My Teacher Known as the Timeless Voice

I am very proud to say that I had once been a student of the legendary Vietnamese singer, Thai Thanh.  I am tremendously indebted to her for all that she had taught me.  It wasn't so much with vocal techniques, but what she had taught me was extremely crucial in becoming a Vietnamese singer.  She taught me how to appreciate the beauty in Vietnamese music and also how to sing in Vietnamese correctly.

During the year of 1994, I had enrolled in Thai Thanh's vocals class in Westminster, California.  Each week that I attended her class, I learned something new.  She was an amazing teacher to me.  It really came of no surprise to me since I had always known of what a great legendary Vietnamese songstress she was.  But what I really appreciated about her as my teacher was her patience, her insistence on being a perfectionist and her generosity in sharing with me some of her wisdom.  I guess you can say that she wasn't really a voice teacher, but more of a voice coach.  Thai Thanh's classes were on a one-on-one basis, where she coached her students and assisted them in finding their way in fine tuning their own styles of singing.  That was something that singers who were just starting out such as myself back then really needed.

One of my biggest challenges when I first began to sing in Vietnamese was pronunciation.  Although I was able to speak Vietnamese like a native speaker, of course, I had difficulties when making the transition from speaking to singing.  Since I come from a family that speaks in a Southern Vietnamese dialect, it took me quite a bit of time and practice to learn how to sing in the Northern dialect.  And of course, what better teacher could I have asked for but Thai Thanh, herself, to help me with learning how to sing in the Northern Vietnamese dialect correctly?  In many of my sessions with Thai Thanh were focused on just that, pronunciation, rather than vocals.  And I couldn't be more grateful.  I started to even realize just how even more valuable her lessons were when I started to record professionally in Vietnamese.  I don't think I could have ever gone through with it if I hadn't had Thai Thanh as my teacher.

Besides my fondness of Thai Thanh for having been my teacher at one time, I'm also an admirer of her as a legendary Vietnamese singer.  In Vietnamese popular music, she has been hailed as the Timeless Voice, Tieng Hat Vuot Thoi Gian.  And I must say, out of all the Vietnamese singers throughout the history of Vietnamese popular music, Thai Thanh definitely is deserving of such a title.