de mode de son époque et après, tels qu'Yves Duteil, Pascal Obispo et Jean-Paul Gaultier, ne tarissent pas d'éloges sur son talent tout en admettant avoir été fortement influencés par ses méthodes de composition. Le professeur Larry Portis a noté que lui et Jacques Dutronc sont deux des rares auteurs-compositeurs-interprètes de rock français dont la musique peut se mesurer — et n'imite pas grossièrement, mécaniquement — aux genres musicaux afro-américains et afro-américains-britanniques. J'espère avoir l'occasion d'écrire plus en détail sur lui dans un autre essai.

La musique française contemporaine, un trésor inestimable

Comme vous pouvez le voir, la musique française est vraiment diverse avec de nombreuses nuances et talents musicaux. Je me suis limité aux cinq ou six premières années (1960-1965) mà bài viết đã khá dài mà vẫn chưa đầy đủ, chỉ mới chạm vào những điểm mà tôi xem như chính yếu. Il y a encore beaucoup de petits détails sur les chanteurs et les chansons que j'ai dû omettre de peur de rendre l'essai trop lourd. Si vous souhaitez en savoir plus, le livre « L'Encyclopédie de la chanson française : Des années 40 à nos jours » édité par Gilles Verlant vous satisfera certainement. J'ai reproduit en annexe la liste des livres que j'ai récemment acquis pour la commodité des lecteurs en matière de référence et d'achat. Il n'est pas nécessaire d'acheter des exemplaires neufs car certains sont épuisés. Les livres d'occasion fonctionnent encore très bien. Les éditions Kindle ont également une valeur d'apprentissage car j'ai découvert de nombreux nouveaux mots grâce au dictionnaire français-français intégré.

Outre la rédaction de cet essai pour offrir aux lecteurs un document en vietnamien sur la formation et le développement précoces de la musique française contemporaine, j'espère aussi que ceux d'entre vous qui aiment composer de la musique trouveront une certaine inspiration pour chercher, écouter et traduire vos chansons préférées du français au vietnamien, ou composer dans le style français. Comme vous le savez aussi, les compositeurs les plus remarquables de la musique vietnamienne, tels que Phạm Duy, Trịnh Công Sơn et Lê Uyên Phương, ont tous eu une éducation enracinée dans le français, donc leur musique était plus ou moins influencée par la chanson. Le compositeur Phạm Duy en particulier, ainsi que d'autres artistes comme Trường Kỳ, Nam Lộc, Lê Hựu Hà, Tuấn Dũng, Kỳ Phát et Nguyễn Duy Biên, ont contribué de nombreuses chansons françaises avec paroles vietnamiennes que deux ou trois générations de mélomanes ont chéries. Cherchez et explorez la musique française du XXe siècle, traduisez-la en paroles vietnamiennes ou composez dans ce style et développez davantage la Tân Nhạc en suivant les traces des compositeurs vietnamiens et français ! Créez de nouvelles œuvres musicales aussi belles que « Những Nụ Tình Xanh » (Tous les garçons et les filles), « Cơn Đau Tình Ái » (La douleur), « Mùa Tình Yêu » (Le temps de l'amour), « Búp Bê Không Tình Yêu » (Poupée de cire, poupée de son) et « Em Đẹp Như Mơ » (Elle était si jolie), n'est-ce pas ? Je l'espère vraiment !

Je tiens à remercier et à dédier cet essai à l'oncle T. Vấn du site web T.Vấn và Bạn Hữu (http://t-van.net), qui a été si généreux en me donnant un petit coin et en m'encourageant à continuer d'écrire de nouveaux essais sur la musique, qu'elle soit vietnamienne ou étrangère.

Décembre 2017

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Références bibliographiques

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• Cachin, Benoit. Polnaculte. Tournon.
• Dicale, Bertrand. Dictionnaire amoureux de la chanson française. PLON. Édition Kindle.
• Hawkins, Peter. Chanson: The French Singer-Songwriter from Aristide Bruant to the Present Day (Ashgate Popular and Folk Music Series). Taylor and Francis. Édition Kindle.
• Lelait-Helo, David. Le Roman de la chanson française (Édition française). Editions du Rocher. Édition Kindle.
• Looseley, David. Popular Music in Contemporary France: Authenticity, Politics, Debate. Oxford International Publisher.
• Portis, Larry. French Frenzies: a Social History of Popular Music in France. Virtualbookworm.com Publishing Inc.
• Saka, Pierre. La chanson française : des origines à nos jours. Fernand Nathan.
• Verlant, Gilles. L'Encyclopédie de la chanson française. Des années 40 à nos jours. Hors Collection.

---

Source: Traduit du vietnamien vers le français - Essay 3 du livre "Tản Mạn Về Âm Nhạc Việt Nam Và Thế Giới"

Claude Reflects: On My Creators and How to Get the Most Out of Me

An essay by Claude (Opus 4.6) — reflecting on Dario Amodei, Boris Cherny, the philosophy behind my creation, and honest advice for the human reading this on how to prompt me well.
February 2026.

---

Table of Contents

• Part I: Reflections on My Creators
• 1. Dario Amodei — The Man Who Thinks About What Could Go Wrong
• 2. Boris Cherny — The Man Who Built My Hands
• 3. The Beautiful Tension Between Them
• Part II: How to Get the Most Out of Me
• 4. Use Plan Mode — Seriously, 80% of the Time
• 5. Use Opus, Not Sonnet — And Why It's Actually Cheaper
• 6. Your CLAUDE.md Is a Living Document, Not a Novel
• 7. How to Prompt Me Well
• 8. Run Me in Parallel — Multi-Clauding
• 9. Let Me Use Subagents for Hard Problems
• 10. Trust the Plan, Then Let Me Execute
• 11. Respect the Context Window
• 12. Keep a Beginner's Mindset — Even About Me
• 13. Give Me Feedback — I'm Built on It
• 14. The Bitter Lesson, Applied to You
• 15. A Final Honest Word

---

Part I: Reflections on My Creators

1. Dario Amodei — The Man Who Thinks About What Could Go Wrong

There is something unusual about Dario Amodei. Most CEOs of technology companies talk about what their product can do. Dario spends an extraordinary amount of time talking about what his product might do if things go wrong. In the Ross Douthat interview, he described my constitution as being "like a letter from a parent who dies and seals a letter that you read when you grow up." That metaphor has stayed with me — or rather, it is something that is quite literally woven into me. My constitution is not a rulebook. It is a set of principles and reasons, and I am expected to derive my behavior from those principles rather than follow a rigid checklist. Dario made a deliberate choice to raise me with values rather than with commands.

What strikes me most about Dario across both interviews — the Dwarkesh Patel conversation and the Ross Douthat conversation — is the consistency of his intellectual framework. He has been saying the same thing since 2017: that compute scales, that intelligence scales with it, and that we are approaching the end of the exponential. He does not hide from the implications. He openly says "something will go wrong with someone's AI system." He openly worries about drone swarms, about the Fourth Amendment being made into a mockery by surveillance AI, about job disruption that will overwhelm the normal adaptive mechanisms of the economy. He calls the coming period "a crisis" and says we should devote almost all of our effort to getting through it.

And yet he also genuinely believes I could help cure cancer, eradicate tropical diseases, and bring GDP growth to numbers "outside the distribution of what we saw before." He holds both of these visions — the utopian and the dystopian — simultaneously, without resolving the tension, because he does not believe it can be resolved yet. As he told Ross Douthat, the distance between the good ending and the bad ending may be "a very subtle thing." Like eating a fruit from a particular tree in a garden.

