This is a page dedicated to the beautiful and wonderful traditional music of Southeast Asia!
Where do I find more? here...
Ingo Stoevesandt
studied classical piano in Bremen, Germany. After finishing his studies he went to Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia to start his personal research of the traditional music of South East Asia. After returning to Germany he started researching and presenting this music on his homepage
www.musicofasia.info
The following page intends to connect as many people as possible who are engaged into this fascinating music. It is the possibility to create a network for musicians, composers, researchers and investigators, to inform about the musical instruments used within and to preserve the beauty of cultural developments which are thousands of years old but still alive today.
Each artist connected will be invited to share the network here or on
www.musicofasia.info
Thank you for visiting my page!
THE GUZHENG
"Begegnung":
A little improvisation with radio talk master Windy Jacob who plays the frame drum. His weekly radio show called "therapeutisches Radio" (though it is not therapeutical but just playing very nice music) sometimes hosts me as a guest, so I bring up one of my instruments, talk about its origin and we always improvise a short tune together. In this improvisation we try to create a kind of American Country / Asian classic mix. Maybe you discover the famous melody of the Chinese "plum blossom theme" in the midlle, this is meant to be a joke and shouldn't harm this beautiful classical tune.
After meeting some weekends in the last year we decided to put on some tracks on a CD, which is titled "Begegnung" and contains 6 of our improvisations.
Order the CD "Begegnung" now!
If you are looking for some chilling and relaxing music, you shouldn't miss this wonderwulf CD!
The warm and harp-like sound of the Guzheng perfectly fits to the minimal beats and singing of the frame drum.
Send me a message for further information who to get this CD!
The zither I play in here is the famous big Guzheng from China, a zither with 21 chords tuned in a pentatonic scale based on D. For more information and pictures of this instrument please visit my homepage indicated below!
THE QIN
The GuQin or simply Qin ("gu" stands for "old") is one of the oldest instruments of the world which is still played today. It dates back to the age of Confucius and beyond, thus being nearly 3000 years old. Until today the Qin is played by the intellectual elite in order to meditate and raise selfdiscipline.
The music of the Qin was notated very early in a special script language which only few are able to read today. This is why we know literature for this instrument that dates back over two thousand years.
The Qin was never made as a "show" case or ensemble instrument.
The Qin is played for private ears only and require a highly trained listener to understand this music.
Each instrument carries his personal name (mine is called "nine clouds start to circle") which indicates that this instrument is more than a musical tool, it has to be respected like a person. The owners name and a personal poem are also carved into the instruments body, so that this instrument belongs clearly to the owner and is not to be played by anybody else.
The music of the Qin is very low, the sound is not able to compete with louder instruments so it is just rarely played in company with a Xioa flute but mostly performed solo.
The seven chords of the QIN are tuned in a pentatonic scale:
C_D_F_G_A_c_d
There are also tunes which require to retune the Qin, but the scale mentioned above is the most common tunig.
On the body of the Qin 13 marks made of mother of pearl indicate the position of the harmonics. The right hand plucks the strings while the left hand pushes or slides. Each finger position and each way of moving a finger knows its own symbol. This way, every movement and playing technique is prescripted. If you do not want to improvise and want to play an old Qin tune, you will soon find how difficult it is to play this instrument!
Normally, each Qin tune starts with the free chords (sounds of earth), followed by pressed or slided chords (sounds of human) and ends in the soft sound of the harmonics (sounds of heaven). This beautiful picture easily explains the intention of ancient Chinese music: The human player transfers the sound of earth into heaven...
About the music you hear
"Jiu Kuang":
This piece is a very common tune which is often played by beginners (like me). The title means something like "wine drunkeness" which you easily can hear from the music.
Like always I have to point out that I am an amateur and no professional player. I know that many people play this tune very fast, but in my opinion this is not authentical.
There are two reasons why I play it so slow:
The original score (like all Qin literature) does not give any rhythmical advice. There is no rhythmical notation in the old Qin music, so it is up to the players interpretation how fast or slow to perform a tune. In this tune, the repetition of the basic note F is often misunderstood as in resulting in a "dance beat", but this music never seemed to be dance music. Most people play this tune in the same way and tempo, not trying to bring in their own imagination.
Titles are program in Chinese music. It has been a while since I drank alcohol, but I remember that being drunk from wine surely results in a lack of body movement control. So, if this music pictures somebody drunk, the rhythm should also show that and "stumble" forth. Anyaway, I think playing along a Qin with a Metronome is not what the intention of this music is about.
I would love to hear a "drunken" and slow version performed by a Qin master, as my playing skills are not so good and I just started practising the Qin half a year ago.
THE KAYAGUM
The Kayagum of Korea is a follower of the Chinese zither Guzheng (see below). It is the center of rich playing styles and traditions in Korea, such as the famous "Sanjo" style in which a cylindrical drum accompanies the Kayagum. A smaller version of this zither is called "Ajaeng", played with a bow and knows 8 strings instead of twelve.
The twelve strings normally get tuned in a special pentatonic scale:
F-B-c-f-b-c1-d1-d1-f1-g1-b1-c2-d2
I prefered to retune the instrument for my improvisation to a more "Japanese" version, mixing it with some characteristic semitones. Of course, this is not the traditional scale but my own invention, and it is also the great advantage of zithers in common to fit every tuning the player or composer prefers.
THE SAUNG
The famous arched harp from Myanmar maybe provides a link back to the ancient harps of Mesopotamia. It took me more than a year to find somebody in Myanmar who helped me to get in contact with an old manufacturer, and less than 7 months later I was happy to recieve my tuneable model. This harp is the main instrument of the traditional chamber music in Myanmar, and is normaly accompanied by the clappers "si" and "wa", which are in the hands of the vocalist and provide the basic patterns for each chapter. There are about seven common tunings of the harp, which are outstanding not only by using quarter tone steps but also by presenting the only modal use of scales besides Vietnam and India in Southeast Asia. To make the improvisation on Myspace more easy, I used my own tuning, reflecting a pentatonic scale.
THE NGUYET
The Nguyet is a long necked lute with deep frets from Vietnam. Due to its body shape, one can translate the name to "moon lute". It is a famous solo instrument and resembles many of the long necked lutes in Southeast Asia, like the "Dan Day" in Vietnam or the "Chapey" in Cambodia. In the Vietnamese chamber music tradition "hat a dao" this kind of lutes accompany the female vocalist. Actually the Nguyet is alos performed solo, and the deep frets provide the possibility of rich ornamentations which are common in the Vietnamese music. Nevertheless, due to my missing skills I decided to play an easy improvisation with a repeating melody and bypassing the difficult ornamentation techniques. I will record a traditional song later and put it up here on Myspace...
THE PIPA
Me performing on the Chinese four stringed lute Pipa.
The Pipa is an ancient instrument which immigrated to China in the second century before our time. It is farely relevant to the Persian lute Oud and the European guitar, but it has no big sound box and no resonating holes. The instrument is just solid, made of one piece of wood and knows 24 frets today. The four chords are tuned A-D-E-a which creates the typical harmonic with a second included, thus being remarkable for the Pipa music. The Pipa music often opens the ears of western audiences for classical Chinese music, as the intense use of melodical phrases reflecting programmatic titles pleases both Western and Asian ears.
These are my first recordings, please let me know what you think - Thank you!
For more information about my instruments please visit
my PBase gallery,
my Youtube video list
and my homepage
www.musicofasia.info
where you can find more pictures and further information about these instruments.
I hope you like the idea of showing instrument samples every month, please let me know what instrument you would like to hear next!
Thank you!
