Pronounced "chin" ("stringed instrument") or "goo chin" ("old stringed instrument"), the qin / guqin throughout its long history has been the musical instrument most prized by China's literati. They categorized it as one of their "four arts", collected it as an art object, praised its beautiful music, and built around it a complex ideology (compare its image in popular culture). No other instrument was described and illustrated in such detail, so often depicted in paintings, or so regularly mentioned in poetry. And its tablature documents the world's oldest detailed written instrumental music tradition, allowing both historically informed performance (requiring silk strings) of the many early melodies, and practical exploration of the relationship between Chinese music theory and music practice. The guqin silk string zither work of John Thompson. [more inside]
posted by netbros on Dec 14, 2008 - 7 comments

The Ghazal is a kind of poetry, originally of pre-Islamic Persian origin, consisting entirely of couplets, called "sher," that share (no pun intended) an end rhyme. Well-liked especially in India and Pakistan, the difficult-to-master form has experienced a surge of popularity among, of all people, white Canadians. Spurred by the breathtaking poems of the late John Thompson, contemporary writers like Phyllis Webb and Eric Folsom have created a interesting hybridized verision--"The Bastard Ghazal". That's not, of course, to ignore Kiran Ahluwalia, an Indian-Candian ghazal singer who hews more closely to the form's origins.
posted by maxreax on Feb 28, 2006 - 13 comments