Vietnam, like Korea and Japan, has throughout history been heavily influenced by its neighbor, China.³ The music of Vietnam (Wiki) certainly received influence from China, particularly in the nature of the actual musical instruments, but traditional Vietnamese music itself is both distinctive and unique.⁴

As for the guqin, although as with Japan and Korea there is evidence that it was played at various times in Vietnam, information available about this at present suggests that it had a very minor presence there.⁵ The only qin melody title with a potential reference to Vietnam is Yueshang Cao, and so any guqin program with relevance to Vietnam would probably be a joint concert in which the Vietnamese musicians played from a repertoire of traditional elegant music.⁶

Reasons for the guqin never catching on in Vietnam are given in what seem to be the most detailed articles in English on this subject, by Mitchell Clark. Most of the information here comes from those articles.⁷

The word for qin in Vietnamese is cầm; guqin is cổ cầm.⁸ In classical Chinese the character for "qin" almost invariably refers to what is today called the guqin ("old qin"). In modern Chinese both the word and character qin by itself may also refer to other string instruments; in Vietnam this apparently has long been true,⁹ and this complicates specific research on this topic.

Guqin in Ensembles

The Tran dynasty¹⁰ (1225 - 1400) established a court orchestra along the lines of a Chinese court orchestra. This was continued during the Le (1428 - 1788) and Nguyen (1802 - 1945) dynasties. The surviving (or reconstructed) Vietnamese court orchestra is apparently patterned on the Ming dynasty court orchestra. The guqin has been a part of this orchestra, though perhaps mostly for ritual or historical reasons (its association with Confucius). Even though multiple qins may have been used, they played only a simple part and perhaps were not even audible. As in China, guqin melodies apparently had no influence in the court music repertoire. I do not know of any studies of what influence, if any, the existence of this court ensemble might have had on local Vietnamese music.

During the Tran dynasty there was also a small ensemble consisting of a cam along with a tranh (the Vietnamese zheng), tyba (pipa), qi xian (that huyen: "7-strings"), song huyen (shuang xian: double string) and tieu loai (vertical flute). Clark sites Vietnamese scholar Tran Van Khe as having identified the cam as a qin and the "7-strings" as a local variant. However, neither of these identifications is certain, there seems to be no surviving music of this ensemble, and I have no information on what influence it might have had on the development of Vietnamese music in general.

Guqin as a solo instrument

Clark could find record of only two guqin players in Vietnamese history, Trần Cụ and Nguyễn Sĩ Cố, both from the Tran dynasty.¹¹

Trần Cụ taught guqin to the son of the Trần emperor. He is said to have been a well-rounded gentleman, with some comment devoted to his custom of "cutting the ends of the strings before attaching them (to the instrument)". Nothing is said about the music he played or his playing style.

Nguyễn Sĩ Cố is said to have been a good player on guqin. Clark cites an 18th century description of his playing as follows:¹² "When playing, he first wandered back and forth among the strings, and then went into the piece. In general, (the listener) can grasp the image of the music in this way." Nguyen T. Phong¹³ interprets this to mean that Nguyễn Sĩ Cố followed the custom found in Vietnamese music of extemporizing within the mode of a melody before playing the actual composition. Again, there is apparently no further information with details of both these preludes and the melodies themselves.

Clark goes on to cite the titles of three melodies apparently played at one time in Hue:

1. Phụng Cầu Hoàng (A Male Phoenix Seeks his Mate: 鳳求凰 Feng Qiu Huang)
   A well-known guqin melody title (see 1539 and 1549)
2. Phụng Qui Lâm (Phoenix Returning to the Forest: 鳳歸林 Feng Gui Lin)
   This title is included in at least three old guqin melody lists (one Tang dynasty and two Song dynasty [in QYYY and Seng]; Clark says also 1590, but there I have so far only found Gui Feng Cao.)
3. Hạc Lệ Thiên (Cranes Weeping in the Sky: 鶴淚天 He Lei Tian
   Not in any lists, and the dictionaries (鶴淚天 48160.xxx; 48160.107 鶴唳 he li [cranes crying out] seems irrelevant) also have nothing connected to music, though there are several references to cranes crying out in guqin melody commentaries.

Because the list includes one known melody, one only included in a list, and one not mentioned elsewhere, Clark speculates that perhaps this means these were titles of melodies actually played in Vietnam, rather than simply melody titles from lists.

Conclusion

Clark concludes with a chapter on why the guqin never caught on in Japan, Korea or China. He says Vietnamese music certainly was known to take on foreign influence, pointing to the fact that they adapted the zheng (which also became popular and localized in both Japan and Korea). However, guqin melodies were very specific to the guqin and so not easily adapted to other instruments. The sort of ornaments played on other instruments cannot be produced on the guqin.

For a contemplative instrument the Japanese generally played the shakuhachi end blown flute. In Korea the komungo zither, plucked with a stick, seems to have taken on this function. Both of these instruments, though quiet, are considerably louder than the guqin. In Vietnam, although much of the traditional music sounds very contemplative, no specific instrument seems to stand out as an instrument of contemplation, unless it was the dan bau monochord.¹⁴

In China the aesthetic attitudes towards the guqin are highly influenced by Daoism and Confucianism.¹⁵ In Vietnam, a more strongly Buddhist country, some of the aesthetic attitudes applied in China to the guqin came to be applied to the more elegant forms of songs and chamber music.¹⁶ That this influence came from the Chinese scholars' attitudes towards the guqin and its music is underlined by the fact that a number of these melodies use guqin melody titles.¹⁷

 
Footnotes (Shorthand references are explained on a separate page)

1. The Guqin in Vietnam (see also Wikipedia, Traditional Vietnamese musical instruments)
At present the only references to Vietnam elsewhere on this site are with an image of a small screen purchased in Hanoi in the 1990s, and in the commentary to a guqin melody that has a theme that perhaps suggests Vietnam, Yueshang Cao.

