The music

Some of my friends have been asking me about the music I am playing with the Silk Road Ensemble. So I want to blog about the two pieces that I am playing. They are entitled "Ambush From Ten Sides" (Chinese trad., arr. Li Cang Sang and Wu Tong) and "Wine Madness" (Ruan Ji, arr. Wu Tong and Liu Lin).

When I was first emailed the scores, I had a reaction of "this is it?" The music looked much simpler than I might expect, especially coming from an ensemble of such fantastic musicians. "Ambush From Ten Sides" (from here on referred to as "Ambush") was only in part form, and was 5 pages long. Not bad, I thought. Wine Madness was only in score format and was around 17 pages long. I could see that some arts and crafts were in my near future.

Then I was sent recordings of both of the pieces. I listened to "Ambush" first. I could barely follow my part the first time I sat down to listen. The first page of the guitar part consists of sections of playing separated by sections of rest, and the tempo seemed to be shifting in just about every section. I would get lost, trying desparately to find a downbeat, and then hear the guitar come in way ahead of where I thought I was. Or I wouldn't hear the guitar where I thought I should.

Then it comes to the musical material itself. Listening to the recordings I was sent, it became evident that this was not a literal part I was given for "Ambush," but rather something of a sketch or a skeleton of how the piece should sound, and it was up to me to figure out what to play, where to fill things in, where I could be a little improvisatory, etc. Hard work of listening, copying, practicing, and thinking ensued. I was later sent a score (and noticed some notable differences between part and score, as well), and this helped clarify the one or two remaining sections that seemed the least bit mysterious.

"Wine Madness" was similar, though the counting was easier. Formally, it shared some elements of the Indian Raga, which I have studied in the past and love very much, so it was in some ways easier for me to relate to and get into. It started with an arrhythmic, free introduction, which I found to be analogous to the Alap section of a raga performance, and then went into a rhythmic section (accompanied by tabla, no less!) which was based around a recurring theme with some notable variation. I found this to be analogous to the Indian Gat.

The score to "Wine Madness," however, presented the sheer problem of quantity - who can turn through 17 pages while playing just about the whole time and stay on top of communication, playing, etc.? If you meet him, he can have my gig. I realized I would have to make my own score, especially because the Ruan (Chinese guitar) part that I heard on the recording and would be imitating sounded NOTHING like what was written throughout much of the piece. But, if you consider the score to be a sketch, it makes perfect sense. However, I did not want to risk the success of my playing on my memory of a recording. So first I transcribed the opening section from the recording (thank you, musicianship class), and based my playing on that. Then, I cut my part out of the score for the second section (literally, like scissors style) and taped the lines to pieces of paper, which I then photocopied. However, this was still a bit long and vague, so I wound up writing it out by hand, using a lot of shorthand notation - repeats and what not - and I got the second section of the piece down to a page. WIN.

I really love both of these pieces. They are a joy to play and learn and I am beyond excited to play them with the ensemble. In other news, I leave in a week and two days. Where has this summer gone?!