Mr. Vuong Van Ket chose the gourd to make the instrument.

After searching tirelessly through many localities and information channels, luck came to us when we met a person who has been making Tinh lutes for decades, Mr. Vuong Van Ket, 74 years old, Pheo village, Xuan Giao commune, Bao Thang district.

Mr. Ket makes guitars right at his home.

Mr. Ket’s house is located deep in the heart of Pheo village. To get to the right house, I followed the footsteps of folk artist Nong Van Sin, 62 years old, a member of the Pheo village art troupe, who plays the best and knows the most melodies in the area. Mr. Ket’s 3-room house is quite simple, this is also the place where he makes the Tinh lute every day.

The making of the guitar is completely handmade.

When we arrived, right in the middle of the house, there were many tools for making instruments, including knives, saws, chisels, planers, grinders, mini drills, and materials such as dried gourd shells, wooden guitar neck blanks, guitar tops, etc. Mr. Ket said that now with the help of machines, making a guitar is faster, but all the manual steps are still the main ones.

Mr. Ket has been making pipes for decades.

The most difficult thing for Mr. Ket is to find and buy the gourd as desired, ensuring the requirements such as the gourd must be old, large, round, the skin must be moderately thick and firm. More importantly, the gourd must not have bee stings, cracks or scars. To buy the gourd he wants, Mr. Ket often travels to the highland villages, especially where the climate is cool, the gourd will be more beautiful, the highland people also grow more gourds, the buyer even has to pay a deposit when the gourd is still green hanging on the trellis.

Mr. Ket checked a guitar before completing the last sentence.

At the end of the year, when the gourd body on the trellis is dry and withered, the gourd turns yellow, then dark brown, the gourd is picked and brought home before sawing off the top, peeling off the core and drying it in the kitchen. At this stage, one must be very skillful and meticulous so that the gourd shell does not break, especially not scratching or peeling the gourd shell so that later the instrument will be even and beautiful. After about a week, the gourd shell is completely dry, then it is taken out and sprayed with varnish to complete the preparation for half of the guitar.

Artisan Nong Van Sin is a regular customer of Mr. Ket.

Mr. Ket chose the neck of the instrument from many types of wood such as cinnamon, xoan, sa mu, and fat. The experience of the old craftsman is to choose old wood, take the core to avoid wood eyes, and must dry, dry, and process it carefully so that after finishing the instrument it will not bend or warp.

Mr. Sin has nearly ten đàn tính and đàn nhi bought from Mr. Ket.

Mr. Ket said that the most difficult part is carving the string slots at the top of the instrument, inserting the string bar, gluing the face and joining the neck to the body of the instrument. This is also the most time-consuming step, taking 2 to 3 days to complete for a common instrument. The face of the instrument is made of wood; the thinner, tighter, and without cracks, the clearer, more resonant the sound of the instrument will be. The wood used to make the face is usually light and durable, such as cinnamon or xoan. In the past, it took a lot of effort to plan the face of the instrument as thin as cardboard, but now Mr. Ket has the support of wood-planking workshops; he just needs to find the pieces of wood he likes and buy them to complete the work.

The core of the Pheo village art troupe is the instrument maker like Mr. Ket and the instrument player like artisan Nong Van Sin.

In Pheo village, a mass art troupe with more than 30 members has long been formed, the core of which is the musical instrument maker like Mr. Ket, the Tinh lute player like Mr. Nong Van Sin and the dances and singing of the Tay women. The memory that Mr. Sin and Mr. Ket remember most is in 2018, when the Pheo village art troupe and the Tinh lute made by Mr. Ket participated in the performance at the 70th Anniversary of the founding of the Bao Thang District Party Committee (October 15, 1948 - October 15, 2018).

Member of Pheo village art troupe with a Tinh lute made by Mr. Ket.

Mr. Ket is a Tay ethnic, originally from Phu Nhuan commune, Bao Thang district. After marrying into Pheo village, he stayed here and brought with him the craft of making Tinh lutes, which his father had taught him when he was young. When Mr. Ket was young, few people knew that he could make Tinh lutes, so he only made a few lutes to play and interact with people who played in the area.

The soul of the Tao is forever associated with the traditional culture of the Tay ethnic group in Pheo village, Xuan Giao commune, Bao Thang district.

Later, when the community had a need to use the đàn tính in performances and exhibitions, "good news spread far and wide", making Mr. Ket's customer base increase, usually in localities with a large Tay population such as Bao Yen and Van Ban districts, Lao Cai city, Bao Thang and Bac Ha. Customers who placed orders were usually people who learned and played the đàn tính, collectors of traditional musical instruments, folk art troupes, schools, cultural and artistic establishments. The selling price of a đàn tính from Mr. Ket is about 900 thousand to 1.2 million VND depending on the type, the selling price is slightly higher than the price of mass-produced đàn tinh from manufacturing workshops and is sold on the digital platform market.

Mr. Vuong Van Ket is checking a guitar neck before it is adjusted to ensure absolute straightness.

Although he is recognized as a famous pipe maker, Mr. Ket sells only 20 pipes at most each year. Customers know and come to him only through word of mouth. It seems that this does not bother the old craftsman Vuong Van Ket. His greatest joy is that he still has enough health and skill to make instruments, and his biggest worry is the lack of apprentices for him to teach. He said: "Whoever wants to learn and is eager to learn, I will teach them right away, teach them all so that many generations of Tay people will still have pipe pipes to play!"

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