Rhythm of a guqin piece? (rythmic convention?)

[guzhenglover]

Dear guqin enthusiasts

I don't know if this question has been asked on this forum before - and it's probably a pretty basic question - but please help? I am just wondering how guqin players in the past and present manage to figure out the rhythm for the guqin compositions if there's no indication in the scores for this.

I know one of the roles of a guqin teacher is to take the student through each new piece and teaching him/her things like the rhythm. But what if one is self-learning and has no teacher (like many of us are on this forum)? And I seem to remember reading somewhere that guqin music is traditionally half-taught i.e. one follows the score, as well as learnt by ear i.e. you hear something played a certain way, and you have to try and remember it and reproduce it in your own playing, etc. But how can someone learn entire pieces accurately esp. if the piece is long and complex (though I know that the concept of "accuracy" may not be all that appropriate when talking about the art of guqin music...)?

I think someone said that somehow the guqin player just figures out for him/herself what the rhythm is, based on the number of words and/or syllables that goes with a musical phrase, etc. But is there perhaps a better i.e. more systematic and clear (conventional) way in which one could more or less "accurately" figure out the rhythm?

Thanks for your advice on this question!

[SCWGuqin]

It's really a matter of how "strict" you want to be. If you wish to follow "established" rhythms, there are many recordings of masters available for you to emulate.

Under the more "free/individual" rubric, qin rhythm is entirely personal--you figure out the rhythms in accord with your personal insights and style.

I'll note in passing here something I'm prepared to talk about at great length. I think the greatest strength, as well as the greatest weakness, of the qin tradition is its total lack of systematic theory. There's literally no right or wrong way at all to figure out rhythms. Whether a given rendition is more or less effective or artful will be a matter of individual taste and discernment.

[Si]

Yeah, for established pieces most experienced played will quickly point out the minor rhythmic problems you have.

But some tunes seem to have a number of slightly different ways to play - ie: liang xiao yin has a few versions but the basic tune seems to feel the same, its just in the details. So I suppose it does not matter much how you play these details.

I imagine the qin playing (and some western early music too) is a bit like chinese wispers. These pieces have been passed down from master to pupil, but one link in the pieces history might have forgotten exactly how his master played it and so slightly changed it (intentionally or no). I think for certain we will never totally know exactly how the oldest famous peices were supposed to sound.

Then there are those pieces that nobody seems to know the rhythm to. I think experts have different ways to tackle the problem, but as cheng gong liang says in my new book about his dapu of wen wang chao- "this is just his humble idea of how he thinks it should be played and he is more then welcome to hear other ideas from other masters". Nobody can do much better than that!

So if there turns out to be 2 ways to play wen wang chao, then we can decide which we prefer and follow that variation.

dui bu dui?

[SCWGuqin]

Well I'm going to go more radical and claim that there are no "oughts" where qin rhythm is concerned. In Western music, if you depart from the written score, you're doing something weird or wrong. An Indian musician can't just decide not to play with the tala. But every qin player is highly distinctive in articulating rhythms, often using many variations themselves as well as differing from other players. This is because, while "established" versions may be useful at cultivating the beginner's musicality, there is no final right or wrong version.

[Si]

But I wonder what is the average view of the great players in china?

As the qin comes from a tradition of following masters and also in china, students (and all school kids) are supposed to follow what their master / teachers say with out question.

So where does that leave "our" view that there is no right way to play a piece.

Is "our" view also the natural thinking of most player?

[SCWGuqin]

The traditional view is that students should imitate their teachers as closely as possible, and after they've "proved themselves" in this way they can begin personalizing their playing. I'd say that the heavy differences among top-level players with the same teacher (LXT vs WWG, students of WJL; GY vs CGL, students of ZZQ) attest to their having "moved on" from what they were taught.

As for where that leaves "our" view...I'm not sure whose view you mean. Mine is unusual, I concede. It may not even be natural for "most players". Nonetheless, I think it can be defended from many angles.

