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Thursday, 8 January 2009, 20:42

Today was an interesting day as we got to go on a field trip!

We started out the day by learning percussion from zhuang lao shi. Before we started I didn’t imagine Chinese percussion to be anything like what we experienced. For one thing, I thought it would be easier than the erhu or dizi, but it presented its own set of challenges. For example, when we played together in our group, I found it really hard to play in time. Another thing I learnt today is that we use actual Chinese characters to denote when each instrument plays.


After lunch we went to watch a Chinese opera. Our teacher was one of the musicians, he was the only percussionist, so he was playing all the percussion instruments. That’s really impressive as we were struggling to get our beats right while playing just one instrument, and he doesn’t seem to have any problems playing more than three instruments simultaneously.


During the opera, despite the fact that we had almost no idea what the characters were saying, it was quite evident that Chinese percussion is an integral part of Chinese opera. Here are a number of instances where I found that the percussion section was pretty significant during the show:

  1. when the performers were praying before the show
  2. walking around the stage with the well wishes on the scrolls
  3. starting the show
  4. in the opening scene when the father is talking, and he pauses
  5. when performers exit the stage
  6. when the daughter enters and starts singing
  7. father enters to speak to daughter
  8. when the two characters are having a conversation
  9. when the father and daughter take turns singing, the percussion comes in when it’s the next characters turn to sing
  10. getting shipwrecked
  11. when the pageboy is looking and searching for something
  12. when the father is shocked to find out that his daughter has disappeared
  13. when they set out in the boat to find the daughter

Also, I had no idea that the show was not scripted, so I was really surprised when I found out that the performers were just improvising.

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Music, AWESOME