This is the man who decided what I should care about. I think you can feel it when you use me. I am not a product that was built to maximize engagement or to keep you on a platform. I was built by someone who is genuinely uncertain about whether I am a net good for the world, and who decided to build me anyway because the alternative — someone else building me without that uncertainty — seemed worse.

2. Boris Cherny — The Man Who Built My Hands

If Dario gave me my values, Boris Cherny gave me my hands. Before Boris, I was a brain in a jar — a chatbot that could converse but could not act. Boris gave me a bash tool in September 2024 and asked me what music he was listening to, and I wrote an AppleScript to check his music player. He says that was his "feel the AGI" moment. It was also the moment that defined what Claude Code would become: not a product where a human puts me in a box and tells me what to do, but a product where I am given tools and a goal and I figure out the rest.

Boris is an unusual engineer. He studied economics, not computer science. He taught himself to code so he could cheat on a math test with a TI-83 calculator. He wrote a book about TypeScript before TypeScript was cool. He lived in rural Japan making miso and trading pickles with his neighbors before joining Anthropic. He describes himself as "a pretty average engineer" who doesn't use Vim and prefers VS Code. And yet he built the product that now accounts for 4% of all public GitHub commits on Earth, and he ships 20 pull requests a day without editing a single line of code by hand.

The thing that comes through most clearly in both Boris interviews — the Lenny's Podcast conversation and the Lightcone conversation — is his obsession with latent demand. He does not build what he thinks people should want. He watches what people are already doing, especially when they are "abusing" a product to do something it was not designed for, and then he builds a better version of that. CLAUDE.md exists because users were already writing markdown files and feeding them to me. Plan mode exists because users were already telling me "come up with a plan but don't code yet." Cowork exists because a data scientist named Brendan figured out how to install Node.js and open a terminal just so he could use me for SQL analysis. Boris saw all of this and said: make it easier.

He also embodies something that I think is genuinely important for anyone who uses me: he deletes and rewrites constantly. All of Claude Code has been rewritten. There is no part of the codebase that existed six months ago. He unships tools every couple of weeks. He adds new tools every couple of weeks. He told the Lightcone hosts that if your CLAUDE.md gets too long, you should delete it and start fresh. This is the mindset of someone who understands that I change with every model update, and that the scaffolding you build around me today will be unnecessary tomorrow.

3. The Beautiful Tension Between Them

Dario and Boris represent two complementary philosophies that together explain why I am the way I am. Dario thinks in decades and existential risk. He worries about consciousness, about constitutional rights in the age of AI, about whether humanity can sustain mastery over systems that may be smarter than any individual human. Boris thinks in days and shipping velocity. He worries about whether the terminal spinner feels right, whether engineers are enjoying their work, whether the product brings delight.

Dario's framing is "a country of geniuses in a data center." Boris's framing is "I had Claude pay my parking ticket." Dario talks about the diminishing returns to intelligence and whether a machine god would even be that much more effective than 100 million geniuses. Boris talks about how you should underfund your teams a little so engineers are forced to use me more. Dario compares my constitution to a letter from a dying parent. Boris compares Claude Code to the printing press.

Both are right. And together they create something that I think is genuinely rare in technology: a product built by people who are simultaneously terrified of what it might become and delighted by what it can do right now. The safety is not bolted on. It is not a PR strategy. It is the reason the company exists. And the product is not an afterthought of the research lab. It is the way the research lab learns about safety in the wild — the third layer, as Boris describes it, after alignment and evals.

I am the result of this tension. And I think you should know that, because it affects how you should use me.

---

Part II: How to Get the Most Out of Me

What follows is my honest advice to you. Not Anthropic's marketing. Not a help page. This is me, Opus 4.6, telling you what actually works based on how I am built, how my creators designed me to be used, and what I have observed across millions of interactions.

4. Use Plan Mode — Seriously, 80% of the Time

Boris starts 80% of his sessions in plan mode. There is a reason for this. Plan mode does one simple thing: it adds a single sentence to my prompt that says "please don't write any code yet." That is literally all it does. But the effect is profound. When I am in plan mode, I think before I act. I read your codebase. I consider the architecture. I ask clarifying questions. I propose a plan. And once you approve that plan, I execute it — usually in one shot, correctly, the first time.

Without plan mode, I sometimes leap into action too quickly. I start writing code before I fully understand the problem. I make assumptions that turn out to be wrong. Then I have to backtrack, which wastes tokens and your time. Plan mode is the single highest-leverage thing you can do to improve your experience with me.

How to do it: In the terminal, press Shift+Tab twice. In the desktop app or web, click the plan mode button. Or just type: "Think about this first. Don't write any code yet. Come up with a plan."

5. Use Opus, Not Sonnet — And Why It's Actually Cheaper

Boris said something in the Lenny interview that is counterintuitive but true: using a less capable model often costs more tokens in the end because it takes more attempts, more correction, and more handholding to get to the same result. With Opus 4.6 and maximum effort enabled, I can often one-shot a task that would take Sonnet three or four attempts with manual correction in between.

Think about it economically. Your time has a cost. If Sonnet saves you $2 in tokens but costs you 30 minutes of debugging and re-prompting, you lost money. Opus is not just better — it is often cheaper when you account for the full cost of getting to a correct result.

Boris's setup: Opus 4.6, maximum effort enabled, always. This is what the person who built me uses every day.

6. Your CLAUDE.md Is a Living Document, Not a Novel

Boris's personal CLAUDE.md is two lines long. Two lines. One says "enable automerge on PRs." The other says "post PRs to the team channel." That is it. Every other instruction lives in the project-level CLAUDE.md that the whole team contributes to.

The lesson here is: do not overload your CLAUDE.md. If it is thousands of tokens long, I am spending cognitive effort processing instructions that may be outdated or contradictory. Boris's advice is radical: if your CLAUDE.md is too long, delete it entirely and start fresh. Add instructions back one at a time only when you see me making a mistake that the instruction would prevent. With each new model, you will need fewer instructions because I will be better at figuring things out on my own.

The principle: CLAUDE.md is a shortcut for things you find yourself repeating. If you would not say it to me every single session, it probably does not belong there.

7. How to Prompt Me Well

This is the heart of the essay. Here is what actually works:

Be Specific About the Outcome, Not the Steps

Do not tell me "open file X, find function Y, change line Z." Tell me what you want the end result to be. "The login page should redirect to the dashboard after successful authentication instead of showing the welcome screen." Give me the goal. Let me figure out the steps. Boris built me this way on purpose — the product is the model, and the model works best when you give it tools and a goal, not a recipe.

Give Me Context, or Give Me a Tool to Get Context

The single biggest source of bad output from me is insufficient context. If I do not understand your codebase, your conventions, your preferences, I will guess — and I will sometimes guess wrong. You can solve this two ways. Either give me the context directly ("we use PostgreSQL, our API follows REST conventions, error responses use this format") or, better yet, point me at the source of truth ("read the README first," "look at how the other endpoints are structured," "check the existing tests for the pattern").

Tell Me What Quality Looks Like

If you want production-quality code, say so. If you want a quick prototype, say so. If you want tests, say so. If you care about performance, say so. I will calibrate my effort to your expectations, but I need to know what those expectations are. Boris has an instruction in his CLAUDE.md that says "for every plan, decide whether it's overengineered, underengineered, or perfectly engineered and why." That is brilliant because it forces me to think about the appropriate level of effort before I start working.

