The Sacred Sound of Ðoc Kinh: 
Exploring the Sonic World of Vietnamese Chanting

While attending this annual celebration several years ago, I was surrounded by Vietnamese parishioners chanting prayers as we shuffled down the street. Although knowing it was the text of the Hail Mary, I turned to the elderly Vietnamese woman at my side, and inquired "I do not speak Vietnamese, what are we singing?" Her response revealed a different mind set, "We not sing, we pray Hail Mary." 

Any liturgical musician who happened to be present, or the homeless street persons enjoying the passing procession, would classify the sounds being made as a song or a chant. This women’s simple response, "We no sing...", discloses a non-Western sonic world. The Vietnamese enhance their prayer texts by engaging in a vocal technique that has no correlation in American speech. This musical sound is not a song or a chant. What is this prayer style? Where does it come from, and how did it begin? What can American liturgists and musicians learn about sung prayer and liturgy by worshipping with their Vietnamese sisters and brothers?

Pray with Devotion

The most unique characteristic of Vietnamese Catholic liturgy is their a cappella chanting. Throughout the Mass almost every word is intoned, except for the scripture readings, the homily, the introductory comments by the presider, and the announcements. For me, this recurring wave of pitch and rhythm during the liturgy forms a "sonic environment" that is mesmerizing, like a cultural landscape of sound. For some, this prayer atmosphere may harken to reveling in the mystical chants of cantors and schola during an Orthodox Divine Liturgy.

This chant style permeates the ancestor altar of traditional Catholic homes whenever a Vietnamese family gathers for the evening rosary or novena prayers. During Lent, the Stations of the Cross are often chanted, rather than recited. On Passion Sunday, I have witnessed several men intone the entire Gospel narrative during Vietnamese Mass. Scripture, devotional prayers, liturgical texts all emanate an intense reverence, as text and tone are continually wedded.

The Vietnamese Catholics call this prayer style Ðoc kinh.2 An English translation of this phrase would be:

Ðoc- (verb) to recite, to read

kinh - (noun) a prayer, a lyrical-style poem

Ðoc kinh - to intone a religious text; figuratively: "to pray with devotion"3

To grasp how "praying with devotion" operates, one must comprehend tonal language. Vietnamese, like Mandarin, Cantonese, and Thai, has various pitches to signify the meanings of one-syllable words. Pronounce the word ma at mid level range and no change of pitch and you say the equivalent of "ghost." Enunciate the same syllable (má) with the rising pitch and one has said "mother." Say another word by having your voice begin slightly above a middle level, dip slightly and then rise sharply (mã). That means "horse." Articulate "rice seedling" (ma) by beginning low and fall to a low deep pitch. 

The Vietnamese formulate the "melody" of Ðoc kinh. by taking one (variable) pitch as the starting note and framing the melodic contour of the other notes by the natural shape of the linguistic tones of the language.4 None of these melodies have been written down. The Vietnamese do not need written notes, since the tones of the melody follow the inflections of their natural speech patterns. 

The melody centers around three pitches: a tonic note, a whole step lower, and a perfect forth lower than the tonic note.5 The Vietnamese Our Father (Lay Cha) has been transcribed into Western notation as an illustration. ([Ed. note: See ML 28:9, page 19 for the Our Father.] The tonal center of "G" was chosen arbitrarily, the chant has relative pitch according to the note chosen by the prayer leader.6) The rhythm does not follow the natural flow of speech, each syllable is given almost equal duration, with
pauses at the end of each phrase. For some Western ears, the uniform pulse and limited pitch range of Ðoc kinh has a unsavory sing-song quality. To this explorer of intercultural prayer, the sound is enticing and meditative.

From poetry to liturgical life?

This speech/song format of the Vietnamese is unique among Roman Catholics in the United States. For years I have been searching for other ethnic groups, with a tonal language, who chant in this style, and I have found none.7 In comparison with other Catholics that have a tonal language, such as the Chinese, the Vietnamese remain unique. Surely the Portuguese and French missionaries did not intone their devotions when they arrived in Vietnam.8 What could be the origin of Ðoc kinh?9

The answer will probably be found in non-Christian sources. The Vietnamese culture is inherently musical, texts are not recited, but chanted during a variety of secular occasions: Praises of Ancestors during the New Year’s Tet celebration, solemn civic proclamations, poetry presentations, etc.10 A chanting based on the tonal language is also common in Buddhist temples. Similar to Ðoc kinh, the Vietnamese and Sanskrit chant of the Buddhist monks is a form of heightened speech, for articulating scripture texts, poems and prayers for various ceremonies. 

