Hi! I haven’t posted in a little bit — I’ve been busy, I swear!
I have been practicing 春曉吟 and I have the first two parts done and a good chunk of the third part. I went through it with my teacher on Sunday’s class! As mentioned in last week’s post, I got to bring home a banana leaf!
The recording is the very beginning of 秋風詞. First on my current guqin (metal strings) and then on the banana leaf (silk strings).
I think off the bat are the sound of the strings. The metal ones have a twang. This is more on the strings than the guqin, and of course you can change strings. I have tried to play both guqin with the same amount of strength per note but the banana leaf gives out a lot more volume. I find that the banana leaf is more “crisp” to my ears.
There is also the different tuning of the two instruments, but I am trying to ignore that!
I’m honestly not a “music person” so I’m not sure how to describe what I am hearing and how to explain the differences in a “musical” way. Guqin is the first instrument I’ve really stuck with. Every child has played the recorder to learn the basics in music (and every adult who does not continue playing an instrument forgets it all). I picked up violin for a very short period in my youth and dropped it just as quickly (didn’t end up seeming as cool as I imagined).
I will play and test out the banana leaf more. Actually, we are kind of familiar because my teacher puts it out for class to play on sometimes. I hope to share recordings soon, especially of 春曉吟.
Back to training…
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