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Post by guzhenglover on Jul 9, 2007 4:29:05 GMT
OK, I am sure we had similar discussions before, but can I just double-check with you all the arguments for and against adopting western notation convention for the qin (like Gong Yi does)? I remember the main arguments, but I wouldn't mind a recap from everyone if you'd be so kind. It's just that recently I've run into people who feel quite strongly about the need of using a new notation convention for the qin. One of his arguments was that it's embarassing not to be able to identify where A, B, C, D etc. are on the qin for someone who only knows western music if we've in fact played the qin for years ("embarassing" was indeed the word he used). He also reckons that it's easier to make musical arrangements and/or transcriptions for the qin to play if we know how to transfer music originally written on the western musical stave to traditional qin notation. Oh yes, the other thing he mentioned was that he thinks that we qin players should all be familiar with both western and qin notations to the extent that we can sightread from either scores. Do I agree? Well no! But my reasons for agreeing/not agreeing may not be the same as you guys, which is why I'd love your opinions on this one...
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Post by Charlie Huang on Jul 9, 2007 6:10:40 GMT
"Embarassment" is in they eye of the beholder. You can't please everyone.
Staff notation = professionalism and for the majority of us that route is beyond our reach or not our aim in qin playing. What I say is let the pros fiddle with what they want out of the qin and us ams/pro-ams stick to the basics.
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Post by Si on Jul 9, 2007 7:52:31 GMT
I suppose it is a bit Embarassing, but then again there are many who only follow the original qin pu - so i think its OK.
Depends who you hang out with musicaly i suppose. If everyone is a hardcover guqiner then should not be a problem.
I suppose thats why GY went to all that trrouble to write his green magnum opus!
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Post by charliecharlieecho on Jul 9, 2007 8:02:21 GMT
All the modern books I know of use either staff notation or cipher notation as an alternative or supplement to traditional notation. To me the problem with this isn't professionalism (in Europe all classical musicians use staff notation whatever their standard) but that staff and cipher notation are both too prescriptive and leave out too much. There tell you exactly what metre and rhythm you should use, but they can't tell you what a zhuang or an yin or rou/nao sounds like.
Aa a footnote, Charlie's right when he says professional standards are beyond most of us, but if we're serious about the qin they can be an inspiration in the same sort of way that professional tennis, for example, is to amateur players - thet show just what can be done if we work hard enough.
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Post by guzhenglover on Jul 9, 2007 8:02:59 GMT
To me, reading staff notation isn't a problem in itself given my musical background. The problem that I have (and I mean an attitude problem rather than a technical problem) is why there should be a need to learn to sightread staff music in guqin playing. I didn't think that sightreading music was ever (or indeed has ever been) a preoccupation for guqin players, as music is supposed to be absorbed internally and thoroughly rather than produced on first reading. So in that sense, I'd have thought that one wouldn't be expected to sightread on the guqin as one does on, say, the piano.
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Post by charliecharlieecho on Jul 9, 2007 8:11:50 GMT
One of his arguments was that it's embarassing not to be able to identify where A, B, C, D etc. are on the qin for someone who only knows western music if we've in fact played the qin for years ("embarassing" was indeed the word he used). I've seen something similar, but not so strong. The argument was that music is a social activity, and people who play erhu or dizi or yangqin can join in and play music together. Qin players generally can't, so they're cut out of that part of musical life. On the other hand, if they don't mind being cut out, who can say they're wrong? But this is different from the discussion about notation. It's not difficult to learn note positions without having any knowledge at all of western notation, as is shown by the story of the olf generationof qin players (people from LXT's teacher's teachers generation) being about to sing a tune straight from the tablature.
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Post by charliecharlieecho on Jul 9, 2007 8:15:56 GMT
My last crossed gzl's last. I wasn't meaning to imply that the old generation of players sw sight-reading from tablature was a necessary skill, but only that they could do it, but probably only as a first step when deciding whether to go further with the piece.