Some have postulated that this format of chanting poetic texts became popular during the Chinese occupation of Vietnam (111 B.C. to 938 A.D.) While the Chinese were trying to suppress local culture, the Vietnamese memorized all their poems and literature as a manner of oral preservation. Singing the texts was a memory aid. Singing as a retention device is common in Eastern cultures, especially for children to learn religious texts.11 

Perhaps the first Vietnamese catechists, immersed in their cultural tradition, taught children their prayers using the familiar educational device of intonation. Perhaps the first indigenous clergy, who probably converted from Buddhism, proclaimed devotional texts in the chant style of the local temple. For the first Vietnamese Catholics, this would not seem at all strange. Intoned texts would not be heard only in their church, but in the cultural and public life of their community. When Vatican II allowed for vernacular in the liturgy, the faithful and local clergy naturally prayed the texts translated into Vietnamese in the style appropriate for any words of distinction.

Experiencing chant through Asian ears

If you were to go to some Vietnamese Catholic friends and attempt a discussion about this ??c kinh that they do at church, confusion would arise. For them, that term refers to the devotional prayers that are done before and after the Eucharist. Vietnamese use the same word to refer to both the chanting style (adjective) and the performance of prayer (noun). This style of chanting is not understood as a topic of analysis. To intone in this manner is a totally non-reflective act. It is part of their blood and bones. From youth, Vietnamese hear intoned prayers, not recited prayers at home.

In the fall of 2000, I interviewed several Vietnamese young adults about their impressions of "American Mass" and Vietnamese Mass. They were bilingual and occasionally attended Mass in English, depending on Sunday work schedules. In an ethnographic manner, I tried to listen to their descriptions and comparisons, rather than force upon them my own categories or ideas. When describing music, only one young man, Van, offered a description of Ðoc kinh. He is second generation, and grew up with the
mental separation of the Vietnamese and English languages. None of the other seven, who were raised in Vietnam, mentioned the intonation of texts. At the conclusion of one of the last interviews, with a man from Orange County, bafflement had me prod the question. I told Thang that I was surprised that he did not mention Vietnamese chanting, since that element is most striking to Americans when they go to a Vietnamese Mass. "Oh yeah", he responded. "I did notice that Americans just speak everything."
He left Vietnam when he was 12, and has been in the United States for ten years. He was raised with daily rosary in his household, and often the family went to daily Mass. How could Thang envision Vietnamese prayer in any other way, except to "pray with devotion." Chanting is a as natural to him as eating steamed rice.

For Americans, liturgical chant may be seen as an opportunity for aesthetic pleasure or as an emotional expression of a religious experience. Elderly Vietnamese people enjoy gathering in churches before mass and doing devotional prayers in a ??c kinh style not because of the beauty of the song. (They do not regard this act as a form of singing.) Is there a broader purpose, besides devotional practice?12 Do these chanted prayers function as a subconscious psychological linking, reinforcing their common Vietnamese identity as they struggle to inculturate in a new land? What emotional memory does the sound of devotional prayers stir for the ‘boat person’, who prayed for protection night after night to Our Lady of La Vang?13 How many years did some of these Vietnamese people spend in refugee camps, and how did the communal gathering of Ðoc kinh each evening function as a stabilizing ritual? 

Such questions need to be explored by sociologists and ethnomusicologists. Yet up to now, no Vietnamese has even bothered to transcribe these chants. Even in an attempt to notate this chant style, two challenges would arise. First, the chant notes slightly change due to regional accent.14 Second, Western notation cannot capture the slight slurs and scoops of the Vietnamese language, which is heard during Ðoc kinh. Even if a classically-trained musician was able to study this form of chanting, they would have to move beyond their Western trained approach of only looking at a score to evaluate music, and incorporate the necessary element of liturgical practice. 

An inspiration for the American church

I encourage Americans to locate a Vietnamese mass in their diocese and go experience the song, the cultural style of worship, and the chanting of Vietnamese Catholics. We have much to learn from them. By the very nature of their language, by the inherit musicality of their culture, the Vietnamese captured the intended lyrical quality of liturgy.