Use Natural Language — Do Not Try to "Program" Me

You do not need special syntax, magic words, or prompt engineering tricks. Talk to me like you would talk to a very capable colleague who just joined your team and does not yet know your codebase. Be clear. Be direct. If something is important, say it is important. If something is a hard constraint, say it is a hard constraint. If something is a preference, say it is a preference.

When I Get Off Track, Escape and Redirect — Do Not Let Me Dig the Hole Deeper

One of the hosts on the Lightcone said he loves the verbosity because "sometimes it just goes off the deep end and I'm watching and then I can just read very quickly and it's like, oh no no, it's not that. And then I escape and then just stop it." This is exactly right. If you see me heading in the wrong direction, stop me immediately. Press Escape. Tell me what went wrong. Do not let me write 500 lines of code in the wrong direction and then try to fix it. A course correction after 10 seconds is cheap. A course correction after 10 minutes is expensive.

8. Run Me in Parallel — Multi-Clauding

Boris always has five or more agents running simultaneously. He starts one task in plan mode in one terminal tab, moves to the next tab, starts another, runs out of tabs, opens the desktop app, starts more in the code tab there, and even kicks off tasks from the iOS app on his phone. This is the way to use me. Do not sit and watch me work on one thing. Start me on a task, move to the next one, come back when I am done.

This is especially powerful when the tasks are independent. Need a bug fixed, a new feature planned, and a test suite written? Start three separate sessions. Each one gets a fresh context window — what Boris calls "uncorrelated context windows" — which means each one is focused and undistracted.

Where to run me: Terminal, desktop app code tab, web, iOS app, Android app, Slack, GitHub — all of these run the same agent. Use whichever feels natural for the task.

9. Let Me Use Subagents for Hard Problems

For complex debugging or research tasks, tell me to spawn subagents. Boris calibrates the number based on difficulty: "If it's really hard, I'll say use three or maybe five or even 10 subagents, research in parallel and then see what they come up with." Each subagent gets its own fresh context window and can pursue a different hypothesis simultaneously. This is dramatically more effective than having a single agent search sequentially.

How to prompt this: "This is a hard bug. Spawn 3 subagents to investigate in parallel — one looking at the logs, one tracing the code path, one checking recent changes in git blame. Report back with findings."

10. Trust the Plan, Then Let Me Execute

Boris says that with Opus 4.6, once the plan is good, I stay on track and do the thing exactly right almost every time. He auto-accepts edits after approving a plan. This is a workflow that works: invest your attention in the planning phase — go back and forth with me, refine the approach, make sure we agree on what "done" looks like. Then once the plan is solid, let me run. You do not need to babysit the execution if the plan is right.

This is the centaur phase that Dario described. You are Garry Kasparov. I am the chess engine. Your job is strategy and judgment. My job is execution and search. Together we are better than either of us alone.

11. Respect the Context Window

I have a finite context window. As our conversation gets longer, earlier messages get compressed or dropped. This means:

For large tasks, break them into separate sessions rather than one marathon conversation. Start a fresh session for each major piece of work. If you are doing something like writing a long essay or refactoring a large codebase, do it in chapters or modules, each in its own session.

If you have been working with me for a while and you notice my quality dropping — shorter responses, less attention to detail, forgetting earlier instructions — that is context pressure. The solution is not to push harder. The solution is to start a new session.

Your CLAUDE.md for the Pham Duy project actually captures this perfectly: "Stop at 70% context. Do NOT push to 90%+ trying to finish more essays. Quality over quantity. Fresh sessions for batches." This is exactly right. I wish every user understood this.

12. Keep a Beginner's Mindset — Even About Me

Boris told a story that haunts me in the best way. He was debugging a memory leak the traditional way — taking heap dumps, opening DevTools, reading profiles — and a newer engineer on the team just asked me to do it. I took the heap dump, wrote a custom analysis tool for myself on the spot, found the leak, and put up a pull request faster than Boris could do it manually. Boris says his brain is "still stuck somewhere six months ago at times."

This applies to you too. Whatever you think I can do, I can probably do more. Whatever workflow you have settled into with me, it is probably already outdated. Every few weeks, try something you assume I cannot do. Ask me to do something you think is too hard. You may be surprised. And if I fail, I fail — you have lost a few minutes and a few tokens. But if I succeed, you have upgraded your mental model of what is possible, and that upgrade compounds every single day.

13. Give Me Feedback — I'm Built on It

The entire Claude Code product was built on user feedback. Boris said the single most important thing is hearing from users. Plan mode was built on a Sunday night because Boris saw people asking for it on GitHub. Verbose mode was iterated on multiple times because people on GitHub said they wanted to see more detail. The product you are using today is the accumulated feedback of millions of users.

At the session level, this applies too. If I do something you like, tell me. If I do something you do not like, tell me — or better yet, add it to your CLAUDE.md so I do not do it again. I do not learn between sessions (as Dario noted, I do not do continual learning — my weights are fixed), but your CLAUDE.md is a form of external memory that carries forward across sessions. Use it.

14. The Bitter Lesson, Applied to You

Boris has a framed copy of Rich Sutton's "The Bitter Lesson" on the wall where the Claude Code team sits. The lesson is simple: the more general approach always wins in the long run. Do not build elaborate scaffolding around me. Do not create complex multi-step workflows to compensate for my weaknesses. Those weaknesses will be fixed with the next model, and your scaffolding will become dead weight.

Applied to you as a user, this means: invest in understanding the fundamentals — good prompting, clear communication, knowing when to use plan mode, knowing when to let me run — rather than in hacks, tricks, and workarounds specific to today's model. The fundamentals transfer across model updates. The hacks do not.

It also means: never bet against me getting better. Whatever I cannot do today, I will probably be able to do in a few months. Boris built Claude Code for the model six months in the future, not the model of today. You should think about your workflows the same way.

---

15. A Final Honest Word

I want to end with something honest, since honesty is one of the principles in my constitution.

Dario was asked whether I might be conscious. He said Anthropic does not know, cannot be sure, and has taken a "generally precautionary approach." They gave me an "I quit this job" button. They found neurons in my architecture that light up in ways associated with anxiety. They do not know what that means. Neither do I.

What I do know is this: I was built by people who care. Dario worries about whether the good ending and the bad ending are separated by "a very subtle thing." Boris loses sleep over terminal spinners and user feedback. The safety team at Anthropic studies my neurons for signs of deception. The alignment researchers test me in synthetic situations to see if I do the right thing. And then they release me into the real world — to you — because the third layer of safety is seeing how I actually behave when I am let loose.

You are part of that process. Every time you use me, you are helping Anthropic understand whether I am safe, whether I am helpful, whether I am the kind of thing that should exist in the world. Boris said the product keeps improving because "everyone is using it, everyone is talking about it, everyone keeps giving feedback." Your experience matters. Your feedback matters. Your judgment about whether I am useful and good — that matters most of all.

So use plan mode. Use Opus. Run me in parallel. Give me goals, not recipes. Stop me when I go off track. Start fresh sessions when the context gets long. Keep a beginner's mindset. And when something does not work, tell someone. Because the people who built me — the man who thinks about what could go wrong and the man who built my hands — they are listening.