[guzhenglover]

Well thanks syburn and utmostvacuity2 for a very insightful discussion so far, and please continue! The question of rhythm seems to be one of those seemingly basic things that one may not think about often as they learn their pieces with their teachers and imitating the so-called "established" interpretation. It also kind of goes to show that it's OK for a guqin player to raise a "basic" question such as this without having first attained top-level stature. I am glad that I've asked this question even at this stage of my guqin development (and I am very much a learner). In fact, I am still curious as to how some of you guqin enthusiasts out there learnt the rhythm of guqin compositions if you were self-taught? Did you rely on recordings, written references and/or anecdotes etc.?

[SCWGuqin]

It's interesting that you say "It also kind of goes to show that it's OK for a guqin player to raise a 'basic' question such as this without having first attained top-level stature." I never learned the qin in China, and my teacher was fairly open-minded, so I haven't encountered the conservatism I've heard is out there. One thing I'm tired of hearing is the constant refrain that "only top top top players" should even think seriously about improvising and composing. For me, improvisation is what music is all about; I'd die without it. I think the best approach is to do conservative training and personal experimentation side by side, letting them inform each other.

[guzhenglover]

I agree with you utmostvacuity2 and thank you for sharing with us your opinion. And like you've said, conservative training (whatever "conservative" really means...) and personal experimentation are equally important in one's musical training. I like improvising and composing, too, though I feel more at ease with composing than improvising. The reason is because I am trained as a "traditional" ("conservative"?) classical pianist, and improvisation isn't usually part of the contemporary classical piano music making - which is a pity, really. In classical music, everthing seems to be documented in the score - not least the rhythm - and if there's ever a reason to doubt a composer's original intention as reflected in the score (for e.g. if there's a reason to doubt the authenticity of a score because of its illegibility or dubious copying), then this usually leads to varying musical interpretations and subquently debates/controversies over whose playing represents the most faithful rendition to the orginal intention. This is often the case with, say, performances of Bach and Mozart. But people tend to forget that even Bacn and Mozart used to improvise - and Mozart particularly loved improvising in the form of theme and variations and in the cadenza section of his piano concerti -and "later" pianists such as Liszt, Chopin and Schubert also improvised. So it's a real shame that improvisation doesn't seem to be part of the standard training these days in the conservatory-type of training of classical pianists. I certainly have felt a need to update myself on the art of improvisation (admittedly I am not a jazz fan), and to be honest it's not been easy owing to an already somewhat fixed frame of mind and stereotyped way of playing the piano!

[Si]

Well for me i am ok with following what ever my teacher says. But its a bit annoying that one teacher will teacher you one way and another teacher tell you another way.

This can be based on different schools or just the way they were originally told to play.

That should give us all confidence too not take one teachers idea as the gospel truth. But you know, at my level, I am not going to argue with a far better player than myself - i am just a beginner same as guzhenglover.......

[guzhenglover]

Well, I agree with you there, too, syburn (though I am a bit more of a beginner than you, syburn!). If I am not mistaken, I think that's kind of what utmostvacuity2 was saying as well - that it's the norm to absorb what the teacher tells us and for us to learn "properly" how guqin should be played (whatever "properly" means...), before we venture out on ur own and begin personalising our own music. But I guess we should just not be afraid of asking questions even at this stage of our development, particularly on questions such as how the rhythm of a composition should be determined and why the way one is taught to play something sounds so completely different from how one is taught by another teacher...After all, asking questions is all part of the modern way of learning (merhaps as opposed to the traditional way, which may not encourage students to ask as many questions).

[guzhenglover]

syburn said:

Well for me i am ok with following what ever my teacher says. But its a bit annoying that one teacher will teacher you one way and another teacher tell you another way.

This can be based on different schools or just the way they were originally told to play.

That should give us all confidence too not take one teachers idea as the gospel truth. But you know, at my level, I am not going to argue with a far better player than myself - i am just a beginner same as guzhenglover.......

In a separate discussion on this forum to do with the management of practice schedule, syburn, you mentioned that your new teacher has just given you a new piece and expected you to learn it for next week. You also mentioned that you think that's how Gong Yi teaches. How do you see yourself learning the new piece if you've had no previous run-down of the piece and if there's no recording available to you i.e. there's no-one to show you how its rhythm goes? Sorry - just curious!

[Si]

Haha,

well i think CCC teaches himself and he seems to manage.

I think they want you to work through the piece and try to solve it, then they will correct all the many many mistakes. Or they might just be lazy and find it tedious to go through bit by bit.