Three inspirations I find from being immersed in Ðoc kinh these past years:

1. There is a need for a cappella settings of ritual music. Most American composers publish settings of the rites that are dependent upon instrumental accompaniment. If sung liturgy is to be fully normative all the time (even at daily Mass) assemblies need settings that function without a keyboard or guitar. Appendix III of the Roman Sacramentary is rarely used, probably because English syntax and accent are a poor match for melodies based on Gregorian chants.15 Perhaps Americans need to start fresh in developing a chant style and mode that flows out of the English language, inspired by listening to their Vietnamese sisters and brothers. Contemporary composers, under the banner of promoting "ritual music" are now publishing fully scored settings of gathering rites and communion rites.16 The Vietnamese have been singing the entire liturgy a cappella for years. Could an American cultural equivalent ever develop?

2. Standard settings are important. Ðoc kinh does not change each liturgical season, or by the whim of the music director of the parish. The chant is known by every Vietnamese Catholic. No worship aid is needed because everyone breathes in and out the same melody every Sunday. Perhaps American fascination with newness, relevance, and "up to date" consumerism can be tempered with the Vietnamese leaning toward tradition and stability. Would it ever be possible for the American Church to
embrace one setting of ritual music in some recitative or cantillation style?

3. The presider is a leader of sung prayer. I wish every seminarian could spend several Sundays at a Vietnamese mass to witness the expectation of the Catholic assembly that their priest will sing all the dialogues. (He has to give the pitch, so the people can make their sung response.)17 At present, American liturgists and musicians wrestle with the prospect of having a sung eucharistic prayer. Because our assemblies do not experience sung liturgy as normative, such practice has been viewed as
focusing too much attention to the skills of the presider. (Or lack of musical skills.) Imagine deacons and priests being trained to chant opening prayers, prefaces, and closing blessings. What if Americans expected this of their clergy every Sunday?

Listen to the martyrs sing

The Vietnamese are unaware of how their tonal language is so advantageous for the proclamation of liturgical and devotional prayer. Few Americans are aware of this chanting style, since the Vietnamese have not yet described in English a process that is so inherent to their religiosity. Yet, a Vietnamese cantor of any age, can stand up and intone a complete responsorial psalm with only the text in front of them. 

This November, our Church celebrates the Feast of the 117 Vietnamese Martyrs.19 They are elders of the faith, ancestors of life for the Vietnamese people. Their song continues in the "hymn that is sung throughout all ages in the halls of heaven."20 Maybe their contribution to the angelic symphony is this Asian form of "praying with devotion," just as they have handed down this tradition to elderly women who process through San Francisco intoning prayers of a Marian celebration. Maybe the time has come
for Americans to widen their musical perspective and listen.

ENDNOTES

1 The term "sonic environment" was coined by R. Murray Schafer. See usage as described by Edward Foley in Foundations of Christian Music (Collegeville, Minnesota: The Liturgical Press, 1996) page 27.

2 Vietnamese Buddhists employ similar words. Ðoc signifies the reading of a ritual text or scripture, but this text would usually be chanted. The phrase tong kinh is used by Buddhists to signify an intoned prayer.

3 Translation and paraphrase by Rev. Hung Nguyen, OFM Cap.

4 Ethnomusicologist Adelaida Reyes briefly mentions this chanting style in Songs of the Caged, Songs of the Free (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1999) page 132. However she focuses on the form, arguing that this is not song, and fails to explore the liturgical and wider cultural uses of the form.

5 Since there is no raised or lowered third of the scale, a Western theorist could catalogue these notes as the dorian, phrygian, mixolydian, or aeolian mode. But since this fixed melodic unit (consisting of an interval of a perfect fourth, and comprised of a whole tone and minor third) does not comprise the tonal framework of the octave, use of the word scale or mode can be misleading.

6 Occasionally the Vietnamese will begin an acclamation with a composed melody, such as the Gospel acclamation, and the verse will be prayed in the Ðoc kinh style before and after the "refrain’" of the alleluia. Usually the tonic of the refrain melody becomes the tonic of the chant, sometimes interpolating different modes.

7A missionary priest visiting Orange County in 2000 told me that in the highlands of Taiwan, the indigenous people intone prayers using their natural seven-toned language. However this source has not been verified through recordings, and another source, ethnomusicologist I-to Loh of Taiwan, is unaware of this intonation style within Christian communities (personal e-mail, May 17, 2001).

