bringing Chinese music to community

[calden]

Hey all:

There doesn't seem to be a lot of activity on this forum, but I'm very glad it's here. Anything and everything about Chinese traditional music is fantastic.

I live in a mid-sized (180,000) American city in the Pacific Northwest. 280 miles east of Seattle, Spokane is across a mountain range and a desert from that large cultural center. The Chinese population here is about 500-600 people, incuding foreign students. Last year I brought my erhu teacher's group (The Warren Chang Ensemble) over from Seattle for a children's music concert to celebrate Chinese New Year. It went over well - 450 people came to this free event, and about 95 came to an evening concert.

I convinced another production company to bring them over this year, and last night they gave a very good performance of erhu, pipa, guzhen, yangqing, and daruan music. But the numbers were low - maybe 35 people. Advertising was sufficient, and I had contacted several of my Chinese friends about it.

So here's a question for those of you who are trying to promote Chinese Trad music in your area: What have you found that works in getting Westerners interested in this? To me, it's stunningly and obviously beautiful music. I was hooked when I first lived in China in 1986 and started studying pipa. But then again, I'm a musician (playing and recording traditional Irish music) so maybe I'm missing something about the potential appeal to the general public.

Carlos Alden

[davidmdahl]

Hello Carlos,

Spokane is a beautiful city! It has been over ten years since my last visit, unfortunately.

There are fairly large Asian communities in the Portland area in Oregon, and a substantial portion is Chinese. One of the glories of the downtown area is the Portland Classical Chinese Garden, which occupies a city block in the Chinatown area. During the summer, they have a concert series, and one of the programs is traditional Chinese music. In August one evening my wife and I attended the trad concert, held outside in the garden. The performers were at one end of the pond, and the audience was situated around the other sides. Like all of the concerts at the garden, this one was very well attended.

I suggest that trad. Chinese concerts done in otherwise pleasant locations might be a good bet, such as in a garden or winery. Obviously these are fair-weather venues, and not a good choice for cold or wet seasons.

Regarding the Irish music connection, I have some experience with Irish flute. It is interesting that both Irish and Chinese music are modal and often pentatonic. One tune that fits this description very well is "The Road to Monalea" by Colm O'Donnell on his Farewell to Evening Dances CD. I have not played it on dizi, but it might cause some confusion. <g>

Best wishes,

David Dahl
Portland, Oregon

[calden]

Hey all:

Happy Imminent Chinese New Year! Xin Nian Yu Kuai! Qun Jie Kuai Le!

Our community is have our fifth annual Chinese New Year celebration in a local community college, including, of course, a program of music and dance and skits. I'm part of a music group, where I'll be playing erhu on a couple of trad standards, Xi Yi Ge and Xi Yang Yang. I'm also playing mandolin on an arrangement of Butterfly Lovers. This little orchestra is led by my friend who plays violin and dizi, and mostly includes local Chinese teens who are playing electric keyboard, sax, flute, cello, and violin. I'm the sole Laowai in the bunch. 52 years old, white hair, large nose - I'm definitely the token white guy.

I'm also singing in a men's quartet. Anyone ever heard the love song "Ban ge yue liang, pa shang lai"? Sweet, syrupy, and full of swelling emotion. I love it!

But I also host a weekly folk/celtic radio show on our local NPR affiliate. For two weeks running I've been focusing on trad Chinese music. This Sunday's show, already recorded, spans the ages starting with a recording of bronze bells unearthed in a tomb outside of Wuhan, created c. 450 BC. I then move on to some trad ensemble music, etc., then come up to modern day punk rock from Taiwan, some steamy r&b from Mainlander Jay, and Cui Jian's "Flying."

If you're interested in having a listen, we webcast. My show is "The Nacho Celtic Hour" and runs every Sunday afternoon from 2-3 pm, PST. You may access it at

www.kpbx.org

and follow the appropriate links to getting a live webcast.

GONG XI FA CAI! GONG HAE FAT CHOY!

Carlos Alden

[Dick]

Hey Carlos,

I made a note to check out your web-cast on Sunday, but when the critical hour arrived it wasn't possible to tune in. Darn it!

Is there any way to check out your radio show after the fact. Does the station keep any past broadcast archives online?

Gong Xi Fa Cai !!!
-Dick

[calden]

Dick said:

Hey Carlos,

I made a note to check out your web-cast on Sunday, but when the critical hour arrived it wasn't possible to tune in. Darn it!

