Vietnam Lullabies - Hát Ru are a sort of folk music
often heard in Vietnam, especially in the countryside. Ru, certainly, are songs to lull babies, but Vietnamese women use
them to consign their fates and also to express human feelings such as
homesickness, wife missing her husband, etc. As the function of a lullaby song
is to make the child slowly fall into sleep, the song is quiet, the tones
stretched and melodious.
The melodies of Ru
vary from one region to another. Ru
is original or modified six-and-eight foot/line popular poems put to music. The
rhythm is determined by the meter of the poem, but the lines are elongated with
nonsense syllables à ơi, ù ơ, à á ơ, à ơi
ơi.
In North Vietnam, Ru is sung in a straight pentatonic scale DO-RE-FA-SOL-LA. The
following songs are lullaby songs sung by a mother to her child.
Con ơi, con ngủ cho lành, (My child, sleep
well,)
Để mẹ gánh nước rửa bành cho voi (So mom can carry
water to wash the elephant’s back)
Muốn coi lên núi mà coi, (If anyone wants to see, go
up the mountain,)
Có bà Trưng, Triệu cưỡi voi bành vàng. (To see
Mesdames Trưng, Triệu riding the elephant’s golden backs.)
Still the six-and-eight foot/line poems with
nonsense syllables ơ ơ inserted, the following song is from Nghệ Tĩnh (Central
Vietnam). It lies only in three notes LA-RE-FA:
Ơ..., ru em, em ngáy cho muồi, (Lullaby sleep well,)
Để mẹ đi chợ mua nồi nấu ăn (So mother can go to the
market to buy an earthen saucepan)
Ơ..., mẹ em đi chợ đường trong, (If she goes to the
southern market,)
Mua em đốt mía vừa cong vừa dài (She will buy you a
long and bent sugar cane)
Ơ..., mê em đi chợ đương ngoài, (Or if she goes
to the northern market,)
Mua em đốt mía vừa dài vừa cong.( She will buy
you a bent and long sugar cane.)
In Southern Vietnam almost all lullabies begin with
the words ví dầu (imagine):
Vì dầu cầu ván đóng đinh,( Imagine
walking on a board-bridge fastened with nails,)
Cầu tre lắc lẻo. gầp gềnh khó đi. (It is hard as
walking on an unstable bamboo bridge.)