Vietnamese house owners treat guests to the cups of tea. A good cup of tea expresses the feeling and hospitality of house owners.

Up in the forest there are rare trees\nUnder the ocean there are fishes that turn dragons\nYou travel around The Six Provinces (lục tỉnh)\nWhere fate carried your traveller's heart to me\n\nThe blues (Hò) is a folk genre that originates from the working environment. Thanks to hò, it's helped the worker to aid their spirit, harmoneously integrate with the social interactions to bring out the best productivity outcome.

According to the census data of 2009, the Nùng ethnic minority had a population of 968, 800 people and was the seventh most populous group in Vietnam, who mostly live in the provinces of Lạng Sơn and Cao Bằng. The Nùng people have a rich treasure of folk culture and folk songs imbue with their group. Bụt (the Goddess of Mercy) is one kind of religious rituals of the Nùng people. In everyday life, the Nùng people believe that men have thirty hồn (souls) and women have forty vía (vital spirits). Hồn vía are associated with body. When the Nùng deal with difficulties, the soul and vital spirits escape from the body, making the body ill. If the soul and vital spirits leave the body for a long time, the person will be severely ill or die. At the beginning of spring, the Nùng people often worship for vital spirits at home. This worship includes twelve phases with singing meaningful lyrics. The singing melodies have many pitches—low, high, deliberate, strong, enthusiastic, passionate tunes, etc.—bringing deep emotions to people’s hearts. The song “Bụt lằn” (Expressing spring scenes) with lyrics on plants, flowers, and animals, paints a natural scene that is fervid and harmonious with the thoughts and feelings of the people, evoking a sense of honesty, talent, and intelligence.

“Ba Khubi Ham Cho Mah Tabinda Baashi” is a kalam by Hazrat Amir Khusrau in praise of Hazrat Khwaja Nizamuddin Auliya. It is one of the many examples of praise and prayer that takes on the form of a romantic love poem, which is to be interpreted in a spiritual way. \n\nLyrics: Bakhubi hamcho meh tabinda baashi; Bamulk-e dilbari paayindah baashi. Man-e darvish ra kushti baghamzah; Karam kardi Ilahi zindah baashi. Jafaa kam kun ki farda roz-e mehshar; Baru-e aashiqan sharmindah baashi. Ze qaid-e dojahan azad baasham; Agar tu hum-nashin-e bandah baashi. Barindi-o bashokhi hamcho Khusrau; Hazaran khanuman barkandah baashi. \nTranslation: “With your amorous glance, you have killed a poor man like me; How magnanimous of you! May God give you a long life. May your charming face forever shine like the full moon; May you hold eternal sway over the domains of beauty. Pray do not be cruel lest you should feel ashamed of yourself Before your lovers on the day of judgment. I shall be set free from the bonds of the two worlds If you become my companion for a while. With your wanton playfulness, you must have destroyed Thousands of hearts of lovers like that of Khusrau.”

Melgobengbeng is a traditional Yapese chant performed during men’s sitting dances in Balebat village, Rull municipality in Yap, Federated States of Micronesia. This chant talks about how Paluwlop traveled afar by canoe to retrieve the head of his father, who was killed by cannibals in a land that early native Yapese referred to as Moroes (believed to have been a part of modern-day Papua New Guinea). Paluwlop’s father was killed and his head was saved and placed on a roroew, a local food stone platform, for the high chief of that land. The chant also talks about the obstacles Paluwlop and his crew of siblings encountered during their long expedition.

This solemn piece belongs to the series of seven Nhạc pieces. The complete version consists of thirty-eight four-bar phrases. The lyrics are about parents’ inmost feelings and their reminders to the daughter. This musical piece is played by the cò (two string fiddle) and the kìm (moon-shaped lute). The kìm, a plucked string instrument, has two strings. It is made of wood and has a flat and round resonator. On the surface, the gauges are attached. It has a long neck with nine frets. The rest three frets are on the surface. The two silk or nylon strings are tuned at a perfect fifth interval. The players use the left hand to press the frets and the right hand to pluck the strings. The instrument can be plucked using a fingernail or a bamboo or plastic plectrum. The cò is a bow stringed instrument with two iron strings tuned to a fourth or a perfect fifth interval. The body of the instrument is cylindrical and the top surface is covered with snake skin. The neck is made of wood and does not have frets. The bow is strung with horsetail. The players use the left hand to press onto the neck to create pitch and the right hand to bow.

Tỳ bà hành is one of the masterpieces of Ca trù art. Its lyrics are translated by Phan Huy Vịnh from a poem of Bạch Cư Dị, a famous Chinese poet in the Tang dynasty. The Tỳ bà hành song includes five cung (musical modes), consisting of Nam, Bắc, Huỳnh, Pha, and Nao. It was subtly slow and fast now and then, creating emotion, moving people’s hearts. The Tỳ bà hành song is long and it takes at least thirty minutes to sing the whole song, so the singer rarely sings from the beginning to the end. The Tỳ bà hành song in this CD was sung from the second half of the poem.

This song includes two melodies Nam xuân (twenty phrases) and Nam ai (twenty-eight phrases). Nam xuân, Nam ai are two out of three Nam pieces belonging to the twenty principle pieces. The piece takes on melancholic and deliberate characteristics. This musical piece is played by the bầu (monochord), the kìm (moon-shaped lute), and the violin. The bầu, a plucked string instrument made of wood, has a long rectangular resonator. A small arm made of bamboo or plastic is put through a gourd cover and attached to the resonator. At the end of the resonator, a metal or wooden peg is attached. The instrument has a metal string and has no frets. When playing the monochord, the musician creates overtones by lightly pressing the nodal points along the metal string. The violin is a western instrument that has some modifications to its strings when being used in Tài tử orchestra. For information about the kìm, please refer to the description for track 2.

This is a narrative of the Ahir people of Madhya Pradesh. It is performed with a algoza, a fingerhole trumpet. Circular breathing is employed along with the singing. An Ahir Goal geet are sung at weddings and happy occasions by the Ahir community around Jabalpur. This extract is from a narrative that can be sung all night long. It is about a devout woman and her in-laws. Her husband goes away and asks her to “rest with the mother-in-law, play with the sister-in-law, and seek help from the brother-in-law.” As she is expecting a child, she asks her mother-in-law to call the midwife. Instead, the mother-in-law sends her to the forest to collect wood without tying the bundle. Gods send a snake to tie her bundle, and she returns. The child is born but the in-laws do not give her water or milk. The great rivers of India, the Ganga and the Yamuna, turn their course and come to her to provide water, and a cow comes to provide milk. These miracles continue until she is reunited with her husband.

Balambu is an ancient settlement in the western part of the Kathmandu Valley that dates back to the Lichhchavi period of Nepal's history. The village has many ancient historic stone inscriptions, and its musical culture is very rich. The day-long jaatraa of goddess Mahalakshmi takes place in November and starts at her temple in Balambu. The chariot carrying the image of the goddess is supported on the shoulders of her followers in a procession that crosses the whole settlement so that all villagers have an opportunity to worship her and join in the celebrations. The procession includes traditional musicians playing music for the goddess.

Meeting you is like a fish saw its bait\nYour reputation was known, as I'm excited to be acquainted\n-\nMy fate has been unlucky and lonely\nFor long its been neglected, waiting for you\n\nThe blues (Hò) is a folk genre that originates from the working environment. Thanks to hò, it's helped the worker to aid their spirit, harmoneously integrate with the social interactions to bring out the best productivity outcome.

Weddings are one of the only occasions where Mongolians get to gather and sing all night. The urtyn duu is a song sung on such occasions and means ‘long song’.