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Post by guzhenglover on Jul 9, 2007 8:16:10 GMT
But this is different from the discussion about notation. It's not difficult to learn note positions without having any knowledge at all of western notation, as is shown by the story of the olf generationof qin players (people from LXT's teacher's teachers generation) being about to sing a tune straight from the tablature. OK, but was sightreading ever part of the guqin playing tradition? Or is it just the case that some players of the older generation were able to sing/play music from sightreading the tablature?
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Post by charliecharlieecho on Jul 9, 2007 8:45:14 GMT
My feeling, and I don't have any authoritative statement to back it up, is that an ability to say what note a stopping position referred to was implicit in qin teaching. You'd know what the open sting notes were and be able to to work out what a stopping position was in relation to the openstrongs. Also my first teacher (a professional, admittedly, and a wind player at that) explicitly taught me what stopping positions meant in the gong, shang ..., system). But I don't know what 'pure' qin teachers and players did.
Also, as I said in the crossing message, the qin players who could sight read from tablature wouldn't have seen that as a substitute for developing their own interpretations, where the tablature would become less important the more familiar the player was with the piece.
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Post by SCWGuqin on Jul 9, 2007 15:20:40 GMT
Well, I personally use sargam notation in all areas of my daily life, including qin. Good to remind ourselves that the clash of civilizations doesn't always have to feature Western Europe as one of the combatants! Plus, it may distantly reflect issues qin musicians faced in the first millennium AD, when the cultural invasion spoke Sanskrit...
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Post by charliecharlieecho on Jul 9, 2007 16:24:41 GMT
Sargam? Wossat?
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Post by davidmdahl on Jul 9, 2007 16:28:23 GMT
It seems to me that for any instrument and any tradition the important thing is making good music. The ability to read staff notation for Chinese music might be a useful skill at times, but I hardly think it confers a special status on those who can manage it. If the music you want to play is in staff notation, then take the time to learn it. Staff notation is not really that difficult. The traditional notations are probably more useful.
Frankly I think that improving listening skills and improvisation within the tradition are more useful and fun than learning a notation that doesn't really fit the music or instrument very well.
Best wishes,
David
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Post by davidmdahl on Jul 9, 2007 16:39:25 GMT
"Embarassment" is in they eye of the beholder. You can't please everyone. The audience does not care what notation the performer uses. In fact even about real musical-issues, it is pointless to try to please everyone. I find often that I am my own worst critic. If I pleased myself, then probably others were pleased as well. I am embarrassed when I perform poorly, but then I move on, learn from the experience and hope next time goes better. Sometimes I am very embarrassed and yet get praise. I guess it is true that "Beauty is in the eye of the beer-holder", or something like that. Best wishes, David
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Post by SCWGuqin on Jul 9, 2007 17:14:50 GMT
To charliecharlieecho's question: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SvaraThinking this way has several advantages in a modal music tradition. But the Indian approach is limited in the case of Chinese music because the latter doesn't use a fixed modal center. So I use a bootstrapping approach "ga is the new sa..."
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Post by Charlie Huang on Jul 9, 2007 18:10:32 GMT
IMO, learning staff on the qin doesn't enhance play, it only opens a few more options that you may amuse yourself with. Frankly, it would be a waste of time for most of us as we do not have a practical application for it, thus it sits in our mental faculties gathering dust. For pros et al. they do.
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Post by guzhenglover on Jul 10, 2007 3:11:41 GMT
OK, but what does anyone have to say about sightreading traditional guqin music? I guess this is a somewhat different issue to what this discussion began with. Did old qin masters and their past generations sightread qin music, or did they take the time to learn from the music - or from ear - more often than sightreading?
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Post by Si on Jul 10, 2007 5:15:04 GMT
IMO - it does not realy matter which system you use.
I have been using all three methods. With the following GENERAL thoughts:-
1 - If you just use jian zi qu then you have to learn the melody from a place other than the actual jian zhi pu (unless your cheng gong liang).
