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Silk Zither Dreams
A Musical Tour of Old China Program Introduction |
夢迴絲桐
縵遊神州 1 節目簡介 |
| "Playing qin" : holding it while contemplating nature 2 |
Although this program consists of melodies associated with specific places in China, this should not be taken too literally: guqin music, like Chinese landscape painting, was usually more poetic than descriptive. This is epitomized by the melody below called Water Immortal's Melody; the title might be associated with the place
Boya supposedly learned it (Penglai or Mount Tai, both in Shandong) or a place he supposedly played it (Wuhan/Hanyang in Hubei); more importantly, though, it expresses blending the silk strings of the guqin with other elements in nature.3 Thus, the cumulative result of this program is a musical evocation of China's both natural and poetic beauty.
A program with about 90 minutes of music (not including gaps between pieces) could consist of the following:4
By taking out some melodies or including other relevant melodies one can easily change the length of the program.5 In this way one could also make either a one hour single CD or a two hour double CD of this title.
Footnotes (Shorthand references are explained on a
separate page)
1.
Silk string zither dreams: A Musical Tour of Old China (夢迴絲桐，縵遊神州
Menghui Sitong, Manyou Shenzhou)
The Chinese term used here for "Old China" is "Shenzhou". According to 25211.70 神州, the earliest reference to Shenzhou is in the quote "中國名曰赤縣神州", attributed to 鄒衍
Zou Yan in the Shi Ji biography of
Mencius.
Nienhauser VII/180 translates this quote as, "The Central Region he called 'the Sacred Township of the Red Country'", adding in a footnote that Zou Yan's use of the word 州 zhou in Shenzhou emphasized his opinion that 中國 Zhongguo (today "China", but often translated as "Middle Kingdom") was a small part of a greater world.
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2.
"Playing qin"
Photo taken by Lau Shing-Hon on
Cheung Chau, Hong Kong, December 2010. There is a related comment in the following footnote.
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3.
"Playing qin" in nature
Once when I was playing for some senior guqin players I asked them what I could do to improve my technique. One of them said simply, "Visit places in China associated with guqin; the others nodded their heads in apparent agreement.
Note that he did not say that I should actually play my guqin at these places. And although a common motif in Chinese literati art shows people out in nature with a qin, rarely are they shown actually playing it. Modern players who say that one of the advantages of nylon metal strings is that they can be taken outdoors more easily may miss this point: what feels like blending to some sounds like artificial or conflicting to others. In this regard also see, e.g., the qin in nature under
Shuixian Qu as well as the stringless qin under Qin Ideology: taking the qin into nature facilitates absorbing natural sounds: these can then come out when one returns home and plays in a quiet environment.
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4.
Program organization
The melodies here are arranged first by tuning, so that to change tuning during the program strings are only loosened, not tightened. Then within standard tuning they are arranged by mode.
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5.
Other melodies to consider
Adding a brief spoken introduction to each melody would make a program of about 1 1/2 hours without intermission.
Many other melodies could be included instead, or in addition - perhaps tailoring the program to the performance location. Some possibilities include:
Return to my performances
or to the Guqin ToC.