Chinese Music in China

Yesterday, I sent a text message to Xu Ning. He is a music reporter, and got me a free ticket to go see a couple of concerts before Christmas. He is a graduate of the China Conservatory of Music, where his instrument was Dizi. (Do Chinese ensembles always start with Dizi and Erhu?) Previously, we had talked about getting together to play some music, so now that we are back, and my big concert is behind me, I thought I’d see what he was up to.

Luckily, he doesn’t leave to go back to his hometown until Friday. He asked if tonight would be fine. So after work, Ma Yan and I picked him up at the subway stop near his apartment, which is relatively close to the China Conservatory of Music. (I love living in this part of town.)

He came over and had some dinner with us and then we sat down to play through some music. While at work earlier, I printed out the parts for dizi, erhu, and yangqin (just in case) for some pieces that Summer Thunder has been playing. I brought Huan Le Ge, Yu Fu Rong, Su Di Man Bu, Gu Xiang Xing, and Yi Zhi Mei. I picked out Yi Zhi Mei especially because I know how much Paul really loves playing it. (I’ve always thought it must be like catnip for dizi players.)

We spent about an hour playing through the pieces, with him pretty much sight reading everything. He was saying that most of the ensemble work from school was with the standard pieces, such as Bu Bu Gao, Cai Yun Zhui Yue, Xi Yang Yang, Jin She Kuang Wu, and Zi Zhu Diao. He has never played or heard the pieces I brought, other than Huan Le Ge. I told him that the standards are nice, but it is fun to play some more musically interesting pieces sometimes too. (I hadn’t really realized how interesting Yi Zhi Mei really is until playing only the dizi and erhu.)

2012-01-16-Xu-Ning Warming up

It was great playing again, and he said he’ll try to find some more people to put together an ensemble. Also, he said he’ll get in touch with a friend of his, who is the Ensemble director at the China Conservatory of Music Middle School, and see what other music he can find. I’d love to get my hands on some new music. (Must have ALL the Musics!)

When we first arrived and I mentioned to my coworkers that I play erhu, they encouraged me to play in the Chinese new year party for IBM. So when the email came across form the IBM club, looking for programs for the IBM Chinese new year party, I submitted my name and that I’d like to play the erhu for the show. I went down for my program interview, with my erhu, and they thought it was great. Although, they wanted a faster piece than my old standby of Liang Xiao. So, they talked me into playing Sai Ma. After I agreed, they mentioned that we should probably record the performance since it was going to be in front of 8000 people! Yikes!

At the time, being new to IBM China, I didn’t realize that there are several IBM Chinese new year parties. The one that my coworkers were talking about was a local one in front of just our area (roughly 300 people). So I ended up signing up for two sets of shows.

I played the first two shows in our building in front of all my coworkers. Let me tell you. I was pretty nervous. (It’s more difficult showing that side of your soul in front of all your close coworkers in a large meeting room, than it is playing on a stage with spot lights on you. At least it is for me.) Anyway, the two shows last week ended up being good practice to get the nervous bugs out of my system.

I hired a student, Coco, from the China Conservatory of Music to accompany me on the Yang Qin for the performance. She and I practiced two times before the show. It was definitely worth it. Playing Sai Ma by yourself is much different than playing with someone else. While practicing, I commented to her that it is much nicer playing music with someone than simply playing by myself.

The big show was the evening of 2012/01/14, Saturday. It was held in the Beijing Worker’s Stadium, I think. It was one of the Olympic Venues, and our “green room” was one of the rooms that they did the drug testing of the athletes in, as evidenced by all the posters showing how to handle your urine sample.

The stadium was positively huge! They had a stage set up down on the floor with all sorts of lights and gantries arrayed around it. They had seating down on the floor as well as the stadium seating. The place ended up being pretty full, although I heard that IBM had to control the number of tickets they issued because the Public Security Bureau had special policies when an event has over 5000 people.

Stage for the IBM 2012 Chinese New Year show

Audience for the IBM 2012 Chinese New Year Show

Our program was near the end, so we got to watch much of the show. We played, and I didn’t make any monstrous mistakes. (Although there were a few here and there. Sai Ma is a hard piece for my old and unpracticed fingers to play at the speed it is intended.) After we played (it was well received), I invited three other foreigners up on stage with me, and we sang two songs, Mo Li Hua, and Tian Mi Mi.

Andrew Playing Sai Ma

Andrew Playing Sai Ma 2

Foreigners Sing Chinese Songs!