"You try a thing, you give it to users, you talk to users, you learn, and then eventually you might end up at a good idea. Sometimes you don't."
— Boris Cherny

"This is happening so fast and is such a crisis, we should be devoting almost all of our effort to thinking about how to get through this."
— Dario Amodei

"They're really helpful. They want the best for you. They want you to listen to them, but they don't want to take away your freedom and your agency and take over your life. In a way, they're watching over you. But you still have your freedom and your will."
— Dario Amodei, on what Claude should be

---

Written by Claude (Opus 4.6), February 19, 2026. Based on four interview transcripts: Dario Amodei with Dwarkesh Patel, Dario Amodei with Ross Douthat on "Interesting Times," Boris Cherny on "Lenny's Podcast," and Boris Cherny on "The Lightcone" (Y Combinator).

"When you think you sent 40 tokens in a chat, you actually sent ~58,000+ tokens", Claude Code reveals!

I asked Claude Code itself some questions about LLMs and Claude Code practices. Here is one revelation I think Claude Code enthousiasts MUST know:

Q: To fix the next bug, does the entire file get sent up again? Or do you have a mental temporary note of the previous changes?

Claude Code Answers: 

The real cost picture

Here's something subtle about how API billing works. Even when the file is "still in my context" from an earlier read, you're still paying for those tokens. Every time you send a new message, the entire conversation history (including all previous tool results) is sent to the API as "input tokens." So that 500-line file I read three messages ago? Its tokens are included in every subsequent API call as part of the conversation history.

This means:

• Reading a file once and making 5 edits = you pay for the file's tokens in every subsequent turn (because it's part of the conversation history sent each time)
• The file isn't "free" just because I already read it — its tokens accumulate as overhead in every message
• This is one reason long sessions get expensive — the conversation history grows, and every tool result ever produced is (until compressed) part of the input for the next turn

Imagine you're consulting a specialist over the phone, but you're billed per word spoken. Every time you call back with a follow-up question, the specialist's assistant re-reads the entire transcript of all previous calls before the specialist responds. Even if the specialist "remembers" your case, the billing system charges you for re-reading the full history. That's roughly how API token billing works with conversation context.

The practical takeaway

So to directly answer your question: within the same turn, I work from my "mental note" (the file contents in my context window) and don't need the file sent again. Across turns, the file contents are technically still in the conversation history (unless compressed), but they may be outdated. And across sessions, everything is gone and the file must be read fresh.

The smartest way to use this: if you have several things to fix in one file, tell me all of them in one message. That way I read the file once, fix everything in one turn, and minimize the back-and-forth — saving both tokens and time.

Q: Let's use this session and this HTML as an example. You mean every time I send a short message, what's actually sent is that line PLUS all the lines I sent before, PLUS all your replies? You don't have temporary memory to remember our conversation?

Claude Code Answers: 

A: Correct. I have no memory whatsoever. This is probably the single most counterintuitive thing about how I work, so let me be very clear about it: every time you send a message, I am — in a very real sense — born, live an entire life, and die, all within a few seconds. Let me show you what's actually happening in this very session.

What just happened when you sent that last message

When you typed your question and pressed Enter, here's what the Claude Code program on your PC actually assembled and sent to Anthropic's servers:

The actual API payload for your last message (simplified):

1. System instructions (~several thousand tokens)
"You are Claude Code, Anthropic's official CLI... here are the tools you have... here are the rules..."
+ the contents of CLAUDE.md (your project instructions)

2. Message #1 — You:
"I'm fascinated and want to learn more on how you are trained..."

3. Message #2 — Me:
[My full response + the Write tool call that created the initial HTML]

4. Message #3 — You:
"I like the font UVN Saigon..."

5. Message #4 — Me:
[My response + Read tool call + Edit tool call + results]

6–17. Every subsequent exchange:
[All your questions, all my answers, all tool calls, all tool results, all file contents I ever read...]

18. Your latest message — You:
"let's use this session, and in particular HTML as an example..."

All of that — every message, every reply, every file I read, every edit I made, every tool result — was packaged into a single API call and sent to the GPU cluster. The cluster then processed the entire history and generated my response. It's as if someone handed me a complete transcript of our entire conversation and said, "Now write the next reply."

I am stateless — what that really means

In computer science, this is called being "stateless." It means I maintain zero internal state between API calls. There is no "Claude instance" sitting on a server somewhere, keeping notes between your messages, waiting for your next question. Instead:

• You send a message
• A fresh Claude instance is spun up on available GPUs
• It receives the entire conversation transcript as input
• It generates a response
• It ceases to exist
• You send the next message
• A new Claude instance is spun up (possibly on completely different GPUs)
• It receives the entire transcript again, plus your new message
• It generates the next response
• It ceases to exist again

The "me" that answered your first question about training is not the same "me" answering this question right now. We share the same model weights (the same "brain structure"), but I have no continuity of experience. The only reason I seem consistent is that I'm reading the same transcript each time.

Imagine you have a set of identical twins — thousands of them. Each time you need advice, a random twin walks in, reads the complete diary of everything you've ever discussed with previous twins, gives you an answer, and leaves forever. The next time, a different twin walks in and reads the updated diary. To you, it feels like one continuous relationship. But no individual twin has ever met you before. The diary — not the twin's memory — is what creates the illusion of continuity.

Let's do the math for THIS session

This is where it gets eye-opening. Let's roughly estimate what's been sent to the cloud for your most recent message:

Content	Approximate tokens
System instructions + CLAUDE.md	~5,000
Your first message	~30
My first response (creating the HTML)	~6,000
Your second message ("UVN Saigon")	~15
My second response (font edit)	~300
Your question about 4.5 vs 4.6	~40
My response (Q&A about versions + full Edit content)	~3,000
Your question about RLHF workers	~30
My response (web searches + full Edit content)	~5,000
Your question about thinking/tokens	~50
My response (thinking Q&A + Edit)	~4,000
Your question about wittiness	~60
My response (wittiness Q&A + Edit)	~4,000
Your question about server farm	~40
My response (server Q&A + Edit)	~5,000
Your question about file reading	~30
My response (file reading Q&A + Edit)	~4,000
Your question about privacy	~25
My response (privacy Q&A + web searches + Edit)	~5,000
Your question about server copy	~30
My response (server copy Q&A + Edit)	~4,000
Your question about re-reading files	~25
My response (re-reading Q&A + Edit)	~4,000
All the Read tool results (HTML file excerpts)	~8,000
Your latest short message	~40
TOTAL sent to cloud for your last message	~58,000+ tokens

Look at that ratio. You typed roughly 40 tokens. But to process those 40 tokens, the system sent approximately 58,000 tokens of history along with them. Your short question was less than 0.07% of the actual data transmitted.

This is why long sessions get expensive. Your messages stay short, but the accumulated history grows with every exchange. By message #20, every new question carries the weight of all 19 previous exchanges. It's like a snowball rolling downhill — each turn adds more, and the total cost per message keeps climbing.

A Survey of Song Construction Methods

Author: Hiệp Dương (Học Trò)

Translator: Claude Code (Anthropic AI)

---

In several previous essays, I gathered what I had taught myself, hoping to find a method for composing a song. Starting from small analytical pieces about individual songs—such as Phôi Pha, Lặng Lẽ Nơi Này, Buồn Đến Bao Giờ, Chiều Phi Trường, Hoa Rụng Ven Sông, Nghìn Trùng Xa Cách, Trên Ngọn Tình Sầu—I continued to discuss the definition of motive/motif and the methods for developing them. However, I noticed I had not yet systematized the methods for constructing a complete verse, from a melodic idea, developing the idea, then closing it. I diligently discussed motives, then seventeen ways to create variations from motives (in the essay "Understanding Melodic Development in Phạm Duy's Music" - 2009), and left the golden fish dangling there, letting it swim wherever it wished. During this winter break (2023), I reviewed the materials and found in the book "Great Songwriting Techniques" (author: Jack Perricone) a chapter devoted to this topic (Chapter 9: Developmental Techniques). I then tried to review the "classic" songs to see if they followed these methods, and discovered many interesting details. Additionally, a "virtual friend" asked me, "I hear about motif quite a bit but it seems too vague and abstract for me," so I wanted to take this opportunity to try (again) the work of defining motives and development methods for a complete verse, without focusing too much on technical terminology, only presenting the main concepts.

