"yao tan qin, bu yao tan qin"

[charliecharlieecho]

What did this mean when it was said?

Does it still apply today?

[SCWGuqin]

"Talk about" and "pluck/play" are both pronounced tan2. This was Wu Jinglue's wordplay way of saying that qin players ought to focus more on playing, and less on talking, than was customary. This was an important point in those days, when a dare-I-say Western-inspired performing regimen for qin players was not yet established. Plus it's good advice for any musician, especially those who tend to live in their heads too much (raises hand).

[charliecharlieecho]

我问的问题不是,“这句话怎么翻成英语?”,而是,“这句话是什么含义?”

[SCWGuqin]

Do you think there's a hanyi that I didn't cover just then?

[wingplum]

SCWGuqin make it very clear already, in Chinese " Òªµ¯ÇÙ,²»ÒªÌ¸ÇÙ ".

[guzhenglover]

utmostvacuity2 said:

"Talk about" and "pluck/play" are both pronounced tan2. This was Wu Jinglue's wordplay way of saying that qin players ought to focus more on playing, and less on talking, than was customary. This was an important point in those days, when a dare-I-say Western-inspired performing regimen for qin players was not yet established. Plus it's good advice for any musician, especially those who tend to live in their heads too much (raises hand).

I understand what this statement means, but personally I find it hard to concur with. i think (again I emphasise this is my personal opinion) that discussing and asking questions are very much a part of the ideal learning situation, whether or not the student is western-inspired. I do however agree that it's important to have a humble attitude, or ÐéÐÄ (xu xin). My view is that having a student who isn't ÐéÐÄ (e.g. one who's only too ready to talk back without first trying to digest the info learnt) is just as undesirable as a teacher who discourages students to ask questions. But these are just my personal feelings.

[SCWGuqin]

The point of the aphorism is not that talking is unimportant. It's an example of corrective wisdom. Traditionally, or so WJL seems to be opining, qin players spent FAR too much time non-playing. You have to understand traditional qin culture for this to be clear. Most amateur qin societies still consist of a lot of people who are very cultured and have some kind of "insight" into the music, but just can't play the damn instrument!

The aphorism CERTAINLY doesn't mean don't ask questions. There are some qin teachers like that (whom I know personally), but I doubt WJL was one of them. He was big into "rationalizing" and "modernizing" the qin.

[charliecharlieecho]

SWCGuqin: talk about what? To say "don't talk about the qin" puts all aspects of the qin on the same level, but is organology as important as cultural aspects? If not, then there's a hierarchy from things worth talking about down to trivia.

Is the saying still valid? WJL dies in, from memory, 1987. At that time there were said to be only a thousand or so people in China who had any interest in it. Now there are said to be tens of thousands. Then the "ideology" was more or less uniform, and pretty much as described by van Gulik; now people are experimenting with electric qin, rock qin, new "art" composistions, ... . How far, if at all, do the changes in circumstances affect the force of what WJL said?

PS: I ain't thick. I *know* what characters WJL had in mind.

[guzhenglover]

This discussion is highly related to the other thread re guqin teachers. One thing that I didn't include in the three different scenarios but had thought about is precisely this "play the qin, don't talk about it" business. It sounds like people need to be know exactly about what tan "talk" really means and, for that matter, what fawen "to question" means. There are teachers out there who seem to have a certain preconceived mindset and they regard certain questions as "valid" questions while others "unvalid" and a waste of time i.e. time that could be better spend playing rather than questioning/talking. For me - and this is my teaching philosophy - that no question is ever a waste of time (as some say, there's no such thing as a stupid question). The main point for me is that students are prepared to ask questions and to discuss things as this indicates that at least students are learning something and thinking over things. So from my perspective, I don't think that teachers should put a condition on when a question should be raised and what kind of questions and issues should be raised/talked about. Dunno if I'm sidetracking here...

[Si]

yao tan qin, bu yao tan qin

its like saying we should not be wasting our time in this forum. Which is not very practical as we few qin player/learners are spread all over the world and often dont get chance to talk about qin (except when correcting somebody who thinks its a guzheng).

[Charlie Huang]

Well, not talking about qin is like trying to keep lay people in the dark about the nature of the qin and adds more to the exclusivity of the instrument... My view is that, make the effort to ask and you shall receive.

[SCWGuqin]

Well, all I know is that I spend my entire life thinking thinking thinking and writing writing writing and talking talking talking talking talking.