Is there any way to check out your radio show after the fact. Does the station keep any past broadcast archives online?

Gong Xi Fa Cai !!!
-Dick

Dick:

Thanks for asking. No, we don't keep them for public use. I get a CD of each show and I could make a tape if you're seriously interested. There's quite a mix of styles in that one hour! I, unfortunately , missed my own darn show because I was rehearsing for our celebration.

Carlos

[tedtseng]

Hi Carlos,

How difficult it is to record a Chinese music CD? What will be involved in doing such thing?

I am thinking to record a CD for my teacher for my studio. Just a thought. I don't have recording machine and I am thinking to pruduce a contempary music with erhu and zheng. Say, I want to have "The life will go on - Titanic" in my CD, how do I acquire the right of using the song.

Thanks,

[tedtseng]

Hi,

When I was forming the Chinese Music Teaching Studio in Toronto, Canada, I was told there was no market because even Chinese people sent their kids to learn western music. Despite of that commens, I formed the studio and until now I have 10 students and most of them are adult. My goal is to encourage more kids to learn Chinese music. Can you guys suggest one way or two about how I can get younger people to come to learn Chinese music?

Thanks,

[davidmdahl]

tedtseng said:

Can you guys suggest one way or two about how I can get younger people to come to learn Chinese music?

I suggest that you find ways of performing before all sorts of audiences with members of your studio. Cultural events are great opportunities for this. Seattle has its Folklife Festival, and numerous Asian festivals. Portland has several Asian cultural festivals during the year including Tet/Chinese New Year and the Autumn Moon festival. I have heard traditional music at all of these events, and performed at some of them. I think that it is a great way to reach people.

You might try to hook up with other studios that teach Chinese dancing. I like the combination of music and dancing at Asian cultural events. For people who are not used to listening to a lot of guzheng or erhu all at once, it is good to vary the program with dancing. Then you will get the dance crowd possibly getting more interested in the music.

Another possibility for reaching children in particular is finding ways of performing in the schools. It would be great for kids to see other kids performing traditional music. I don't know the mechanisms for doing this in your town, but it might be worth contacting the local school district.

Finally, you might contact Chinese churches in your area to see if they have opportunities for performing traditional music. These could be Christian or Buddhist (or ?). I performed once in a celebration of Buddha's birthday, and several times for Christian church events. You usually will have audiences of all ages.

Good luck.

Best wishes,

David Dahl
Portland, Oregon

[davidmdahl]

tedtseng said:

How difficult it is to record a Chinese music CD? What will be involved in doing such thing?

Until Carlos weighs in, maybe I can come up with suggestions. Recording a CD of Chinese music has its own challenges, but is not much different than recording and publishing other sorts of music. From a rights perspective, uncopyrighted public domain traditional music will be the simplest course. If you want to arrange and record tunes still under copyright, such as "My Heart Will Go On", you will need to get permission from the publisher and pay royalties.

A wealth of information on the rights and royalties aspects of recording a CD is available at www.ascap.com, and you will also find a searchable database of tunes and copyright owners. Of course this applies to the USA. I don't know what sort of rules and procedures apply in Canada, but they may be similar. Googling on relevant key phrases may get you useful information.

The question of appropriate recording equipment is a big topic beyond my experience and probably beyond the scope of this forum. If you have specific questions, maybe one or more of us will have suggestions.

Good luck!

Best wishes,

David Dahl

[tedtseng]

Thank you David. Your information is quite helpful.

Ted

[calden]

Hey Ted:

Sorry for delaying so long to respond. I kind of dropped out of the forum for a while. Life gets busy.

David's advice was correct: if you wish to record a song that is currenty under copyright you'll need what is called a mechanical license. In the USA they are readily available at $.08 per song per CD recording, minimum purchase is 1000 units, so that's $80. Or something like that. You can check with the Harry Fox Agency which handles all licensing rights for this kind of thing:

www.harryfox.com/

I think they will have a link to a site for Canadian information.

I also concur with David's excellent advice pertaining to getting more kids as students. Performances - parents and grandparents love them. Also doing the school thing. If you can go to the local public schools and perform erhu for the strings classes it might turn a kid or two onto the instrument.

Can you play on the street in Toronto? You could get a LOT of great attention and advertise your studio that way, and even make a few bucks.

Good luck, let us know how it goes.

Carlos