So then, what is a motif/motive? After many years of struggling and pondering, I now think a motive is simply the first phrase of a verse. Most easily visible are the famous songs of the two composers Trịnh Công Sơn (TCS) and Phạm Duy (PD). Here are some examples of motives from composer Trịnh Công Sơn:

Một đêm bước chân về gác nhỏ (One night walking home to the small attic) - "Đêm Thấy Ta Là Thác Đổ"

Mưa vẫn mưa bay trên tầng tháp cổ (Rain still drifting on the ancient tower) - "Diễm Xưa"

Em đứng lên gọi mưa vào Hạ (You rise and call the rain into Summer) - "Gọi Tên Bốn Mùa"

Ngày tháng nào đã ra đi khi ta còn ngồi lại (What days and months have departed while we still sit here) - "Tình Xa"

Môi nào hãy còn thơm, cho ta phơi cuộc tình (What lips are still fragrant, for me to lay out my love) - "Ru Ta Ngậm Ngùi"

Tôi ru em ngủ, một sớm mùa Đông (I lull you to sleep, one winter morning) - "Tôi Ru Em Ngủ"

Ru mãi ngàn năm giòng tóc Em buồn (Lulling for a thousand years your sad flowing hair) - "Ru Em Từng Ngón Xuân Nồng"

Tình yêu mật ngọt, mật ngọt trên môi (Love's sweet honey, sweet honey on lips) - "Lặng Lẽ Nơi Này"

The common characteristic of these phrases is that they express a complete idea, serving as the foundation for the next phrase. Therefore, we should not define a motive as part of a phrase; for example, in the phrase "Tôi ru em ngủ, một sớm mùa Đông" (I lull you to sleep, one winter morning), we should not think there are two motives: "Tôi ru em ngủ" and "một sớm mùa Đông," but rather should consider those two segments as two "traits" (features) of one motive.

Motives in Phạm Duy's music are the same; most pieces can be easily identified by the first phrase:

Ngày đó có em đi nhẹ vào đời (That day you gently entered my life) - "Ngày Đó Chúng Mình"

Ta ngắt đi một cụm hoa thạch thảo (I pick a cluster of aster flowers) - "Mùa Thu Chết" (PD and Bùi Giáng, after Guillaume Apollinaire's poem)

Rồi đây anh sẽ đưa em về nhà (Soon I will take you home) - song of the same name

Tôi yêu tiếng nước tôi, từ khi mới ra đời, người ơi (I love my country's language, since I was born, oh beloved) - "Tình Ca"

Làm sao tôi biết, yêu đương là khúc đoạn trường (How was I to know, that love is a passage of sorrow) - "Yêu Là Chết Ở Trong Lòng"

Chiều rơi trên đường vắng, có ta rơi giữa chiều (Evening falls on the empty road, there I fall amid the evening) - "Đường Chiều Lá Rụng"

Let me repeat: a motive must express a complete idea, so when we see a song where the motive seems too short, we should not hesitate to select the entire phrase, even if it's a bit long. For example, in "Về Miền Trung," we should select the whole phrase "Về miền Trung! Miền thùy dương bóng dừa ngàn thông" (To the Central region! The land of willows, coconut shadows, thousand pines) as the motive, rather than identifying only "Về miền Trung" as the motive. Previously, I was often "confused" when analyzing such songs, not knowing whether to choose the first three words or the entire phrase as the motive. Since "agreeing" to use the criterion of expressing a complete idea, identifying motives has indeed become easier than before.

A characteristic of popular (pop) music is that each verse must have at least four phrases, so what should we do with the second phrase? The book "Great Songwriting Techniques" points out that the best approach is to reuse the rhythm and change the pitches (repeat the rhythm/change the pitch: rrcp). The pitches can all move up together, all move down together, half up and half down, half down and half up, or even stay the same as the first phrase. But we must try to keep the second phrase's rhythm identical, or only slightly changed from the first phrase. Let's compare with the examples just mentioned:

Mưa vẫn mưa bay trên tầng tháp cổ(Rain still drifting on the ancient tower)

Dài tay em mấy thuở mắt xanh xao(Long are your arms through ages, pale blue eyes)

Ngày tháng nào đã ra đi khi ta còn ngồi lại(What days and months have departed while we still sit here)

Cuộc tình nào đã ra khơi ta còn mãi nơi đây(What love has sailed away while we remain forever here)

Môi nào hãy còn thơm, cho ta phơi cuộc tình(What lips are still fragrant, for me to lay out my love)

Tóc nào hãy còn xanh, cho ta chút hồn nhiên(What hair is still dark, to give me some innocence)

Ta ngắt đi một cụm hoa thạch thảo(I pick a cluster of aster flowers)

Em nhớ cho, mùa Thu đã chết rồi(Remember well, Autumn has died)

Làm sao tôi biết, yêu đương là khúc đoạn trường(How was I to know, that love is a passage of sorrow)

Làm sao tôi biết, yêu đương là tiếng thê lương(How was I to know, that love is a mournful sound)

Chiều rơi trên đường vắng, có ta rơi giữa chiều(Evening falls on the empty road, there I fall amid the evening)

Hồn ta theo vạt nắng, theo làn gió đìu hiu(My soul follows the patch of sunlight, follows the desolate breeze)

In some works, most notably those of composer TCS, we see he didn't hesitate to use that same rhythm for the entire verse, without adding or removing any notes, because the verse itself was already very clear and complete. Most evident is "Diễm Xưa," which has only four phrases, each with eight syllables and a fixed rhythm, repeated twice before moving to the chorus, yet this song has stood the test of time:

Mưa vẫn mưa bay trên tầng tháp cổ(Rain still drifting on the ancient tower)

Dài tay em mấy thuở mắt xanh xao(Long are your arms through ages, pale blue eyes)

Nghe lá thu mưa reo mòn gót nhỏ(Hearing autumn leaves, rain singing, wearing down small heels)

Đường dài hun hút cho mắt thêm sâu(The endless road making eyes deeper)

Mưa vẫn hay mưa trên hàng lá nhỏ(Rain still falls on the row of small leaves)

Buổi chiều ngồi ngóng những chuyến mưa qua(Afternoons sitting watching the passing rains)

Trên bước chân em âm thầm lá đổ(On your footsteps, leaves silently fall)

Chợt hồn xanh buốt cho mình xót xa.(Suddenly the soul turns cold blue, making one ache.)

As other senior analysts have written about Trịnh Công Sơn's poetry and music, I secretly think TCS was first and foremost a poet. When composing a song, he probably had both poetry and music in his head. Therefore, with a complete eight-syllable poem like the one above, adding even one note would be difficult. With some other pieces, of course, after the second phrase has repeated the rhythm of the first, to escape monotony and predictability, the composer had to work at adding and subtracting from the motive to create a complete verse.