Forcing myself to just play the damn instrument for several hours, and cut out all the other stuff, is essential to the qin dao. I tend to discover new things by exploring while playing, not exploring apart from playing.

[Charlie Huang]

Granted. But a bit of research and asking around can prove useful especially if you are stuck on something. Just don't shut Socrates up.

[SCWGuqin]

I'm really surprised that WJL's aphorism is encountering such a chilly reception here. Maybe people just starting out in qin music, or struggling along having never had a real teacher-student relationship, are rightfully concerned with their right to ask and converse. Of course, I don't think the aphorism was meant to deny that right.

Think about it this way. "Serious" musicians anywhere, as in future or active professionals, will practice endlessly. Sure maybe they'll ask/converse too, but the main track of their musical advancement consists in thousands of hours of practice. In India, at least, it's simply assumed that a musician, if he's a real musician, will spend decades practicing over 10 hours a day. (Closer to 20 when young.) That entire ethic is lacking in amateur traditions like the qin.

[Si]

Welcome...to the Real World.

its hard to carve out hours per day to practice qin if you are at work all week. but even my 30mins per day is very enjoyable.

[wingplum]

In ancient China, Qin is played by musician and Ê¿. Ê¿ don't consider themselves musician and even feel being insulted in some situation if so been called .That is why playing technic not a priority, never mind how many songs one knows. Too much talking about Qin ,it will be like ¿ÚÍ·ìø not Zen anymore.

[guzhenglover]

Are some of us equating length/quality of practice times with +/-talking and asking questions? That certainly isn't how I understand how it ought to be! I've never underestimated the importance of the quality and quantity of practising, and sure I don't doubt for a second that practising is just as essential to Qin dao as it is for other instruments. But this still doesn't take away the fact that questions should be asked and issues discussed - and the important point here (for me, at least) is that teachers should not tell students what/which questions the student is allowed to ask. For me that would be lke saying that some questions are stupid and not worth asking. I still think that maybe the key issue here (if it's about the aphorism) is that students should have a xuxin Ì“ÐÄ(humble/modest) attitude during the learning process, though having that doesn't mean that questions can't be asked, nor does it necessarily mean that practising the qin any more/less has anything to do with this attitude.

[charliecharlieecho]

Wingplum, GZL: the Chinese in your messages doesn't render as characters on all machines. Which coding systems are you using?

Generally though, I agree with SCW that the more we practice the better we'll play, not by professional standards but by amateur ones. But that doesn't require any of us, as amateurs to play any longer than we can comfortably fit into our everyday lives. Nor does it require us to stop talking about the qin. There may be times when its important to ask about organology, for example when we first start to play and need to know some of the basic structure of a qin or when we're thinking about making a qin and need a lot of detail. Then when we start learning a piece we need to know something about the values or emotions it's traditionally held to express. But when we've memorised the piece we need to take it away and practice it quietly on our own to explore how we can best express our own understanding of what it's about.

I don't think WJL was saying, "Don't talk"; what he was saying was more like, "Don't talk too much," or "Don't let talking distract you from playing."

[Charlie Huang]

I agree on that point.

[wingplum]

Well said cc echo. I have to check which system is being used.

[laoqinyou]

Given that we are scattered over the Internet and can't just all show up at a tea garden,
I say "you tan qin, you tan qin" (symmetrical :->). Talk about it and play it. If you talk about it,
you might learn something. by talking about it, I learned recently that the Shenqimpu piece called,
he ming jiu gao, has a minor third in it. This is useful. On the other hand, encourage me
and all the rest of you to practice. One of the things I have personally found discouraging in
Portland, Oregon is that I have had about 6 qin students who start and then don't practice. If you
don't practice, you won't get anywhere. I have a friend (a violin player) who called this "the violin
in the closet syndrome".

[guzhenglover]

laoqinyou said:

I have a friend (a violin player) who called this "the violin
in the closet syndrome".

I just love the way your friend puts it ;D Can we imagine how many qins and pianos in the closet there must be in the world - or maybe how many people suffer as a result of their qin-in-the-closet/piano-in-the-closet syndrome...!?

[charliecharlieecho]

guzhenglover said:

laoqinyou said:

I have a friend (a violin player) who called this "the violin
in the closet syndrome".

I just love the way your friend puts it ;D Can we imagine how many qins and pianos in the closet there must be in the world - or maybe how many people suffer as a result of their qin-in-the-closet/piano-in-the-closet syndrome...!?

it's even worse when you suffer from other peoples' qin-in-the-closet syndrome!