2 - Chinese tablature i find easiest to understand the melody, notes etc.
3 - Western notation, less so (than No 2))but thats cos i did not do much formal music playing at school.
To conclude.........actually I have forgot the original question!
Just look at your needs - bedroom hermit=jian zi pu tea house groupee=chinese notation collaborative muso=western style utmostvacuity2=sargam
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Post by charliecharlieecho on Jul 10, 2007 5:34:33 GMT
The story I've come across is that *an unquantified number* of the old masters *could* sight-read tablature, at least to the extent of being able to recognise and sing ('vocalise' might be a better term) the notes associated with the stopping positions. I have my doubts whether they could sight-read quickly enough to play directly from tablature, partly because of the relative lack of indications of tempo and rhythm in tablature, but also because the traditional way of learning was to study with another master. It's not entirely clear to me what the role of tablature was in the teaching tradition: were tablatures seen as teaching materials, or prompt-books for people who feared they'd half forgotten a piece, or simply as records of how a particular person played a piece? or maybe all three of those and more?
Another point is that modern qin masters seem to think playing unfamiliar pieces ab novo from tablature, i.e. dapu, is a relatively modern practice. But did the old masters use tablature as reference material when developing their own versions of pieces they could already play? Who knows?
My view about the value of old tablatures to players today is that they (1) show is the fingering and gugan yin 骨干音 - core notes, but (b) leave us some freedom over tempo, rhythm, volume, decoration, etc., where (c) we should take all the advice we can from teachers and/or listen as much as we can to records.
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Post by guzhenglover on Jul 10, 2007 6:05:46 GMT
To conclude.........actually I have forgot the original question! Just look at your needs - bedroom hermit=jian zi pu tea house groupee=chinese notation collaborative muso=western style utmostvacuity2=sargam Haha...! How homorous!
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Post by guzhenglover on Jul 10, 2007 6:09:31 GMT
The story I've come across is that *an unquantified number* of the old masters *could* sight-read tablature, at least to the extent of being able to recognise and sing ('vocalise' might be a better term) the notes associated with the stopping positions. I have my doubts whether they could sight-read quickly enough to play directly from tablature, partly because of the relative lack of indications of tempo and rhythm in tablature, but also because the traditional way of learning was to study with another master. It's not entirely clear to me what the role of tablature was in the teaching tradition: were tablatures seen as teaching materials, or prompt-books for people who feared they'd half forgotten a piece, or simply as records of how a particular person played a piece? or maybe all three of those and more? Another point is that modern qin masters seem to think playing unfamiliar pieces ab novo from tablature, i.e. dapu, is a relatively modern practice. But did the old masters use tablature as reference material when developing their own versions of pieces they could already play? Who knows? My view about the value of old tablatures to players today is that they (1) show is the fingering and gugan yin 骨干音 - core notes, but (b) leave us some freedom over tempo, rhythm, volume, decoration, etc., where (c) we should take all the advice we can from teachers and/or listen as much as we can to records. Thanks charliecharlieecho. Quite informative. Yes my question was whether sightreading from the tablature was part of the old qin playing practice, rather than whether we qin players should sightread (though these are all related issues no doubt).
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Post by Si on Jul 10, 2007 6:32:44 GMT
Yes I think I totally agree with all ideas in reply number 17 from charliecharlieecho.
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Post by Charlie Huang on Jul 10, 2007 22:55:25 GMT
Traditional jianzipu was never meant to be sight read. They served as either a record of how to play the piece or as a prompt when one forgets the melody.
JT said somewhere that after some years of qin play, you can actually 'hear' the music when you read the tab of a once learnt melody that you forgotten. I think it is much to do with visualisation when you read the tab, you mentally think how you would play it and you remember the sound or how it will vaguely sound like.