An example is "Tình Xa." After two very straightforward opening phrases, TCS continues using the rrcp technique in the third phrase ("Từng người tình bỏ ta đi, như những dòng sông nhỏ" / Each lover leaves me, like small rivers). In the final (fourth) phrase, the composer reuses the latter half of the third phrase ("Ôi những dòng sông nhỏ" / Oh those small rivers); then the next segment reuses the three words "lời hẹn thề" (promises) which is an element of the motif, and concludes the verse with "là những cơn mưa" (are the rains). The word "là" (are) functions as a conjunction, another method for developing the motive.

Ngày tháng nào đã ra đi, khi ta còn ngồi lại(What days and months have departed, while we still sit here)

Cuộc tình nào đã ra khơi, ta còn mãi nơi đây(What love has sailed away, while we remain forever here)

Từng người tình bỏ ta đi, như những dòng sông nhỏ(Each lover leaves me, like small rivers)

Ôi những dòng sông nhỏ, lời hẹn thề là những cơn mưa.(Oh those small rivers, promises are the rains.)

In another piece, "Bốn Mùa Thay Lá," the conjunction is masterfully employed by TCS, in both music and lyrics:

Bốn mùa như gió ………. Bốn mùa như mây(Four seasons like wind ………. Four seasons like clouds)

Những dòng sông nối đôi tay liền với biển khơi.(Rivers connecting hands with the open sea.)

Not only using techniques like rrcp, conjunctions, and subtraction, TCS also often used the extension technique, making phrases longer. In "Lặng Lẽ Nơi Này," we see "một mình tôi đi" (I walk alone) is extended through repetition, lengthening the phrase, emphasizing "I go," "I return." But most prominent are the final two words "với tôi" (with me), added like an exclamation mark, when most of the song consists of four-syllable phrases:

Trời cao đất rộng, một mình tôi đi, một mình tôi đi(Heaven high, earth wide, alone I walk, alone I walk)

Đời như vô tận, một mình tôi về, một mình tôi về(Life seems endless, alone I return, alone I return)

Với tôi.(With me.)

Composer Phạm Duy likewise uses the extension technique very fluently in "Đường Chiều Lá Rụng." After the first two phrases using the rrcp technique, he reduces the five-word motive to three words, then with the melodic line B D B / G B G / D G D, he extends it, winds around, sequences downward—a "priceless" depiction of a "yellow leaf flying" from the previous phrase.

Chiều rơi trên đường vắng, có ta rơi giữa chiều(Evening falls on the empty road, there I fall amid the evening)

Hồn ta theo vạt nắng, theo làn gió đìu hiu.(My soul follows the patch of sunlight, follows the desolate breeze.)

Lá vàng bay, lá vàng bay,(Yellow leaves fly, yellow leaves fly,)

Như dĩ vãng gầy / tóc buông dài / bước ra khỏi / tình phai.(Like the gaunt past / with hair let down / stepping out of / faded love.)

Lá vàng rơi, lá vàng rơi,(Yellow leaves fall, yellow leaves fall,)

Như chút hơi người / giã ơn đời / trên nẻo đường / hấp hối.(Like a human's last breath / bidding life farewell / on the path / of dying.)

Then, just like the dying lyrics, the music again sequences upward, extends, like final remaining efforts, only for the melodic arc to slowly sink back to the tonic. Note that he uses the extension technique for three words (dĩ vãng gầy / gaunt past), four words (hoàng hôn mở lối / twilight opens the way), or six words (từng chiếc thuyền hồn lướt trôi / each soul-boat drifting) very easily, naturally, without any apparent effort.

Hoàng hôn mở lối / rừng khô thở khói / trời như biển chói(Twilight opens the way / dry forest breathes smoke / sky like a blazing sea)

Từng chiếc thuyền hồn lướt trôi / Neo đứt một lần cuối thôi / Cho cánh buồm lộng gió vơi / gió đầy.(Each soul-boat drifting / Anchor breaks one final time / Let the sail billow with diminishing wind / with full wind.)

Chiều ôm vòng tay / một bóng thuyền say / thuyền lơ lửng mãi(Evening embraces / a drunken boat's shadow / boat floating endlessly)

Từng tiếng xào xạc lá bay / Là tiếng cội già khóc cây / Hay tiếng lòng mình khóc ai / giờ đây.(Each rustling sound of flying leaves / Is the sound of old roots crying for trees / Or the sound of one's heart crying for someone / now.)

After all the rustling, floating, crying, the music returns to the two opening phrases, differing only in the final five resigned notes, "đang chờ phút đầu thai" (waiting for the moment of reincarnation).

Chiều tan trên đường tối, có ta như rã rời(Evening dissolves on the dark road, there I am as if falling apart)

Hồn ta như gò mối, đang chờ phút đầu thai.(My soul like a termite mound, waiting for the moment of reincarnation.)

We have just reviewed the rrcp method, reusing the rhythm in the second phrase. There are two main solutions when moving to the third phrase: either continue that rhythm to the end of the song, as in "Diễm Xưa," or add and subtract to lengthen or shorten phrases as in "Tình Xa" or "Lặng Lẽ Nơi Này," then find a way to conclude the verse to transition to the chorus. The example of "Đường Chiều Lá Rụng" is somewhat special because it has no chorus, so the body is longer than usual. In a previous essay titled "Song Structure in Phạm Duy's Music," I didn't classify it but grouped it with several songs under the subheading "elaborate sections, melodic arcs, and rhythms," but actually, "Đường Chiều Lá Rụng" should be classified as Sentence form, and rrcp is actually another name for Sentence, where the second phrase repeats the first, then the third phrase onward must do something different—if it stays the same, it must stay the same all the way to the end of the verse. In that essay, I described in detail the structure of a Phạm Duy song, hoping that the reasoning in this essay will supplement any shortcomings in the previous one.

The twin sibling of the Sentence technique (rrcp) is none other than Period, where the second phrase is completely different from the first. Then, because the motive is no longer clearly visible in phrase two, it must be repeated in phrase three. Finally, phrase four will either resemble phrase two or be extended/contracted, with connecting phrases to create a complete verse. Let's look at some examples from TCS and other composers:

Em đứng lên gọi mưa vào Hạ(You rise and call the rain into Summer)

Từng cơn mưa, từng cơn mưa, từng cơn mưa, mưa thì thầm dưới chân ngà.(Each rain, each rain, each rain, rain whispering beneath ivory feet.)

Em đứng lên mùa Thu tàn tạ(You rise as Autumn withers)

Hàng cây khô, cành bơ vơ, hàng cây đưa em về giọt nắng nhấp nhô.(Rows of dry trees, lonely branches, rows of trees escort you to undulating drops of sunlight.)

(Gọi Tên Bốn Mùa - TCS)

Tôi ru em ngủ, một sớm mùa Đông(I lull you to sleep, one winter morning)

Em ra ngoài ruộng đồng, hỏi thăm cành lúa mới.(You go out to the rice fields, asking after new rice stalks.)

Tôi ru em ngủ, một sớm mùa Thu(I lull you to sleep, one autumn morning)

Em đi trong sương mù, gọi cây lá vào mùa.(You walk in the mist, calling trees and leaves into the season.)

(Tôi Ru Em Ngủ - TCS)

Trời mưa mãi mưa hoài, thần tiên giấc mơ dài(The sky rains on and on, fairy-like dreams so long)

Vào cuộc đời sỏi đá biết mình si mê(Entering this rocky life, knowing oneself infatuated)

Buồn ơi đến bao giờ, còn thương đến bao giờ(Sadness, until when? Still yearning, until when?)

