Chinese music and dance at the Garden of the Master of the Nets （网师园）

                    My family recently visited me in China, which was great fun, and I felt compelled to take them to a night of performances at the Garden of the Master of the Nets, a famous garden in Suzhou. During the peak months from spring to autumn they hold performances there every night, which I'd been waiting a while to have the excuse to see. The Garden of the Master of the Nets was a garden made for the entertainment of aristocratic families, but is now open to the public and beautifully preserved. We were treated to a curious mixture of a guided tour and a sort of pick and mix of Chinese music, dance and theatre, each performance lasting about 5-10 minutes. We saw some theatre first, which was, well, interesting-I'll leave it at that. We were then treated to some great dance by a lady in an interesting outfit with very long sleeves, used to accentuate her fluid movement. We were also shown a couple of performances of music, which deserve a bit more of a mention here. The first was a performance by a couple of ladies, one of whom was playing on a san xian 三弦 and one on an er hu 二胡, both stringed instruments, one plucked and one bowed. The san xian looks a bit like a guitar or a lute and sounds fairly similar, albeit with an oriental twang many will find familiar, the er hu (by the way, this is pronounced "are who") is a two stringed instrument played upright, a little like a cello with the stature of a violin. We were later taken to an area that doubles as a shop, thereby being surrounded by Chinese arts and crafts, where a trio of musicians delivered a fabulous performance of san xian, er hu and some sort of zither, perhaps a guqin 古琴 . Unfortunately they were joined for the last song by a lady who brought the traditional cat murder style of Chinese opera to the table. However much I try to convince myself that this kind of singing must have cultural merit I just can't stop thinking of bags full of cats whenever I here it. Maybe it's an acquired taste, each to there own I guess. Finally, we were treated to wonderfully peaceful selection of solo performances by the lake in the middle of the garden, one on some sort of flute-perhaps a ba wu 巴乌, and something a bit like a recorder (perhaps the instrument I mentioned in an earlier post, except I may have been wrong because this is apparently held to the side-perhaps someone can shed some light on this). I really enjoy Chinese instrumental music, it has a really well developed air of subtlety to it and accurately reflects the ancient continuous culture present here, whilst also expressing the precipitation so ever present. Music is always a great way to experience the real emotive power of a place and the evening described was no exception, and all for a tenner. I definitely recommend it if you're ever in Suzhou.

The dancing lady in full spin.

A chap playing one of the aforementioned wind instruments.

Here is a video. Sorry about the lady behind the tree!

Music in the bushes

                       I recently notices an odd phenomenon near my house, the Chinese practice of playing music in the bushes. I was wandering down to the exercise yard by the Grand Canal near my house (the largest man made waterway in the world, as it has been since it's completion around 600AD) when I noticed a strange thing-a man standing in the bushes, facing a large wall and furtively tootling on a trumpet. Well, as furtively as it is possible to play the trumpet, which is not very. I stopped and listened to it for a while, it was enjoyable to stand in the spring sunshine listening to the powerful brass reverberations. It was a little like the wall was his audience and he was in some way in a private meditation with this concert dedicated to the inanimate. Recently, I was walking through my apartment block park when I heart the dulcet tones of a flute or a recorder. It turned out to be a man serenading the world at large on a Chinese instrument resembling a clarinet, although it didn't sound like it was reeded, something like a recorder. I believe it may have been a bawu ( 巴乌 ), although according to Wikipedia this is an instrument with a single metal reed, so perhaps I was wrong. In any case, it sounded rather lovely. This also reminds me of when I lived in Hangzhou and whilst cycling across one of West Lake's beautiful causeways I saw a man praising West Lake with beautiful operatic dedications. It was such a wonderful sight and sound to behold that I stopped, dismounted, listened and applauded at the end, at which point the gentleman in question understandably looked rather pleased with himself. 
                           This all just reminds me of one of the reasons I love China: it's little eccentricities. People love to perform publicly here, playing music in the streets and dancing in groups here and there at different times of the day. They do it for no material gain or because they are being watched, seemingly just for the pure love of the actions themselves. It's a great thing to behold and a lovely reflection of one of the pleasing elements of this often endearingly eccentric place. 

Easing back into the bloggeration

                                    So I've been very busy recently with my family visiting me in China, working a silly amount and attempting not too liquify in the extreme Chinese heat and humidity. What I have been doing however is listening to lots of music, as per usual. I thought I'd ease myself back into blogging a bit by just telling what's been on the headphones recently and a little bit about some of my favourite artists. A new member of staff recently started working at our school, a chap named Ethan from Perth who, it turns out, loves garage and punk music. This pleased me immensely as he introduced me to a shed (or a garage?) full of trashy guitar music. I use trashy in the most complimentary terms possible-I mean that DIY lo-fi sound you get in garage music (not of the UKG variety-rather that of the punky ilk), the sound that says,"we love making this shit and we'll do it even if the extent of our materials are a garage and some fourth hand instruments". The fact is I'm sure a lot of these artists eventually had pretty good equipment, but they held onto that raw sound I love so much. The artists include everything from Blondie to Joy Division to Ian Dury and the Blockheads to X-Ray Specs. "Stop", you might say, "that's not really garage and punk!", well whilst I agree in theory I believe they all have that DIY feel, lending a real inventiveness to their sound and they therefore exude artistic integrity-making their sound however they can for whatever small income it might produce. The band that have most piqued my interest are probably The Deviants, they are incredibly inventive and their music seems to vary from the pretty punky to stuff verging on poetry to the downright experimental. I've also enjoyed MC5, representing Detroit and showing off quite how eclectic one city's music can be, from motown (named after Detroit I believe, it being motor city) to the invention of techno to blues to the hard rocking guitar sound of MC5 themselves, and embryonic punk of a sort, way before the Sex Pistols. They had it: the DIY ethic, the radical political affiliations and the devil may care approach to authority; but never mind that, the main thing is that there music makes you want to bounce around like an ADD afflicted pogo stick. There's lots of other stuff too, but more on that later, probably in more detail. 

                                  What else have I been listening too? Well, I received a lovely birthday present from my girlfriend Celia of erhu （二胡）music. This instrument usually has two strings and no fingerboard as such and is played like a violin or cello. It is held in the position of a cello, but is about the size of a violin and, like most bowed instruments, if it's played well it is manna for the ears, if it's played badly it sounds like feline mass murder in a bag. You often see old blind men playing it by the road in China, being one of their only possible job prospects besides being a blind masseur, and their performances are at best variable. However, listening to this CD I was inspired, a truly beautiful sound filled my house with it's tremulous delicacy, and the CD also had a good variation between the orchestral and the more folky. According to Wikipedia the erhu was conceived well over a thousand years ago and was made of a combination of materials that could be obtained along the silk road. The strings themselves were in earlier times usually made of wound silk, viewing the instrument, like so many things in China, starts winding you into the immense history of this huge country, pulling you along the old silk road and imagining the wranglings that went on to make these beautiful instruments. At this point I feel myself getting inexorably pulled into a Sebaldian psychogeographical mental ramble, which I would love to further entertain, but unfortunately another cultural aspect of this land now forces me to leave my explorations-the intense work ethic. Thanks for reading, it's good to be back on the blog, I'll be writing more about Chinese music soon.  

An example of The Deviants-although as I said their sound is very varied.

Here is some MC5, a sound a little like Iggy and the Stooges I guess, if you like them check out New York Dolls as well.

Some rather lovely erhu music, with some other Chinese musical accompaniment.