Indian Ālāp and Vietnamese Dạo: A Study on Teaching Individual Creativity

Abstract

In this study, the transmission of some essentials in music tradition from two different places in Asia, namely India and Vietnam, is taken as a metaphor to be further applied on cultural and social analysis in order to achieve a better understanding of how creativity is taught and culturally established. Indian music is asserted as a Guru centered science. The process of transmitting knowledge might be successful as far as the teacher gains satisfaction by the student’s behavior and capability of receiving and applying knowledge. Similar yet different processes can be observed with teaching in the South Vietnamese music tradition. Ālāp is a part in north Indian classical music as well as the Dạo in the Vietnamese music tradition. They dominantly create the mood of a Rāga or a Ðiệu respectively. The final outcome is an improvisation. Individuality and creativity develop in a process of tension between rules and breaking rules. Metaphorically, there are strong parallels to other subjects of transmitting social and cultural patterns of communication.