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Goodbye to People’s Artist Quach Thi Ho Among the 23 Vietnamese women who were recommended to be a name in the world’s 1000 legendary women was Quach Thi Ho. She was the top “ca tru” singer of Vietnam during the last century. On January 4th 2001, People’s Artist Quach Thi Ho passed away at her residence in Hanoi at the age of 92. On early days in her childhood, she was trained to sing Ca Tru by her mother. Ca Tru had been inherited as a profession from generation to generation in her whole family. Naturally, it became her life. However, taking a performing art as profession is the relatively easy choice of a person whereas his or her fame and success in that profession is decided by the choice of the ancient progenitor. That is not only heaven’s own design but also fate. The predestination made her whole life very hard. She devoted herself to it to the last breath. Ca Tru is a unique form of art over the world. It is not bombastic to say so because this is the art the music of which cannot be noted. Even if the music seemed to be noted, it is not heard the same when played on a musical instrument according to the notation as is sung. How rare it is the art that is performed with a simple set of musical instruments. A drum, a pair of pieces of bamboo as percussion section, a stringed instrument and a singer will make up a Ca Tru troupe who attracts a large number of poets, writers and followers. There have not been any textbooks that teach how to sing Ca Tru. It is transmitted orally from person to person, from generation to generation. Inheriting from her mother and later on from other artistes, she successfully caught up the Ca Tru singing techniques “do con kien”, “nay hat”. That is sobbing, and series of clearly stressed vibrations in the throat. It is a strict regulation to sing words absolutely clearly without wrong pronunciation of intonation marks (huyen, sac, hoi, nga, nang) in Vietnamese. These marks must go with the various pitches of notes accordingly, which is difficult to sing. In Ca Tru, the sound “u” is very magic. U is sung clearly and soulfully without open mouth. The sound of each word is performed so well that the audience are cast a spell on by the singer. Artiste Ho knew well all about it. These regulations are not the last. In addition, the castanets in Ca Tru is compared to an orchestra and considered as the innermost feelings of the singer. Besides inheriting the precious treasure of a good voice and singing techniques, the singer have to know how to play the castanets soulfully, which helps with the honor of the voice. Her mother was a very famous castanet performer. However, in one local contest, she pitifully received the second prize for her performance, which was regarded dull by the judge of art. After that, she decided to train her daughter to be good at performing the castanets which sometimes sounded like water flowing on rocks, the other times like a pot falling or tiles slipping, etc. Mrs. Ho practiced her celebrated castanets by beating a pair of big flat chopsticks whenever she cooked a meal. She skillfully used either left or right hand to play with the pieces of bamboo, even passing on them from one to the other hand during performance. This way of performing is very hard to be done. Many Ca Tru artistes have regarded her as the super, the unique. Are the requirements in Ca Tru mentioned above all? Once hearing one of her followers sing, she said with a sigh “No wonder, you did not sing right because you have not experienced sorrowful moments of life” She became very famous for her charming voice at the age of 15-16. In 40s of the last century, with other artistes, she made Ca Tru more attractive to more people. The war of resistance against the French colonialists exploding, she moved with the family to Viet Bac. After the war, she came back to Hanoi. Ca Tru was not then warmly welcome in the society and even it was considered as a shame as songstress. She had to change to other jobs, once as a worker of construction for earning a living. The hard and unlucky moments dissolve in her voice, making it wonderfully attractive. Those who had ever enjoyed Mrs. Ho’s singing voice agreed that Ty Ba Hanh by the refined talented Chinese poet Bach Cu Di was one of her most expressive performances. In 1976, Prof. Tran Van Khe came back to Vietnam from France, recorded her singing of Ca Tru and introduced it to UNESCO. She received Honorary Certificate of UNESCO “The Special Voice of Ca Tru in Vietnam”. In 1981, her recorded singing voice attended the Asian Music Forum in Korea. It won The Most Excellent Music Award! The world appreciated and respected Ca Tru of Vietnam for not only its unique but also its unmatchable art. Written by Yen Ba (Thanh Nien Newspaper 8-1-2001) Translated by Tan Tai.
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