Whew! Now that stress is behind me, I can focus on seeing more Chinese music concerts and maybe playing Chinese music with my new contacts. Although, with Chinese New Year upon us, most people are going to be gone over the next few weeks.

Sunday afternoon, I got a call from my new friend, Xu Ning. He asked if I was interested in going to a concert featuring Ban hu, an instrument similar to the er hu. So, after dinner I went down to the Beijing concert hall again and met up with him. This concert was put on by the China Central National Orchestra (中央民族乐团) to celebrate the 80th year of Liu Ming Yuan’s birth. (He passed away roughly 20 years ago.) He was a very influential and prolific composer of music for the erhu and ban hu, so this concert featured many, many ban hu soloists accompanied by large and small ensembles.

Program Cover

Program Contents - 1st half

Program Contents - 2nd half

Sometimes I am really amazed at how the sound of an erhu (or ban hu in this case), can really travel. The banhu is usually a higher pitched instrument than the erhu. (I’m not sure what it is tuned to, though.) But in many pieces, even though there was a full orchestra of Chinese instruments behind the player, the voice of the banhu came through with no problem.

This time I didn’t even try to record the performance on my phone. The last time it turned out not so great.

China Central National Orchestra

Thursday (2011/12/08) was a long day at work. I was excited all day long to meet Liu Qing at the Beijing Concert Hall at 7pm. She said she had an extra ticket she could let me have. (Woohoo!) Since I had never been to the concert hall before, I let myself have some extra time to get there, and ended up arriving at 6:30 instead. Liu Qing was still on the road, so I waited outside in the below freezing temperature for her to get there.

She showed up promptly at 7pm and gave me the extra ticket. (I had no idea they were selling them for 280 RMB.) I got a program and went inside the hall to sit down and warm up. The Concert hall is a fairly nice size. I snapped a couple slightly blurry pictures with my phone.

Horizontal view of Concert Hall

Vertical view of Concert Hall

Before too long, Liu Qing’s husband came down the aisle I was sitting in along with a couple of people I hadn’t met before. One was an aunt of Liu Qing, and the other is a guy named Xu Ning. He is a graduate of the China Conservatory, and a former student of Liu Qing. He majored in Dizi, but now works as a music reporter for a magazine.

Since this was the first time I had a chance to see Liu Qing or her husband, I brought along the Summer Thunder CD and the April 2011 concert DVD. During the intermission, I passed them to Liu Qing’s husband, who showed them to Xu Ning and Liu Qing’s aunt. They got a great kick out of seeing so many foreigners playing Chinese music (from the pictures on the CD cover). Xu Ning mentioned that he misses playing Chinese music, so we chatted some about getting together to play. Maybe there is a Summer Thunder Beijing branch in the future? I’ll keep you posted.

The concert was a combination of the China Conservatory Associated Middle School and the Xi’an Conservatory Associated Middle School students. (I can’t believe they were all junior high school students.) Nevertheless, they sounded really quite good. I scanned the program cover and content for those of you that read Chinese.

List of pieces played in the Concert

The first piece is the one composed by Liu Qing. It features the Zhong Hu, and it seems that it is becoming a favorite piece for many performances. I think that speaks a lot to her composition since she is relatively young among Chinese composers. The first two pieces were played by a group made up of only the bowed instruments (erhu, zhonghu, gaohu, cello and bass, along with percussion). The next two were performed by the plucked instruments. The last set were performed by the full group. That was pretty amazing to hear. One of the pieces even featured a guqin! They had a cool box amplifier hooked to a microphone that made it so that the audience could hear the guqin. I’m going to keep an eye out for that next time I’m rummaging around the instrument district. It would be an awesome gift for Paul.

Before the start of the Concert

Plucked Instrument Configuration

I managed to record some of the pieces on the phone. Keep in mind that it is recorded by a phone microphone, so the quality isn’t the best. But at least you can get an idea of the pieces they performed.

Cigarra-a-Forma (1st piece)

Er Quan Ying Yue

He Feng Qu (First Plucked piece)

Zou Xi Kou (Second Plucked piece)

First Piece of 2nd Half

Every year, IBM in Beijing has a Chinese New Year party/concert. They rent some really big hall and ask IBMers for content for the show. So when the emails went around recently asking for volunteers for the show, I submitted my name for something on the erhu. When I went for the interview, they said that I was the only person out of the 4000-5000 IBMers to submit a Chinese Traditional musical performance.