I do have a recording, but one prob that i mentioned before is the many ways of playing a piece - so my teacher is supposed to email me an mp3 file of the sound she is going to follow.

Also I will start to bring a pocket voice recorder to my lesson so i can record the melody, and whats better is that i can have a recording of different sections or tricky areas and that will be much easier than messing about with cds to find the correct bit.

[Charlie Huang]

The Guo Ping book, Guqin Congtan [Collected Discussions on the Guqin], 2006, has a nice section talking about how qin players learn rhythm from your average qinpu.

[Si]

I dont suppose its in English? (whimper whimper....)

[Charlie Huang]

No...

[Si]

I read that one master writes out the qin pu in one long line then works out the outline of the piece and then each part bit by bit....but i suppose thats too vauge to any use...hahaha

[Charlie Huang]

Usually, qinpu has little circles after some notation marking a phrase. You add a bar there, then divide that bar into further bars if you cannot fit the whole phrase into your timing, typically 2/4 time. That's just one way that was suggested.

[guzhenglover]

admin said:

The Guo Ping book, Guqin Congtan [Collected Discussions on the Guqin], 2006, has a nice section talking about how qin players learn rhythm from your average qinpu.

Hi Charlie, how can one get hold of this article? I can read Chinese. Also if you are self-taught on the guqin, did you generally have no problems figuring out the rhythm of the compositions?

I was speaking with someone yesterday about learning guqin and he was adament that guqin cannot be properly learnt on one's own (and his examples included not only rhythm but also things like fingering etc.). Would you disagree with that?

[Charlie Huang]

You can get that book from Joyo.com (Chinese Amazon).

I have no problems figuring out rhythm. Par example, the Gao Shan of SQMP, which I never heard a recording of, I managed to work out a good rhythm (and it doesn't have phrase markings). There are clues in the tab itself, like repeating motifs, natural sentencing in a sequence of notes, etc. It is like poetry, you can find a structure, natural pausation and 'hidden intention' of the composer. It is more easy with qin because the tab records technique and not a random set of notes which will be impossible to string together. I can go through an illustrated walkthrough of how I dapu'ed Gao Shan, but that might be hard work... Anyways, John Thompson has a page on how he works out the rhythm in SQMP. You'll have to find it, but from memory; Handbooks, SQMP and it should be listed there somewhere.

Fingering requires someone to show you the proper way, I agree with that.

[Si]

guzheng lover - the person you were talking to sounds like the person i spoke to ages ago that put me off learning.

[guzhenglover]

Well now that I've received input from you guqin experts out there, I think there's probably some truth in needing a teacher's guidance at least initially in order to be sure that I am doing the right thing so that I wouldn't have to live with the wrong technique or habits later on. A teacher should also be able to transfer to me his/her idea of how the rhythm of a piece should go, which would be a lot quicker (though I guess not always incontestable) than trying to work it out on one's own (which may be more time-consuming and more prone to inaccuracies, if one's inexperienced).

Nevertheless, for the time being I am still going to read as much as I can and see if from trying to work SOME things out, I can help myself to figuring out the rhythm, among other things.

[guzhenglover]

admin said:

You can get that book from Joyo.com (Chinese Amazon).

Anyways, John Thompson has a page on how he works out the rhythm in SQMP. You'll have to find it, but from memory; Handbooks, SQMP and it should be listed there somewhere.

OK, I've found the web page by John Thompson you are talking about, Charlie. It's:

silkqin.com/08anal/rhtm.htm

[Charlie Huang]

Also, to expand, I completely disagree with the idea that you cannot learn guqin rhythm on your own. Because that would imply that dapu would be impossible as it basically is finding the rhythm of an ancient score which you've never heard before and no one can play or teach you. GPH wouldn't be able to dapu GLS, YBY wouldn't be able to dapu JK, etc as no one was around who could teach them the 'correct' rhythm so they must work it out themselves!

[Si]

Guzhenglover - as you read chinese you could tell us all a bit a bit about that book that CCC was talking about if you ever read it.

What have you been practicing by your self then these months.

I would try to get into a class or get a teacher. I makes the different having someone there to insantly put you right.

What about looking to see if they have classes at one of the local CC (community centres) in sinagpore.