Echoes from the Ndut Liêng Krak stone xylophone

Việt Nam•05/09/2023

09:03, 05/09/2023

Water flows away and never returns; ancient trees, hundreds or even thousands of years old, eventually fall and rot. Only rocks are enduring. Enduring because, according to geologists, the petrological cycle or the life cycle of rocks can last for billions of years, even several billion years.

But stone is not only enduring over time. Stone also carries the echoes of ancient history. These are the sounds that humans have created from stone, imbuing them with their essence. I am referring to the stone xylophones, which the people of the Central Highlands are the owners of. The first stone xylophones in the Central Highlands were discovered by ethnologist Georges Condominas in the Ndut Liêng Krak village in Lắk district, Đắk Lắk province today.

Stone xylophones are familiar musical instruments of the people of the Central Highlands. Photo: Internet

The story goes that in February 1949, the local people building the road found some strange stone slabs that, when struck, produced enchanting sounds. There were 11 slabs of varying weight and size; the longest was 101.7 cm and weighed 11.21 kg, the shortest 65.5 cm and weighed 5.82 kg. Hearing the news, G. Codominas went to the site and asked permission to collect them and send them to the Museum of Man (Musée de L'Homme) in Paris, France. He, like the M'nong people at the time, could never have imagined that they had unearthed one of the oldest musical instruments of humankind: a stone xylophone, approximately 3,000 years old!

The Ndut Liêng Krak stone xylophone has shaken the world of ethnography, archaeology, and musicology because it is hard to imagine that thousands of years ago, its creators could carve such a "stubborn" material as stone to produce sounds that have survived for thousands of years. For comparison, the wooden xylophone in Europe only dates back to the 14th century, meaning it came into existence 2,500 years after the stone xylophone.

Nearly three-quarters of a century since its discovery, the Ndut Liêng Krak stone xylophone continues to fascinate researchers. From any perspective, it is unanimously agreed that the Ndut Liêng Krak is an ancient musical instrument, a prehistoric instrument, ranking among the oldest in the world . Its beautiful scale, with its pentatonic scale and semitones characteristic of the Central Highlands, has earned it much praise from researchers. French music professor A. Schaeffner wrote a comprehensive work on the Ndut Liêng Krak stone xylophone titled "A Significant Archaeological Discovery," which includes the passage: "This set of stone xylophones has sounds calculated with an astonishing precision. The sensitivity of the stones is very high; even a light touch of a finger causes them to vibrate. The beautiful timbre evokes subtle resonance." Dutch musicologist Jaap Kunst believes that no other musical instrument is as special as the Ndut Liêng Krak stone xylophone. And a former Soviet music researcher, in an article titled "Ancient Vietnamese Stone Musical Instruments," assessed: "This stone xylophone is unlike any other stone musical instrument known to archaeological analysis… The field of musical instrument research has obtained a valuable document that allows us to reach an era that musicologists have not yet studied."

Since then, following the discovery of the Ndut Liêng Krak stone xylophone, many more sets of stone xylophones have been found in the Central Highlands and other locations. There are over 20 sets in total, comprising more than 200 stone slabs, all man-made. The largest set of stone xylophones was discovered in Lam Dong province 20 years ago, in 2003.

The Ndut Liêng Krak stone xylophone was first discovered, but that doesn't mean Vietnam is the only country possessing stone musical instruments. In fact, in the fields of archaeology and musicology, researchers have a term, "Lithophone," to refer to man-made stone objects that can produce desired sounds. This is a compound word from "litho" (stone) and "phone" (sound) in Greek. This illustrates that, regardless of the language, all things share a common name. The M'nông people don't know the term "Lithophone," but they have a similar name for the Ndut Liêng Krak stone xylophone: "goong lú," meaning "stone that sounds like a gong," or "stone gong." And the greatest value of the Ndut Liêng Krak stone xylophone lies in the fact that it is the first complete stone musical instrument ever discovered, opening a vast door for researchers to continue delving into ancient history and envisioning the appearance of humans a few thousand years ago.

Professor Tran Van Khe, a music scholar, once praised the stone xylophone profusely, stating that its sound "expresses emotions just like a human being." He also considered it, along with the Dong Son bronze drums, to be one of Vietnam's two world-class cultural treasures.

In recent years, research and promotion of the Vietnamese stone xylophone system seems to have stagnated. Apart from specialized researchers, presentations for tourists to learn about and admire, for example, are limited to provincial-level museums.

I believe that no matter how valuable a cultural heritage is, it cannot be properly appreciated and valued without promotion to viewers and listeners. It's not just "water wearing away stone," but indifference that can also "wear down" precious gems. Therefore, let's somehow allow the echoes of the Central Highlands' stone xylophones to resonate far and wide, and not let these wild, captivating sounds from ancient times become a mournful melody in brightly lit but deserted rooms of museums and preservation sites.

Pham Xuan Hung

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