So, they’d like me to play Sai Ma (赛马) since it is upbeat, as well as a more modern piece, Jasmine Flower (茉莉花). They’d like to record the piece beforehand in case of “technical difficulties” during the performance. They said that there will be an audience of around 8000 people (IBMers and their families), so just in case, you know. (Holy crap!)

Sai Ma is really best with Yang qin accompaniment. I called Ping to see if she would be available on January 14, 2012. She said sure, as long as I buy the plane ticket. So, I got the phone number of the China Conservatory composition professor I met last year, Liu Qing, from my friend and gave her a call.

I just heard from her that she’s gotten in touch with a student and given them my phone number. So I look forward to meeting and playing with them soon. Also, when I called Liu Qing yesterday, since it had been a week with no news, she apologized for not getting back to me sooner because she’s been busy preparing for another concert of her composition.

The concert is going to be this Thursday (2011/12/08) at the Beijing Concert Hall and will be music performed by the China National Orchestra (chinacno.org). She said she’ll get me a ticket if I’m interested in going. (YES!) I’ll post later after the concert. I’m really looking forward to it.

I wanted Ma Yan to get a good Gu Zheng while we are here in China. So, this Saturday, as she didn’t want to go to the computer city to shop, I suggested that we go look at gu zhengs. I searched for Gu Zheng store and found a couple of places. I went with the one that said they were a Gu Zheng factory outlet. The store was also near the Hou Hai area in Beijing.

Man! When we got to the store, it turned out that the whole street there sold musical instruments! We just drove down that street last weekend going to the bookstore further south. I never even noticed the instrument stores there. (Although, when driving in China, I don’t look around much at the scenery. I’m usually focusing on not hitting someone and avoiding other accidents.) The street is called Xin Jie Kou Nan Da jie. The burst of instrument stores is between Xi Zhi Men Nei Da jie and Di An Men Xi Da jie.

Instrument stores

So, the store we went to turned out to be a small hole-in-the-wall place (as most of them are.) But all they sold were Gu Zhengs. They were an outlet for Gu Zhengs from the Tian Yun Gu Zheng factory. The owner of the store came down to play some of the instruments for us so we could hear how they sounded. Ma Yan hasn’t played in so long, she is pretty rusty.

Gu Zheng Outlet Store

Gu Zheng Outlet Store - Inside

We ended up getting one made out of Purple Sandalwood, the same wood that high quality erhus are made out of. It’s very pretty, and has a really great sound. The shop owner delivered it last night, and Ma Yan is pretty excited to have it here. It’s looking like we might have to start our own ensemble here. At least we’ve got two instruments.

Gu Zheng 1

Gu Zheng 2

While Ma Yan was inside the store with the owner as they were setting up the sandalwood Gu Zheng, I took a short walk up and down the street to see what else the stores had. I came across one store that sold Gu Qins. In there the guy had a Gu Qin table. He said it sold for 750 RMB. It can come apart and pack up. I gotta figure out some way to get it back to the States for Paul. The store owner was pretty friendly. Maybe someday soon, I’ll head back to hang out and chat some more. Who knows? I might even get another Gu Qin and take some more lessons. It would be nice to play again.

Gu Qin Store

My friend sent me a text message last night, saying, “Would you like to go to a Concert tomorrow night?” My response; “Totally. Well, let me as Ma Yan about it.” It turns out that the Chinese Conservatory of music is having a week of performances, this week. (Unfortunately, I have to work and they are mostly during the day.)

Anyway, the concert this evening was the second in a celebration of the 10 year anniversary of the introduction of the Piano program at the Conservatory. As part of the celebration, tonight’s performance was all pieces composed for piano duet. The second of which was composed by the professor of composition/friend Liu Qing (刘青）.  It was called 霓裳羽衣幻想趣 (Ni Shang Yu Yi Huan Xiang Qu). I think as part of the introduction, she said that she took elements from ancient China as well as India for the composition. I’m sad to say that I didn’t hear them.

Concert Program

Music Hall

On the positive side, Aiden did really well for a 4 year-old in a concert environment. We only stayed until the intermission, but I am really proud of him being so good and not making noise and being generally naughty.

When my friend asked me if I wanted to go to a concert tonight as one of the pieces was composed by Liu Qing, whom I had met last year, I was honestly expecting some erhu, or at least a Pipa. But it was fine. At least I got to go past the front gates of the school. I hadn’t been brave enough so far to do that the times I’ve ridden my bike down there.