The question here would be if sight reading a qin score would necessary add to the music. IMO, it is more a showing off exercise since the only way you can play good is pure hours of practice, and this applies to all music and musical instruments. Sight reading is when you do not have the time to memorise the score and you need it is some form to be able to play it without relying on pure mental power like if you a minor musician in an orchestra playing a full symphony in several movements. I do not see that as a requirement in qin playing and so is a skill that is surplus to requirements. And because we have all gotten use to seeing players play from memory, seeing one with a score in front of him or her would make us think that he or she didn't bother to learn the whole piece properly.
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Post by guzhenglover on Jul 11, 2007 2:28:37 GMT
Traditional jianzipu was never meant to be sight read. They served as either a record of how to play the piece or as a prompt when one forgets the melody. JT said somewhere that after some years of qin play, you can actually 'hear' the music when you read the tab of a once learnt melody that you forgotten. I think it is much to do with visualisation when you read the tab, you mentally think how you would play it and you remember the sound or how it will vaguely sound like. The question here would be if sight reading a qin score would necessary add to the music. IMO, it is more a showing off exercise since the only way you can play good is pure hours of practice, and this applies to all music and musical instruments. Sight reading is when you do not have the time to memorise the score and you need it is some form to be able to play it without relying on pure mental power like if you a minor musician in an orchestra playing a full symphony in several movements. I do not see that as a requirement in qin playing and so is a skill that is surplus to requirements. And because we have all gotten use to seeing players play from memory, seeing one with a score in front of him or her would make us think that he or she didn't bother to learn the whole piece properly. I agree, well stated. The person that I spoke to felt strongly about the need to sightread in guqin playing, and he gave the example of conservatory guqin entrance exams as a supposed case-in-point i.e. that many entry-level candidates fail the sightreading test. This doesn't mean that people agree with him, of course, nor that sitting for music exams is necessarily a sound justification for sightreading in itself. I think that the ability to sightread qin music is quite remarkable, but as you guys have said, I too don't think that it's a requirement since it's the music performance and interpretation that should come before anything else.
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Post by charliecharlieecho on Jul 11, 2007 12:59:15 GMT
Charlie's right that sighreading isn't going to add to the music; I would say it would detract from the music because so much of what makes the music isn't written down. But "showing off"? Wouldn't that depend on the circumstances? In the scenario I described in Reply #17 sightreading was primarily a private activity which allowed a player to judge whether to carry on with a piece. Clearly there were witnesses, otherwise we wouldn't know about it, but it would only count as "showing off" if the intention was to impress people.
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Post by Charlie Huang on Jul 11, 2007 21:06:26 GMT
That's what I meant.
Entrance exams: it would seem that the need for sight reading qin music is solely to get into a conservatory and to study there. So that's 99.9% of us that that does not apply to. It is hardly a requirement in general practice (conservatories are a law onto themselves and are extraordinary to common practice). Again, it's all Western practice requirements which is questionable if it really suits the qin in the first place. I've heard of some musicians and composers who can't even read a crochet of music and yet they get along fine. I guess if you are more focused on musicology, you would definately need a above-average grasp of music theory. But on a pure performance, especially principle and solo, you are expected to memorise or even play by ear. I have never seen world class performers on Western classical sets sight read in full performance, only the backing/accompanying orchestra. But that is the extreme. In qin, this is hardly the case as our melodies are simple enough to play and learn by heart, unlike the very long technical gymnastics of the Western classical symphonies.
Another thing this staff buisness maybe trying to achieve is to push the standard of qin on par with the Western standard, but TBH, I don't think Westerners would be concerned about whether the qin is on par or not. Look at the other Chinese instruments. They have been professionalised and yet Westerners hardly bat much of an eyelid so how would converting one notation system to another for the qin fare the instrument any better? The outcomes will be the same,; the methods would be different.
Of course, I'm not saying that if you can sight read for qin is wrong or bad practice. It's just a bit too much of a hassle to achieve the same results.
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