Today's lesson
I played 春曉吟 first. We worked through the first part and then harmonics in the second part. I have a lot to clean up so I will not bother with uploading a recording today — unless anyone is interested in me playing through the same few notes over and over.
Afterwards I played some other songs: 良宵引, 湘江怨, and then 歸去來辭. We did not cover 秋風詞 today, but that is the other song I know for the record! Actually the first song I ever learned was 仙翁操 but that is like when you learn Hot Cross Buns or Twinkle Twinkle or whatever in western music, so I don’t count it!
My teacher asked me if I tried out any of the guqin at the store. I did, I tried out about four. The price ranged from around USD4-5k. There were issues with import so they didn’t have as much stock. My teacher said he had two available for sale around the 5k range and offered me to try them. One was a banana leaf style — I played on it today during class. The other was Confucius style. Some things noted:
This particular banana leaf was a lot louder than the Confucius — not sure if this is common with the style
The banana leaf only has one little foot (peg protectors?) since it’s supposed to be like a banana leaf stem! I thought this was very cute
The Confucius style is the most common style of guqin! This particular one was very quiet and soft — it evoked the image of maybe a simple and sweet girl (perhaps it should have evoked the image of Confucius but, alas!)
Here is a reference image I took from Google images (I am naughty):
The banana leaf I tried did not 100% look like the one shown here but you get the idea. There was also a 落霞. I will use the Chinese name because that’s how my teacher described it — “Alight Red Cloud” sounds funny to me! My teacher said that’s not for sale because it is crappy and was left by a past student who no longer wanted it. There was also a 伏羲 (not completely certain, I did not look at it closely).
Anyway, my teacher said I can take one of the guqin home to try out before buying. I said I will do that next week since I’m going to be out of commission tomorrow (no new post!)
I am leaning towards the banana leaf. This is sort of silly but I do not think I suit the Confucius personality too well!
I will have a think! I am excited to bring one home to test!