Đờn ca tài tử of Southern Vietnam · in the digital space

An old sound,
played the way you ask.

Describe the piece you want to hear, the bright Bắc mode or the mournful Oán. DC2T plays a new instrumental in the tài tử style, and you can blend it with lo-fi, jazz or electronic music.

Try an ideaAfternoon by the river Moonlit night, far from home Morning at the floating market First rain of the season

Listen

What the model has learned to play

These four pieces were generated by the DC2T model and only trimmed to 45 seconds. Have a listen, then describe one of your own.

Bắc mode

Pure tài tử · scalloped guitar, đờn tranh · 90 BPM

0:000:45

Oán mode

Pure tài tử · scalloped guitar · 50 BPM

0:000:45

Tài tử over lo-fi

Scalloped guitar over a lo-fi beat

0:000:45

Tài tử with jazz

Scalloped guitar with a jazz trio

0:000:45

Create your own Learn the 20 pieces

Black-and-white photograph: a group of musicians in long tunics and turbans holding zithers, a pear-shaped lute, a moon lute and fiddles in front of a building in Saigon — A group of musicians in Saigon, on a postcard dated 1911. Public domain image, via Wikimedia Commons

LearnThe twenty ancestral piecesSix Bắc, seven Hạ, three Nam, four Oán: the foundation every tài tử player has to know. Read on to learn why the same five notes can sound joyful or sorrowful, and which instruments make up the ensemble.Read about the 20 pieces

More than a dozen instruments hanging on a wall: moon lute, đờn sến, đờn tam, flute, violin and fiddles — A wall of instruments: đờn kìm, đờn sến, đờn tam, đờn cò, a flute, and a violin too. Photo: Hoàng Hoàn Hoà Ho H, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons

Join inSend us your recordingsDoes your family still keep recordings of đờn ca tài tử? Each one grows the archive and helps the model play more truthfully. An old tape or a phone recording is just as welcome.Contribute a recording

An old sound,played the way you ask.

What the model has learned to play

Bắc mode

Oán mode

Tài tử over lo-fi

Tài tử with jazz

An old sound,
played the way you ask.