A Journey Through Time
Sunday, March 26, 2023 15:00 EST
PROGRAMME
1st hour> Qin Playing starting 3 pm
Peiyou Chang’s « opening speech.»
Today’s yaji is entitled A Journey Through Time. This is because we will have qin music from the 15th century to the 21st century. And from qin solo, to qin accompanied with xiao bamboo flute to Electronic music with Qin. After each performance, we will open to Q&A. You are also welcome to use the chat room to leave any comments or questions. We are recording today’s yaji with YT live streaming (https://www.youtube.com/live/gesqIL08bYI?feature=share&t=71) . Now we will start the yaji.
First is our vice president Andre Ribeiro. Da Hu Jia from Shenqi Mipu has a total 18 sections. Today, Andre will introduce us the first 8 sections. In our April yaji, Andre will give us a further discussion of this piece.
1. André Ribeiro 《大胡笳》 from 神奇秘譜 (1425) The Nomad Reed Pipe, sections 1 to 8. (18 minutes including Q&A)
Live Stream of André’s talk and music : https://www.youtube.com/live/gesqIL08bYI?feature=share&t=187
Good afternoon! Today, for this 3rd Yaji, I will play the eight sections of Da Hu Jia, highlighting some rhythmic features, which I perceive as a constant relation between groups based on four beats and rhythmic groups based on three. The first (four beats) has strong or sharpened accents, while the second has a soft, rounded one. For example, here:
(playing a few notes)
I fitted these notes into three beats, making them sound more rounded. In this way, it shows me the necessity of emphasizing those rhythmic differences as an alternative to playing the music sections creating more balance. More balance rhythmic differences mean more freedom to develop internal contrasts and to provide interest in an extended performance such as this.
2. Peiyou Chang 《長亭怨慢》 Qin Song, Lament of Departure. Song dynasty poet, Jiang Kui’s lyrics and melody. Yuan Jung Ping’s Qin composition. 姜夔詞曲. 袁中平古琴編曲 (18 minutes)
Live Stream of Peiyou’s talk and music: https://www.youtube.com/live/gesqIL08bYI?feature=share&t=1272
The melody and lyrics were composed by Song dynasty poet and musician, Jiang Kui 姜夔. Arranged for Qin by Mr. Yuan Jung-ping 袁中平 in the early 2000’s. I will introduce a little bit about Jiang Kui 姜夔. JK was living from (1155-1209), his courtesy name is Yaozhang 堯章, nicknamed Baishi Daoren (Whitestone Daoist 白石道人,) he was from Poyang, Jiangxi Province 江西鄱陽. Many or us already know that the earliest survived qin tablature is 幽蘭. The earliest survived qin tablature with lyrics to sing is the qin song, Gu Yuan 古怨, (Larment of Antiquity) which was composed by Jiang Kui. And that is the only survived qin tablature from JK.
Jiang Kui was proficient in rhythm. There are 17 famous Ci 詞 songs composed by him and this Chang Ting Yuan Man is one of them. These 17 Ci songs have survived with the 宋俗字譜 Song dynasty Gongche notation which indicated the musical notes. (for more info, you can visit John Thompson’s website http://www.silkqin.com/05poet/jkgequ.htm)
Jiang Kui liked to use refined words and sentences, to pursue a quiet and deep artistic concept. He occasionally used obscure sentences, and loved to use allusions, metaphors and associations. His poetry sometimes revealed his emotions about current events, and more lamenting his wandering life experience and frustrations in love. In the beginning of this video, you will read the preface (pre-fe-se) written by JK in Chinese and in English. The English translation was written by the late ethnomusicologist Lawrence Picken (1909 – 2007) from England.
My husband is an American, and Chinese is not his native language. His singing in Chinese in this video was basically following Mr. Yuan Jung-ping’s singing style. Hope you enjoy our presentation.
Please watch https://youtu.be/vEdn-ZsgeHg
3. Guest, Hugo Molina 《一拜天地》 Worship heaven and earth marriage (18 minutes)
Live Stream of Hugo’s music: https://www.youtube.com/live/gesqIL08bYI?feature=share&t=2571
Hugo Molina is a 46-year-old musician and geography teacher from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. With a degree in social sciences, Hugo has dedicated himself to educating young people while pursuing his passion for music. He has a background in playing clarinet and Brazilian viola and has recently begun exploring the Xiao flute. In 2020, he started studying guqin under the guidance of André Ribeiro and has since become an active member of the Guqin Brazil Association.