The main references used for the present webpage are:

Clark also cites Nguyen T. Phong, "Pre-20th Century Chinese Music Scholarship in Vietnam: Two Approaches", Nhạc Việt 1/2: 61-74 (1992).
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2. Image
Not yet selected.
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3. Relationship of Chinese and Vietnamese languages
At one time the languages of all three countries were written using Chinese characters. This was particularly difficult for Korean and Japanese. It apparently worked better with Vietnamese. Perhaps for this reason Vietnamesee, unlike Korean and Japanese, is often thought of as belonging to the same language family as Chinese. However, it is today generally accepted that, while Vietnamese has a large number of words that come from Chinese, it belongs to a different language family, Austro-Asiatic. Since the 16th century it has been written using Roman letters with extensive diacritical markings (not used here).
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4. Chinese influences in Vietnamese music
These are also discussed in Lê Tuấn Hùng (website), Ðàn Tranh Music of Vietnam: Traditions and Innovations, Melbourne: Australia Asia Foundation, 1998. Excerpts can be found online (2011).
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5. The situation is similar for Korea and to a lesser extent Japan.
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6. Guqin with Vietnamese music
The gentle nature of much traditional Vietnamese music would pair nicely with guqin music, particularly if the Vietnamese instrumental music were to be played using silk strings, as most of them apparently were in the past.
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7. Mitchell Clarke
For his relevant publications see above. He has also written about the qin in Korea.
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8. 琴 Qin and 古琴 guqin in Vietnamese
In Vietnamese these are written cầm and cổ cầm (or, without the diacritical marks, cam and cocam). The Vietnamese pronunciation for qin seems thus rather similar to the Cantonese pronunciation "kum" (rhymes with "come"). Southern dialects such as Cantonese have been shown to have pronunciation closer to ancient Chinese than does the standard dialect, Mandarin.
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9. Attitude towards 琴 qin in Vietnam
Clark does not discuss whether the guqin was a motif in classical Vietnamese painting. Although it seems to have appeared with some regularity in both Japanese and Korean landscape painting, in those countries a local instrument such as the koto or komungo was sometimes substituted. In such cases it may not be clear how knowledgeable the artist was of this motif in Chinese painting.

It is also not clear how often the philosophical attitudes connected to the guqin might have appeared in Vietnamese writing. Some of the stories and melody titles associated in China with the guqin were in Vietnam applied to local instruments. Clark is presumably correct in concluding that the attitudes of Chinese literati towards the guqin had little effect on the music in Vietnam.

Clark mentions the migration of a number of Chinese to Vietnam upon the collapse of the Ming dynasty. Personally I wonder whether one reason this apparently did not lead to any notable guqin players in Vietnam is the heat and humidity there. In the following centuries increasing numbers of Chinese came, forming particularly large communities in the south. Although they were mostly merchants, evidence suggests that during the Qing dynasty in China merchants not infrequently had their children study the guqin; they also formed local guqin associations. Did this ever happen in Vietnam?
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10. Tran dynasty
陳朝 Nhà Trần (Le Dynasty: 黎朝 Nhà Lê; Nguyen dynasty: 阮朝 Nhà Nguyễn)
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11. Vietnamese qin players
Those discussed here are 陳＿ Trần Cụ and 阮士固 Nguyễn Sĩ Cố .
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12. Extemporizing on cam
Clark, Nhạc Việt 4/1, pp.35, gives the following quote from 范廷琥 Phạm Đình Hổ (1768-1839), 雨中隨筆 "Vũ trung tùy bút (Casually writing during the rain):

13. Nguyen T. Phong
Also Phong Nguyen and Nguyễn Thuyết Phong. See website. Phong wrote "Pre-20th Century Chinese Music Scholarship in Vietnam: Two Approaches", Nhạc Việt 1/2: 61-74 (1992).
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14. Dan Bau (Wiki: Đàn bầu)
Originally an instrument with one silk string, and perhaps the quietest Vietnamese instrument, today it remains a monochord but it is always played with an electric pickup.
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15. Daoist, Confucian and Buddhist connections to the guqin
In Japan, Korea and Vietnam, Confucianism was very influential in formulation of government policy. In China many guqin melodies have Confucian themes. Even more have Daoist themes, but very few have overtly Buddhist themes. Daoist attitudes, when accepted in the other three countries, always seem to be combined with Buddhism, thus perhaps loosening their connection to the guqin.
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16. Music of educated Vietnamese
In China the people considered as elite were the ones who had studied for the imperial examinations and were thus conversant in literati culture; early guqin music has survived because these literati liked to write things down, and that included the music of their most treasured music insrument. Vietnam once had a similar educational system but their literati apparently did not write down any music, and their early music thus probably cannot be reconstructed. Styles of music that in more modern times have been associated with scholars include:

1. nhạc tài tử (樂才子: music of skilled amateurs; Wiki)
   Instrumental chamber music generally played in the south (includes the famous melody Vọng cổ (望古: Longing for the past)
2. ca trù (歌籌: tally card songs: Wiki
   Songs traditionally sung by female entertainers in the north.

There is debate about the antiquity of this music as heard today; without a written tradition it is difficult to verify claims.
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17. Chinese melody titles
These have no musical connections to Chinese melodies with these titles.
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