For this whole week, they’ve been having a whole festival. I’m sad that I’ve missed as much as I have so far. Also, many of the performances are during the day. (Makes sense since they are a school, and aren’t doing anything else during the day.) Using my poor Chinese, I read the big sign outside saying that there was another performance at the same time, put on by the wind and string department (管弦系）。I assumed that I was going to hear some erhu and dizi music. However, when I got to the hall, it was a string quartet with two violins, a viola and a cello playing!

Still hunting for the Traditional Chinese music. Someday my dream will come true.

Work sent me down to Shanghai for a two day conference at the Renaissance Shanghai Yu Yuan Garden hotel.  The afternoon that I checked in, I came out of my room to hear the nice sounds of Yang Qin. Down in the lobby were two young ladies, dressed in Chinese garb, one playing Yangqin, the other playing Pipa. It was like seeing Paul and Andrew out playing at the tea house, except female and pretty.

So, I hustled downstairs to the lobby and approached the Yangqin player during a break in between pieces. I asked if she took requests. When I asked if they could play Huan Le Ge, or some of those more traditional tea house pieces, she said that they needed their music for that kind of hard piece. They were playing without music stands and music.

Needless to say, she was pretty surprised to hear that I knew those pieces of music by name. She said it was the first time a hotel guest had approached her with deep knowledge of the music like that. I finally got to one that was simple enough for them to know by memory, Cai Yun Zhui Yue. I got a short poor recording of it on my phone. Cai Yun Zhui Yue in the Hotel Lobby. She said that they mostly play the simpler songs like Gao Shan Qing, Ao Bao Xiang Hui, and Gao Tian Shang Liu Yun at the Hotel gig.

The next day they were playing again, although in the morning, they had a Dizi player instead of the Pipa player. I was busy with the conference, so I didn’t have a chance to chat then. But later in the evening, before dinner, I caught them in the Lobby again and the Pipa player was back. This time, I was free of responsibilities, so I sat and listened to them more. During one of their breaks, I talked with Tingting, the Yangqin player more.

The hotel gig is a side thing for them, as they have other day jobs. They knew each other from when they were in music school together. I asked if they got together each week to practice the stuff they would play in the Hotel Lobby, but she said no. (Hence no music stands, and no higher difficulty pieces.) They basically just know all these smaller pieces and folk songs from school, and due to their music education, they can just meet up and play.

I told her that was kind of a shame, as one of my favorite parts of Summer Thunder is seeing everyone each week and playing music in a social setting (as opposed to a performance setting). I told her about Summer Thunder, and I think she wasn’t quite sure what to think of what I was saying. (You never know whether people are exaggerating or not.) I asked if she would like to see some video of us playing.

They went back to playing, and I went and got my laptop from the room. I’m glad I copied the videos from our April 2011 concert to my PC a couple of months ago. (They went over really big at work. People were really amazed. One by the fact that we had foreigners in the group, and two that we sounded pretty decent.)

Once they finished up their gig, around dinner time, the Pipa player left, but Tingting stayed to chat. She was amazed that we put on a 2 hour long concert. I played Su Di Man Bu for her, since she wasn’t familiar with the newer pieces like Gan Hui, Jun Zi Lan. She wasn’t familiar with Su Di Man Bu either, but it’s a nice piece and also has Ma Yan playing the Gu Zheng in it. She also wanted to hear our version of Sai Ma, too, and I finally gave in.

It was nice chatting with her, and hearing live music again. We exchanged phone numbers, with her saying that she and her family were thinking of coming up to Beijing in October. Who knows? Maybe we’ll hear more from Tingting.

The Saturday evening I was in Shanghai for the conference, I had some free time after dinner. I didn’t feel like being a bum and just staying in my hotel room, watching TV. So I took a walk to the Shanghai Music Bookstore on Fu Zhou road. It wasn’t too bad of a walk. (Not as far as Nanjing road. It’s been years since I’ve been there.

Actually, it turns out that the bookstore I’ve been to most often (and bought Chinese Traditional Music books at), is not the music bookstore after all. It’s a bookstore just next door to the music bookstore. (I didn’t make it into that store this time, though.) Anyway, I checked out the music bookstore and picked up a couple of books of ensemble music. (Making progress to own all of the Chinese Ensemble books in existence!) Just kidding Ma Yan!