Hugo is one of André Ribeiro’s first students. André introduced that as a trained musician with the finest ear training, Hugo can absorb the melody by a YouTube audio re-creating it with suitable fingerings.
2dn hour> Qin Talk starting 4 pm
« Announcing the keynote speakers. »
After hearing qin solo music and qin song, Now we will have our guest Coral Liang introduce us to The main forms of ensemble playing Guqin and Xiao and their specific performance techniques. Coral participated in our last month yaji and played a very beautiful xiao flute piece 平沙落雁.
4. Guest, Coral Liang « The main forms of ensemble playing Guqin and Xiao and their specific performance techniques. » (30 minutes including Q&A)
Live Stream of Coral’s talk: https://www.youtube.com/live/gesqIL08bYI?feature=share&t=3338
Coral owns a music studio, 弦月琴箫 Coral Studio! Which is located in the heart of
Chinatown of San Francisco, California. Coral studied with qin professor and revered
scholar, Dr Mingmei Yip. In addition to the guqin, Coral is gifted in the guzheng and
Chinese woodwinds as xiao and the dizi.
關山月 琴蕭與朗讀 Moon over Guan Mountain
寒山僧蹤 琴蕭演奏 Cold Mountain, Trace of the monk
Coral Liang Studio on Youtube https://www.youtube.com/@coralstudiosf
Electronic Qin Music
5. Ralph Knag « Echos: Qin and Computer and Friends » (20 minutes)
Please listen “Derivado” https://soundcloud.com/gustavodezzuto
Live Stream of Ralph’s talk: https://www.youtube.com/live/gesqIL08bYI?feature=share&t=5679
6. Guest, Gabby Wen 文怡 « Creating Electronic Music With Qin. » (30 minutes)
Live Stream of Gabby’s performance https://www.youtube.com/live/gesqIL08bYI?feature=share&t=6693
Gabby Wen is an artist who mainly works with sound in the form of improvisation and composition, focusing on the immediate corporal response to each sonic event, intentional or accidental, audible or inaudible, of its evolving/decaying physical existence and manifestation in time during playing. Born in Toisan, raised in Shenzhen, and living in Oakland, Gabby’s works draw influences from early synthesizer music, Japanoise, music and rituals of various traditions, and naturally occurring or industrially induced polyrhythms. Gabby continues to develop a body of work combining synthesis, field recording, and guqin playing. (https://www.gabriellawen.com/)
Thanks to today’s performers, Andre, Hugo, Coral, Ralph, and Gabby who brought us a diversity of interesting music and talk. That’s the end of Today’s program. Our next yaji will be on April 23 and we will focus on guqin dapu and musical modes. Our member Bin Li will talk about 側弄 (A category of guqin tuning mode) and our vice president Andre will talk about his Da Hu Jia dapu focusing on Time and Perception. Please stay tuned. Thank you all again. Good night.
Notes on Chat
Free Audio Rack Software https://vcvrack.com/
Some other links:
Reaper https://www.reaper.fm/
Audacity https://www.audacityteam.org/
Some free Virtual Studio Technology (VST) https://www.reaper.fm/reaplugs/
Karl Berger https://creativemusic.org/musicmind/
Lawrence P Kaster on #SoundCloud https://on.soundcloud.com/QJUbo
Attendance
Hugo Molina Pimentel, André Ribeiro, Coral Liang, Gabby Wen, Andrea Lioy, Esmie Herrero, Mingmei Yip, Matthew Flannery, João Oliveira, Lawrence Kaster, Michael Bretti. Juni Yeung. Stephen Dydo, Peiyou Chang, Ralph Knag, Daniel Sutter, Mandy Zostek, Tie Liu. Jean Huang, Char Chi Teng, Philipp Mierka, Dan Reid, Didi Ananda Sushila, Sue Fawn Chung, Mingyu Chen
Total 2.5 hours
Documentation: Peiyou Chang