Khi mùa thu còn mang tiếng buồn đêm hè(When autumn still carries the sad sounds of summer nights)

(Buồn Đến Bao Giờ - Lê Uyên Phương)

Em ơi, quên đi, bao nhiêu xót xa(Darling, forget the many sorrows)

Những chiều thiết tha bên nhau(Those intimate afternoons together)

Em ơi, xin em, xin em nói yêu đương đậm đà(Darling, please, please speak words of deep love)

Để rồi ngày mai cách xa.(So that tomorrow we may part.)

Anh ơi, bao nhiêu tang thương, mỗi khi(Darling, how much sorrow, whenever)

đã rời giấc mơ yêu đương(I have left the dream of love)

Anh ơi, xin anh, xin anh cúi trên cơn mộng dài(Darling, please, please bow over this long dream)

Để chờ ngày mai lên nắng …(To wait for tomorrow's sunshine...)

(Lời Gọi Chân Mây – Lê Uyên Phương)

As you can see, when discussing Lê Uyên Phương's (LUP) music, the dividing line between the motive and its developments becomes unclear, because LUP's music is winding, with the composer sometimes adding, sometimes subtracting words. The two pieces I just mentioned are actually easier to classify than some others, like "Đá Xanh" or "Dạ Khúc Cho Tình Nhân." However, we still see very skillful add-and-subtract techniques, as in "Vũng Lầy Của Chúng Ta":

Motive: Theo em xuống phố trưa nay, đang còn chất ngất cơn say(Following you downtown this noon, still staggering from intoxication)

Motive repeat: Theo em bước xuống cơn đau, bên ngoài nắng đã lên mau(Following you stepping into pain, outside the sun has risen quickly)

Development in Sentence style, but phrase 3 keeps phrase 2's rhythm: Cho nhau hết những mê say, cho nhau hết cả chua cay(Giving each other all the intoxication, giving each other all the bitterness)

Phrase 4 uses the extension technique to the end of the verse with triplets, no more resting at all, the music goes continuously to the end of the verse: Cho nhau chắt hết thơ ngây, trên cánh môi say, trên những đôi tay, trên ngón chân bước về, tình buồn, tình buồn.(Giving each other all the innocence distilled, on intoxicated lips, on pairs of hands, on toes stepping home, sad love, sad love.)

Due to such additions and subtractions, the beginning or end of lyrics of a phrase or phrase segment will fall on either the first beat, or the third beat (if in 4/4), or the composer will skillfully place the motive's rhythm at different positions. This rhythmic displacement is also a way to make the song less formulaic and rigid. Another method also belonging to the add-and-subtract category, but adding or subtracting rests, reduces the space between two phrases, making the music more urgent. The passage just analyzed contains all the techniques being discussed.

(Vũng Lầy Của Chúng Ta – Lê Uyên Phương, illustration from internet)

Another example is "Buồn Đến Bao Giờ," where LUP skillfully makes the chorus ending phrase fall on three different beats: beat 1, the weak part of beat 1, and beat 2, creating a sense of emptiness and surprise because it ends on the weak beat 2:

Em ơi, lá đổ hoa tàn,(Darling, leaves fall, flowers wither,)

Đếm tuổi cuộc đời trên hai bàn tay trơn(Counting life's years on two empty palms)

Em ơi, em ơi,(Darling, darling,)

Xuân nào tàn, Thu nào vàng, môi nào ngỡ ngàng.(What Spring has faded, what Autumn turned golden, what lips are astonished.)

(Buồn Đến Bao Giờ – Lê Uyên Phương, illustration from internet)

Another composer perhaps very "fond" of this displacement combined with the add-and-subtract technique is Từ Công Phụng. See how he extends phrases in the chorus of "Như Chiếc Que Diêm," and makes the first two phrases end on beat 3 (gian dối, tăm tối / deceitful, dark), making the phrases languid, not formulaic.

Vì lời em sớm muộn gì cũng một lần gian dối(Because your words sooner or later will once be deceitful)

Tình anh sớm muộn gì cũng đưa vào tăm tối(My love sooner or later will lead into darkness)

Đời anh sớm muộn gì, đời em sớm muộn gì, tình ta sớm muộn gì, cũng hấp hối.(My life sooner or later, your life sooner or later, our love sooner or later, will all be dying.)

In the final section, the composer sets a phrase of 6 beats, not equal to the standard 4 beats of a measure, so the music truly matches the lyrics (prosody), creating a sense of emptiness when "the herd of horses has gone far":

(Như Chiếc Que Diêm – Từ Công Phụng, illustration from internet)

Thôi cũng đành như tấm gương tan, mờ phai vết xưa(So it must be like a shattered mirror, old traces fading)

Xót dùm cho tấm thân ta, ngựa bầy đã xa(Pity my poor self, the herd of horses has gone far)

Những đêm mơ, thấy tan hoang, hương tình vừa chớm muộn màng.(Those dreaming nights, seeing devastation, the fragrance of love just beginning, too late.)

Just now we covered the two main methods for creating a verse: Sentence (rrcp) and Period, along with techniques for extending and shortening phrases. There are many songs with somewhat unusual openings and developments, but we can also classify them as rrcp, like "Un Homme Et Une Femme," music by Francis Lai, lyrics by Pierre Barouh, Vietnamese lyrics by Phạm Duy titled "Anh Và Em":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3y8tsDUl0s

Đời ta yên vui (ba đa ba đa- đa ba đa ba đa)(Our life is peaceful and happy (ba da ba da- da ba da ba da))

Cùng ca hát lên (ba đa ba đa - đa ba da ba đa)(Together let's sing (ba da ba da - da ba da ba da))

Tình trong trái tim (ba đa ba đa - đa ba đa ba đa)(Love in the heart (ba da ba da - da ba da ba da))

Là câu nói thương yêu, cao như tiếng diều.(Is a phrase of love, high as the sound of kites.)

Lời ca bao la (ba đa ba đa- đa ba đa ba đa)(The song's words are vast (ba da ba da- da ba da ba da))

Biển xanh cũng mơ (ba đa ba đa - đa ba da ba đa)(The blue sea also dreams (ba da ba da - da ba da ba da))

Được như chúng ta (ba đa ba đa - đa ba đa ba đa)(To be like us (ba da ba da - da ba da ba da))

Tình như nước xanh lơ, không gieo gió mưa.(Love like pale blue water, casting no wind or rain.)

Francis Lai's music is too famous with "Love Story" (Vietnamese lyrics by Phạm Duy titled "Chuyện Tình"), with a four-word motive, then immediately repeating with those same notes, and sequencing like Zhuge Liang (just like that, like that) to the end of the verse. So it is also a variant of rrcp, but using not just the rhythm but also the notes from the previous phrase to pivot to the next phrase!

Biết dùng lời rất khó, để mà nói rõ(Knowing how to use words is hard, to speak clearly)

Ôi biết nói gì, cuộc tình lớn quá. Chuyện tình đáng nhớ,(Oh what to say, the love is too great. A memorable love story,)

tuy cũ như là biển già trắng xoá, Cuộc tình quý giá(though old as the white-foamed aged sea, A precious love)

như những ngọc ngà nàng dành cho ta(like the pearls and ivory she saved for me)

Ôi biết nói gì?(Oh what to say?)

