ABSTRACT
Tucked into a comer of the Hanoi Music Conservatory campus is a spare building that doubles as the workshop and living space for Tạ Thâm and his crew of musical instrument artisans. The front room is both a living room and an instrument showroom; the back room is where the work is done, evidenced by the wood trimmings, an assortment of bamboo tubes, and the various manual and power tools found throughout the room. Upon entering the building, one cannot help but notice the variety of unusual instruments hanging from the walls. These are both traditional instruments of Vietnam and instruments of Tạ Thâm’s invention. Tạ Thâm’s invented instruments use the raw materials common to traditional instruments, such as hard and soft woods, various sizes of bamboo, gourds, and so on. He bases his inventions not only on the instruments of the ethnic Vietnamese, but also upon those of Vietnam’s many ethnic minorities.
