For Southeast Asia’s region, I knew right away that I wanted to choose a song featuring the dan tranh instrument.  I think the instrument has such a beautiful and recognizable sound to it so I wanted to hear more examples.  I was also curious about an instrument that could be played with 16 strings and on a flat board which is so different from the kinds of musical instruments I am used to seeing.  I looked online for examples of it and my research took me to an entire album of dan tranh music recorded in the early 1990s by an artist from Vietnam named Dang-Thao Nguyen.  After listening to pieces of all of the songs, I found that the shortest song on his album happened to be my favorite as well.  The song, called Meditation, was made with a repeating cycle of string playing to fall in line with how people would breathe while meditating.  The songs begins only with the dan tranh playing then a few seconds in, a drum is added in along with a flute that support the music of the dan tranh.  Later in the song, the flute branches off to play its own song at a different pace than the dan tranh and even has a few seconds solo to perform.  This song, in my opinion, is very comforting and relaxing.  It has a happier, lighter sound to it which makes it an easy listen. 

Linked timestamp for the song on the album: 

37:27