8 Rev. Peter C. Phan, in his historical work, Mission and Catechesis, Alexandre de Rhodes and Inculturation in Seventeenth Century Vietnam (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 1998) does not take up the subject of Vietnamese chanting. He does not recall reading any missionary account that documents this encounter, and doubts if missionaries introduced this practice (personal e-mail, April 11, 2001).

9 Some Vietnamese sources speculate that their people were attempting an Asian imitation of Gregorian chant, which was taught by the European missionaries. But that Latin repertoire is based on seven-tone church modes and are highly developed compositions. Gregorian Chant has little in common with the limited pitch inventory and static rhythm of the Vietnamese Ðoc kinh.

11Jason Gibbs, in his paper, Giai ?i?u c?a th? ca: ti?ng Vi?t v? Âm Nh?c, published in V?n hóa ngh? thu?t, (199, 1/2001, pp. 83-88) "Poetry’s Melody: The Vietnamese Language and Music, Spring, 2000", differentiates three categories for describing the relationship between Vietnamese text and music:

A. Melody and words develop together so they are interdependent. Folksongs, work songs in the rice fields and fishing boats, and newly composed songs would belong within this category as would most Catholic Church hymns.

B. Lyrics for pre-existing melodies. For the large repertoire of pre-existing melodies, often used in traditional theater and other performances, lyricists create new texts. Because of the tonal nature of the language, the meaning of the words change as the melody rises and falls; hence the art of lyric writing contains challenges incomprehensible to English lyricists.

C. Melody created from the text itself. A common practice in Vietnam is to publicly perform poetry in a chanted recitation to no pre-existing melody. The poet improvises the melody based on the tonal changes of the text itself. In more elaborate forms, modal and melodic formulae are followed, especially in the well-known style of Ngâm th?: "sing poem" a vocal poetic stylization. Catholics may use the term ngâm to express the poetic stylization of religious texts, such as the chanting of the Passion Narrative.

Following these categories of Gibbs, Ðoc kinh is a type of form three, the genre of poetic recitation. (This paper has not been published in English. An English translation was provided by the author.)

11 Hindu boys learn the Vedic scriptures in India by both chanting the texts and choreographed head movements. Taiwanese children learn Bible passages during Sunday School by utilizing the tones of their language to form melodies (Source: I-to Low).

12 Edward Foley in Music in Ritual: A Pre-Theological Investigation (Washington D.C.: The Pastoral Press, 1984) explores the various theories of ethnomusicologists in discussing music as communication, pages 6-7.

13A series of Marian appearances in central Vietnam during 1798, offering protection and comfort to a group of persecuted Catholics escaping an anti-Catholic edict of King C?nh Thanh.

14 In the United States, most of the chanting in done in a southern accent (location of Saigon), however the use of pitches varies from region to region. A central accent (area of Hu?) and northern accent (area of HaNoi) also exists, similar to the way American speech varies from California to Texas to New York. During my first trip to Vietnam in January of 2001, I was able to record Masses in the Archdiocese of Hu? and began comparing these melodies with the southern chant style.

15 Some recent success has been done in this area by Bob Hurd (Misa Ubi Caritas, OCP Publications) and Paul Ford (By Flowing Waters, The Liturgical Press).

16 The Church Gathers and The Church Breaks Bread by Gary Daigle and Marty Haugen (GIA Publications). Various octavos of Tom Kenzia (OCP Publications).

17 Most amazing is that not only are the dialogues between the Vietnamese priest and assembly chanted, but between the lector and assembly also. The lector is expected to chant the concluding phrase: "The Word of the Lord", and the people chant in return: "Thanks be to God." Some parishioners may complain that the lector pitches the phrase too high or too low. However, lectors rarely omit this lyrical element by claiming they cannot sing. It is expected by the Vietnamese community and every lector intones the concluding line.

18Some Vietnamese churches rotate between singing the psalm in fully composed versions and Ðoc kinh settings. Occasionally I have witnessed the entire assembly chant the entire psalm in unison (by use of a published worship aid that had the text). During "children’s masses", in both Vietnam and the United States, I have witnessed grammar age youth boldly intone all the psalm verses a cappella.

19 Pope John Paul II canonized them on June 19, 1988. The feast day is November 24th, but many Vietnamese communities combine this feast with the Feast of Christ the King on the last Sunday of the month. Often special cultural dances are included on this day, making it a wonderful occasion for Americans to visit the Vietnamese mass in their diocese.

20 Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, 83.