Tang Court music?

[andrewwilt]

Hi everyone,
I heard a story on NPR a couple of days ago ( www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=101626136 ) that talked about Tang dynasty court music being played by groups in Xi'an. Does anyone have a source of the sheet music for some Tang court music? It sounded like something fun to try with our group here in Tucson.

Andrew

[davidmdahl]

There is a set of volumes "Music from the Tang Court" By Laurence Picken. Most of the volumes are expensive and hard to get, but you might check the library system. Inter-library loan might be worth trying. Picken's approach is to reconstruct Tang tunes from Japanese Togaku scores. I have read a few reviews of Picken's work, and while it seems to have accomplished a lot, there is not necessarily much directly useful for a musician wishing to perform Tang tunes. I have not seen any of the books myself, so you might check them out and come to your own conclusion.

I suggest transcribing tunes you like from recordings of modern realizations of Tang music. The music itself is not very complicated, and there are some advantages to getting your concept of the music from the practical side by musicians who have worked through the challenges. The academic approach might give you some useful insight into the music so maybe one or more of the Picken's books will be worth checking out.

Have fun!

Best wishes,

David

[kyokuhon]

Hi David, Andrew, and everyone.

I heard that piece on NPR too. Coming from an Early (European) Music background, where there is an almost compulsive drive to perform on "period" instruments, one interesting aspect of it was the apparent lack of concern for reconstructing Tang period instruments. At least from the photo accompanying the online version, all the instruments seem to be of modern style.

Years back I communicated with Elizabeth Markham of the University of Arkansas who was working with Rembrandt Wolpert on recreating Tang Dynasty music. At that time they were waiting for a reproduction 5-string pipa, and that was holding up the recording project. She was quite willing to talk about their work, you might try contacting her.

Best, and good luck,
K.

[kyokuhon]

You can see more about Ms. Markham here:
music.uark.edu/people/faculty/markham.php
K.