Meet Theresa from California

10/16/2015 meet Theresa Wong (黃天欣 ) from California. She reminds me of Jun Wang, a friend from SF, they looked alike. My mother's English name is also very similar to Theresa Wong, so I have special impression to this visiter. Theresa is a cellist, composer, vocalist, and Multi instrumentalist.  We talked about how I become interested in the Guqin. I explained a little bit of Qin tablature to her and played Xiao Xiang for her. She recognized this piece from my CD that I had recorded 9 years ago. 9 years ago I was playing metal string, but now I am playing silk string and I play xiao xiang differently now. 

She was touching the qin in front of her and talked a little bit about her partner's experimental music work which was making a room as an instrument itself. Theresa used the qin as a proportion example that people in that room is like very small things next to the guqin.  She said her partner uses very thin bronze and steel strings to create sound. Both strings have same thickness, but create two tones that is about 3 degrees difference, such as mi to do. 

Theresa used her right middle finger to pluck the string at the same time creating harmonics by using her right thumb touches the string. She likes the two tones sliding sound that happened while sliding. It is caused by one side of the string that is longer and the other side of the string is shorter from the pressing down point. I did not know what caused the two tones until today, although I always hear them while playing. 

We talked about improvisation, my composed pieces...

Time goes too fast, 2pm to 4pm just went by. I walked her to Rahway train station and we talked more about singing practicing. I hope I can learn singing soon. But I do not want to learn opera singing or pup music singing. I want to be able to really sing with my nature voice and with qin playing... 

(I am glad I still have things I want to do... learning qin making and learning singing.) 

Very nice to meet a new friend from different field but has similar interests ... music, and the guqin...

10/1/2015 琴家雅集

John tried out MH, Suxin, and Tobaya silk strings

John and Shuengit checking out the silk string.

Cap of Qin Master, belongs to the qin master John Thompson.

We ordered Chinese food in and Jiawei came over after class to join us.

Stephen took this photo. It was really an unusual gathering. Because of Shuengit's trip from Paris to NJ to Toronto, and thanks to John couple drove her up to Binghamton NY, we all can have this wonderful chance to gathered together. 

Jiawei plays Pin Shua Luo Yian 平沙落雁. 

We had very nice chat and qin playing. I played Xiao Xiang 瀟湘水雲 from Wumen Qinpu吳門琴譜 earlier, then we chat about silk strings. Later John played Xiao Xiang as well from SQMP神奇秘譜. John also played Taitsu Yi 太簇意 and sing and played Feng Qiu Huang 鳳求凰. Jiawei also sing and played Yang Guan 陽關三疊. She caught a cold but her voice sounded more attractive to me. 

The next morning, Stephen and I accompanied with John and Suzanne to the nature preserve park in Binghamton University, we jog about an hour and saw the beautiful fall colors starting coming into our neck of woods.

Mid autumn full moon pleasant night 中秋月下良宵

Everyone wear Hanfu 著漢服

酒樽

滿月忽隱忽現

良宵引 Song of a Pleasant Night Qin Playing

關山月 Moon Over Guan Mountain Qin playing and singing

蒙古族姑娘月下琵琶半遮面

At the Recreation Park of Binghamton NY

主祭官唸禱詞 (Photographer Lenny Guo)

禱詞 (Calligraphy done by a friend of Jiawei)

主祭官上香 (Photographer Lenny Guo)

與會全體人員(Photographer Lenny Guo)

9/27/2015 I was invited to the Southern Tier New York Chinese Culture Club Mid Autumn Festival.

This club is established by Miss Jiawei Mao, and its organization and activity are brand new, very meaningful. I am grateful to be invited and learned something new. The whole moon ceremony went very smooth which is not so easy to get. Jiawei and friends really did a good job. Thanks.

早在周朝，帝王就有春分祭日、夏至祭地、秋分祭月、冬至祭天的習俗。 《禮記》中記載：“天子春朝日，秋夕月。朝日以朝，夕月以夕。”描述了中國古代帝王春天祭日、秋天祭月的禮制。

Moon ceremony can be found in ancient Chinese documents that as early as Zhou Dynasty (1046-256 BCE), emperors worship to Sun in the spring time, to Earth in the summer time, to Moon in the autumn and to Heaven in the winter time.  

月屬陰 因此祭月均由女性執行 

Moon is "Yin" therefore the execution of the moon ceremony has to be done by female.

8/30/2015 qin yaji to remember Alan Berkowitz

Alan's 王鵬倣斷紋琴 and 張建華琴. Both strung with silk stings. 

Alan's qin made by 李明忠, strung with metal strings. 

People who attend this gathering were:

Host: John and Suzanne

Peiyou and Stephen From Vestal NY

Hongmei from NJ

Lucie and James from NJ

Juni from Toronto

We (John, me and Juni) all played Zhao Yin 招隱 (Seeking a Lofty Recluse) to pay our respect and memory to Alan. Three of us play the same piece but with three different personalities. John later played 梅稍月, Ming dynasty 秋風辭, 神奇秘譜流水. Peiyou also played 流水, (管平湖版), Juni played 孔子讀易 on Alan's metal string LMZ qin. 

Meeting after, we all walked to the river side to enjoy the view of Manhattan and Hudson River.