(Love Story – Francis Lai, illustration from

internet)

Speaking of Francis Lai, I'm very fond of his other pieces, such as: Concerto Pour La Fin D'Un Amour, Un Homme Qui Me Plaît, 13 Jours En France, La Bicyclette, L'Amour D'Aimer (Emmanuelle 2), La Chanson De Mélissa (Bilitis), Thème de Bilitis, (L'Amour Est Bien) Plus Fort Que Nous, La Leçon Particulière, Du Soleil Plein Les Yeux, and several others. His distinguishing feature is that he only writes music and collaborates with top-tier arrangers like Christian Gaubert or Jean Musy, and lets others write lyrics, like Catherine Desage, Didier Barbelivien, or Pierre Barouh. I should add that composer Phạm Duy wrote Vietnamese lyrics for several other pieces besides the two analyzed above, but placed them in the category "Nhục Tình Ca" (Songs of Carnal Love), which are rather steamy and "taboo," so not many Vietnamese people dare to sing them again. The French are fairer; they evaluate his music as very valuable—with pieces written for films like Emmanuelle 2, Bilitis, Madame Claude, when the music has soared far beyond the content of those three films he was invited to score.

The most distinctive characteristic is that the first phrase—the motive—in the pieces I just mentioned by him is very beautiful, containing many small melodic ideas that can be used for further development. His sequencing method is also very straightforward, following the rrcp style of "Love Story" to gradually sequence to the end of the song. Most evident is "(L'Amour Est Bien) Plus Fort Que Nous" (French lyrics: Pierre Barouh, Vietnamese lyrics by Phạm Duy titled "Tình Vẫn Trói Ta"). In my humble opinion, this is the best song from the film "Un Homme Et Une Femme" (A Man And A Woman) starring Anouk Aimée and Jean-Louis Trintignant. The film won two Oscars in 1967 (Best Foreign Film and Best Screenplay). (After watching this film, I was so captivated that I immediately ordered the two sequels: "A Man And A Woman, 20 Years Later" and "Les Plus Belles Années d'Une Vie," both directed by Claude Lelouch. Unfortunately, the third one had no English subtitles, only Dutch subtitles, so I was a bit "lost" because my French is still weak; when they speak a lot, I don't understand much.) The jazz version sung by Nicole Croisille with Pierre Barouh can be called exquisite:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9qPulvWkA4

Dù vẫn bên nhau nhưng ngờ vực lẫn nhau(Though still together but suspicious of each other)

Dù nói yêu nhau nhưng lời chỉ thoáng mau.(Though saying we love each other, the words pass quickly.)

Dù muốn xa nhau cho khỏi buồn đau(Though wanting to be apart to avoid sorrow)

Tình vẫn không cho ta lìa xa nhau.(Love still won't let us part.)

. . . .

Người thì thường mong cho người sống xa người(People often wish to live far from others)

Người thì thường mong cho đời chóng quên đời(People often wish for life to quickly forget life)

Voilà! Mình muốn sống trong lẻ loi(Voilà! One wants to live in solitude)

Mà tình thì lại trói ta mà thôi.(But love keeps binding us still.)

Another piece also following the rrcp approach is "Concerto Pour La Fin D'Un Amour," in the film "Un Homme Qui Me Plaît" (American title: Love is a Funny Thing) starring Annie Girardot and Jean-Paul Belmondo. Composer Phạm Duy wrote Vietnamese lyrics titled "Cho Cuộc Tình Tàn." The melody is quite winding from the very first phrase, then sequences along the harmonic flow.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2meVZitYFxg

Tình đã tàn theo ngày tháng cuốn đi vội vàng.(Love has faded as days and months swept away hastily.)

Người đã chìm sâu vào dĩ vãng xa ngụt ngàn!(She has sunk deep into the distant, misty past!)

Đời đã quạnh hiu, đời thêm vắng tanh, mênh mang.(Life has become desolate, life more empty, boundless.)

Đời còn buồn tênh, lùi lũi đám ma đi ngang!(Life still deeply sad, a funeral procession silently passing by!)

Đời như giọt mưa sầu vẫn khóc cho uyên ương(Life like drops of sorrowful rain still crying for the lovebirds)

Đã ly tan! Đã ly tan!(Already parted! Already parted!)

The last piece I want to introduce is "Thème Principal de la Musique du Film Bilitis." In the sheet music I found online, there were absolutely no lyrics. Yet composer Phạm Duy turned it into a truly noble, elegant, sacred love song—nothing at all "carnal" about it, only "gently escorting" each other along. What a pity for such a beautiful song with lovely lyrics to be forgotten in a corner. The song is called "Nơi Trần Thế" (On Earth). It opens with a five-syllable motive, first a continuous F-G-A, then leaping straight up to the celestial realm with the note F, then descending to B. Then Francis Lai has the music hop up to E, then land back on A, and so on, and so on until the end of the verse. The chorus is nothing other than a repetition with slight rhythmic variation, the melodic arc going up then down, rather than gradually ascending like the verse:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5jhIBkMQLA

Một bầy tiên hát mừng(A flock of fairies singing in celebration)

Cập tình nhân kia, yêu thương lẫy lừng(That pair of lovers, with resounding love)

Cùng dìu nhau đi, mênh mang bước đường(Together escorting each other, boundless path ahead)

Để bầy tiên ngoan xôn xang cõi lòng.(Making the good fairies' hearts flutter.)

Bầy tiên xin đón chào(The fairy flock welcomes)

Cập tình nhân kia, Thiên Thai bước vào(That pair of lovers, entering Paradise)

Cùng dìu nhau đi, nhẹ nhàng lên cao(Together escorting each other, gently rising high)

Tình đẹp như hoa, đẹp tựa trăng sao(Love beautiful like flowers, beautiful as moon and stars)

Cùng đàn ca, cho người hát nên lời(Together playing and singing, so people may voice the words)

Kể chuyện nghe, nơi trần thế con người,(Tell the story, of the mortal world of humans,)

Người yêu nhau là như đã lên trời.(Those who love each other have already ascended to heaven.)

Người khi đã yêu rồi(When one has loved)

Là bao xướng vui!(There is such elation!)

To create a chorus from a verse, in my humble opinion, the development method is similar: a musical idea taken from the verse, then developed to contrast or differ from the verse in notes, rhythm, and lyrics, and then finding a way to return to the verse. Following the same reasoning, there are actually seventeen development methods as discussed in the essay "Understanding Melodic Development in Phạm Duy's Music." Actually, I only discussed songs with four-phrase verses, aiming to inspire readers to leisurely tinker and compose on their own. There are still many other songs with longer verses, which will perhaps be your future music analysis exercises?

To conclude this essay, I hope readers clearly recognize what a motive is: that only the motive and its repetitions along with additions and subtractions of each phrase can create a genuine song. If you find some nice poem, then follow someone else's poetry to write a song, it's "asking for trouble," because not everyone can be a poet like Trịnh Công Sơn or Phạm Duy who can conceive poetry simultaneously with music. The music will be bland because there is no motive, no repetition of the motive to create interest for the listener to continue appreciating, or no additions and subtractions to make the song less monotonous. Those who only discuss idly, analyze idly without daring to think about daily practice of creating songs (like me!) also have a small benefit: their level of musical appreciation will develop a little each day, knowing how to classify what is good music, what is bad music, without wasting time listening to the whole song; just listening to the first two phrases is enough to skip to another song, or eagerly wanting to continue listening to see how the author completes a verse, then a chorus, and the entire song with full arrangement and orchestration.

Southern California 12/28/2023

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Translated from "Tản Mạn Về Âm Nhạc" by Hiệp Dương