心曠神怡 Refreshing

12/27/2013
心怡從New Heaven 來到Rahway NJ
天冷屋暖
下了大碗泡麵配烤炸麵包粉魚
心怡拿著我毀了半個音的琴簫
吹了起來
雖然一個音孔被我移了位
她還是吹的很好聽

又彈了兩床繕維斲的琴
說彈這琴確實可感覺到斲琴者的獨特風範
心怡愛不釋手

我聽心怡彈琴
感覺琴聲如其人
她的琴聲會讓人感到愉悅
像是聽一個鄰家女孩兒天真浪漫自由歡快地在音符間遊玩穿梭

她彈了自學的成公亮先生創作的袍修羅蘭之水



As her name, her playing is very refreshing. :)

以琴會友Helen Yang

Very nice to meet Helen from Bejing and listen her qin made by Zhang Yiqiu from Beijing, a well made qin. Also listen her story from Beijing where I've always want to visit but have not get a chance yet. Her story filled some empty spots in my heart. Her qin strung with metal string, sounded pretty loud. Helen said that her qin on my qin table sound even louder. I can hear the exceedingly sound stay pretty long which sometimes interferes upcoming sound. I compare this qin with my 'meditation mind' silk string qin and realized that no wonder some people who used to play metal string cannot stand silk string and they would say that couldn't hear the silk string. I realized that their ears must have already used to such loud and long exceeding sound. So lower than that level, hard to hear. 

After couple hours chatting with Helen, I decided to change her qin to silk string, and I did. The result was very satisfying. We both like the sound came out of her qin very much.  

昨日寒冷, Helen的造訪溫暖許多

雖讓她在惡劣的氣候下等候火車多時感到有些不好意思

但整個下午的暢談讓彼此心中都溫暖不少

聽她說著北京的故事

讓我這一直嚮往著北京卻尚無緣一遊的心填補了些許空虛

她帶著北京張以秋斲的鋼絲絃琴來

我彈的手感挺不錯就是聲音很響亮

餘韻很長, 長到會干擾到接下來的出音

這在絲絃琴上絕對感覺不到的

我又彈了我的靜心絲絃琴

頓然瞭解到為什麼有彈鋼絲絃的琴友說聽不到靜心的聲音

那是在已經習慣於像這樣的鋼絲絃的琴聲的耳朵

便無法聽得見比其聲小許多的聲音

兩個小時的自在彈琴談琴之後我決定幫Helen的琴換上絲絃

結果另我們倆都很滿意

絲絃柔和了許多本來的火氣

也還是可以聽的很清楚

我又再次肯定自己為什麼那麼鍾愛絲絃的聲音

Black Friday, try out Suxin 素心絲絃 silk string at John's

Suxin silk string

Suxin silk string

After Thanksgiving day, there is always a lot of left over food. So we bought half our turkey to John and Suzanne's at the Black Friday night, had dinner with them and also tried out Geng's Suxin silk string. We had to do some 乾坤大挪移, John took the silk strings out from Geng's qin and put back on his own qin. I took the Suxin silk strings out from John's qin and  put them on my meditation mind. I took tobaya silk string out from my meditation mind, and put aside. Last when I finished testing the Suxin silk string, I took them down and put them back onto Geng's qin and put my Tobaya back onto my qin.

Tobaya silk string on my qin sound very elegant and bright. Suxin silk string on my qin sound very rich and nice, except the 1st and 3rd string has problem with glue. I tune them to C D F G A C D. no problem to make the 7th string to D. They seems pretty strong. :)

黑色星期五的晚, 人們忙著搶購打折品, 我與先生帶著大半隻吃不完的火雞及蘋果派, 兩瓶葡萄酒, 兩罐Häagen-Dazs冰淇淋, 我的靜心琴就跑去唐世璋跟夫人的家, 順便專心試試王耕推廣的素心絲絃. 試絃得乾坤大挪移, John 把耕琴上的絃換回他自己的琴, 我把John琴上的素心換到我的靜心, 試完了再放回耕的琴.  素心在靜心上聲音明顯與鳥羽屋在靜心上不同,鳥羽屋的聲音很高雅清亮, 素心有種樸厚飽滿, 風格截然不同. 我很輕易就把素心上到標準音高. 是很強軔的絃. 唯一還需要改善的是一三絃有脫膠的問題, 三弦聲音出不來, 一絃有一點點脫膠後產生的雜音. 除此之外非常滿意. 希望素心能克服這上面的問題.

