The Guqin Silk String Zither

netbros — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 14:17:32 -0800

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. John Thompson is the best-known musician giving historically informed performances of early Chinese music for the guqin silk-string zither. After a college degree in Western musicology (early music) and graduate studies in ethnomusicology, he began in 1974 to study the modern guqin tradition from Sun YüCh'in in Taiwan. Since 1976 he has focused on early repertoire, personally reconstructing over 150 melodies published in 15th and 16th century handbooks. In 1992 the National Union of Chinese Musicians invited him to Beijing as the focus of a seminar on reconstructing music from the earliest surviving guqin handbook, Shen Qi Mi Pu (1425 CE). While based in Hong Kong as artistic consultant to the Festival of Asian Arts he performed throughout East Asia, and published seven CDs of his musical reconstructions as well as four books of music transcription. Since moving to New York in 2001 he has continued to perform, research and lecture on the guqin. His website is the most comprehensive English-language source of information on this instrument.

I know how small a poem can be:/the point on a fish hook.

maxreax — Tue, 28 Feb 2006 22:59:11 -0800

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.

MetaFilter posts tagged with johnthompson

The Guqin Silk String Zither

I know how small a poem can be:/the point on a fish hook.