La Finca Band

Alonso, the director of La Finca, loves music and leads a Christian music band comprised of a select few La Finca kids who play drums, base, guitar, keyboard, and sing. Note the kid in jammies in the foreground listening to the band. The rehearsals are held at night in La Finca’s church, so kids show up in pajamas to get their bedtime music three times a week.

I played with the band during this week’s rehearsals and got to improvise solos as well. I found the music to be very expressive with choruses repeated several times. Uploading is slow, but I will post better videos later.

This past Tuesday, I performed at MIT’s graduate student open-mic. Gaston and I had only one day to rehearse. Within one hour of posting the Led Zeppelin cover of Thank You, I received an email from YouTube notifying me that Warner/Chappell Music owns the content of my video, but this warning has not had any effect on the uploaded video. Exploring the Boston music scene, experimenting with blues violin improvisation, and learning about Indian Classical music will be among my musical and cultural pursuits at MIT.

Recital Replay

During the Spring Festival, only one music store near the Shanghai Music Conservatory was open. It had the floorspace of a typical shop window display with about 20 violins crammed inside. A teacher clapped expressionlessly to a practicing student’s rhythm. The student was excellent for a ten-year-old and practiced five hours a day, according to the teacher. One quirk about this dealer was that all his violins seemed to have excessive resonance built into them. I played this piece four years ago at my last recital with my violin teacher, Esther Slonczewski. The resonance problem can especially be heard every time I hit the A.  Again, sorry for the lack of practice.

In the Mood For Love

While my erhu was being touched up in the shop, I practiced on the Shanghai violins hanging on the wall. Most are copies of Stradivari or other famous violins and have extremely unique tones that cannot be described with words. They’re a delight to play. Above, I attempt a piece from a Chinese movie, “In the Mood For Love,” that I saw at the Jacob Burns Film Center in Pleasantville, NY last summer. I apologize for the playing, but I don’t practice as much as I used to.

Erhu Necks

My Erhu Seller

By chance, we found the dealer above, whom I trusted more than anyone else I met on Jinling Lu. At his shop, I chose an erhu produced by Shanghai No.1 Musical Instruments Factory with a good sound for its price and bought it only after hearing the dealer play a beautiful melody on it. I made sure it came with a registration card as well as the necessary government export certificate. The case also came with bow rosin, extra bridges and padding, 2 sets of strings, a tuner keychain, and a VCD that lectures on how the traditional Chinese erhu is the best instrument ever made. There was a little nick on the body, though. If I would have pointed this out to dealers at other shops, they’d state that such things don’t matter and just talk the instrument up or desperately drop the price another 5 Yuan. Instead, this guy polished the nick with a repair kit at the shop and it looked fine.

Sichuan Meal

Lastly, as with all adventures, the search for an erhu ended with a feast. Above are three spicy Sichuan dishes: cold chicken, minced lamb, and some rice derivative. As I ate, I was choking on both the spice in the food and in the air of the restaurant.

Glass Ship

Hefang Jie feels like an extraordinarily realistic live museum. While strolling down the old street, you can see artisans showing off their skills to the curious tourists. A glass blower works at a table covered with his creations in the middle of the street. Below, you can enjoy my first attempt at editing a movie for the blog.

VIDEO

Hefang Lu – Glass Blower

Wood Samples

Erhus are made from a variety of wood types, red sandalwood being the most prized. The erhus that are now being mass produced in factories with impressive quality seem to be of African ebony, but redwoods are still considered to produce the best sound. Unfortunately, the cheapest redwood erhu I could find on Jinling Lu was at the shop of the dishonest erhu dealer (see Purchasing an Erhu – Part IV). I was conflicted because I took a liking to the ruddy-colored erhu that only cost 350 Yuan (50 USD) after haggling through an interpreter, but didn’t trust the dealer who was eager to sell it as redwood. Other shop owners told me it had to be fake for such a low price. Hearing conflicting opinions was getting tiresome. I asked an old man visiting the shop to play on three differently priced erhus of what looked like the same wood to me, and I could hardly hear a difference. In half Chinese and half English, the dealer’s crony explained to me that there are several different quality woods erhus are made from and pulled out a box of these wood samples from behind the counter. It reminded me of the scene from Three Cups of Tea in which a lumber seller shows Mortensen chunks of Pakistani and English wood that not only have innate discrepancies, but also have but been cut differently to give preference to the English lumber.

Peachwood

The salesmen compared the timbre of a stick of wood and the instrument to show me that the erhu I had chosen was in fact made from peach wood, the cheapest of the redwoods. Both the translation of the word peach and the matching of the stick’s wood to the instrument’s were dubious. He also claimed that the lighter the scales of the snakeskin are, the better quality the sound will be. This could be true if the color indicates the part of the snake used to cover the soundbox. The salesman then attempted to convince me to buy a more expensive erhu, while the dealer was ready to accept cash for the one I had chosen. While pretending to play on opposite sides, they pressured me into making a fast decision. My reaction, instead, was to promptly get out of there and come back the next day with someone who actually knew about Chinese instruments. “Mingtian!” I yelled, “tomorrow,” after they thought an erhu deal was imminent. I later realized that if I had purchased that erhu, I wouldn’t have been able to export it with me to the States.

Music Fountain

The Music Fountain in Hangzhou is located near Hubin Lu, the most modernized street on the lake with shops like Armani and Dulce&Gobbana. Click on the link above to see Chinese tourists watching the fountain rise and fall with the trumpeting of Spanish classical music. The entertainment reminded me of Aldous Huxley’s fictitious scent organ.

Dubious Erhu Salesmen

Meet my favorite erhu dealer, plucking a no-name erhu in the corner, and his somewhat English-speaking crony ready to tell me only what I want to hear about every instrument on the racks. I cannot tell you how relieved I am to have not purchased an erhu from them, though I learned the most about the ancient instrument in this shop.

Butterfly Lovers’ Concerto – Part I

Butterfly Lovers’ Concerto – Part II

Before I left, I asked the dealer, the young girl’s father, to play China’s most famous musical piece. See video above.