Nov 27 2013, 四個女人的雅集 4 women's yaji

Jin is a new qin friend from Beijing visiting NY at this moment. Jun is from San Francisco visiting family in NY at this moment. I arranged this yaji for us to meet each other plus Hongmei who just lives next town of me. 4 women had really free and uplifted talk with qin playing. 

君從三藩市來紐約過感恩節, 瑾從北京來美國度假, 我就安排了大家來我家小聚

紅梅住的不遠, 吆喝一聲便來了, 四個女人在一起天馬行空

We talked from yi-jing to reincarnation to criminal law to chemical and to qin playing technique... There were 2 seconds black out while I was playing and singing Zhao Yin. Jun said every time she visit me, there is something surprising. Last time was a silk string break from no reason.  This time was a 2 seconds see nothing. Were these phenomenon mean anything? Yes, they do if we give them a meaning. Mine is that it's time for me to retreat myself. I have not seriously practicing my qin playing for a while and I need to work hard again now. :) 

我們從易經談到輪迴,談到犯罪法案,談到化學,談到彈琴. 就在我們彈琴時有兩秒的停電, 我正在彈唱招隱. 君說上次她來訪也遇特殊現象, 琴絃無故斷了, 這次電也無故斷了, 這現象是否再告訴我們什麼? 如果你覺得有就有, 我以為它在告訴我該閉閉關好好練琴了. 我很久沒有認真練琴了:)

Nice to meet you all. Jin's 泛滄浪 gave us very nice impression. It is her piece we feel.  

很高興四個女人聚會, 瑾的泛滄浪給我們映像深刻, 是屬於她的琴曲.

Nov 24, 2013 a guqin event to welcome John and Suzanne home from Singapore and Geng Wang's silk talk

One of John's qin has very old silk string and the 1st string almost smooth like nylon string.

丸三橋本silk string

陳高手說他的古琴是自學, 可看起來是有更高人指點過才是, 要不他真的是奇人, 天才. 其琴風氣韻彷彿一武功高強之深藏不露, 一點毫無緊張, 我在他之前彈, 彈完自己還緊張半天身體發抖, 聽他一曲瀟湘確讓我平靜了下來, 不抖了, 只有他的琴聲有這本事.Ace Cheng said that he taught himself guqin playing, however I think he must had advised by some other ace. Otherwise he is a true genius. His style of qin playing is like a master who has very good gong-fu and not showy, not nervous at all. I played before him, and I was still nervous after performed. When I heard his playing of Xiao Xiang, it calm me down totally, and so far only his qin playing has this magic power to calm me down in public, I have to say.

very good silk string from German for violin bought by Geng Wang. 

前些日子不才說什麼長江後浪推前浪, 年輕琴人輩出, 今秋感受特別強烈,卻有一種欣喜, 一點也不覺自己會死在沙灘上, 哈哈~ Did we just said the Chinese idem: "the river waves behind drive on those before? (so each new generation excels the last one)" I have such strong feeling now at this fall. Not that I feel I will die in front of the beach, but I am very happy to see those new waves showing up.

Pipa player Zhou-yi also tried Geng's new silk string 素心絲絃

Silk string pipa really bought me back to Tang Dynasty I feel. 

Afternoon of Nov 17, 2013 took Sunwei to visit NY Meian Qin School

The evening of Nov 16, 2013 bamboo night 當竹琴遇到竹蕭尺八

Bamboo qin and bamboo flute the Shakyhachi are the best match.

Both first met each other and played improvisation on the instruments made by themselves.  

To listen their improvisation:

Peiyou also tried a short piece impro with Glenn. A wonderful experience.

To listen our improvisation: 

當竹琴遇到竹蕭尺八, 那是非常迷人的夜晚