FAR FROM SHORES WE KNOW Performance On December 8

Title  -- English： FAR FROM SHORES WE KNOW
                 Norwegian： Fjernt fra kjente land
                Irish：   Fada ón ar gcladaí
                Turkey: Bildigimiz Diyarlardan Uzak                 
                Korean: 먼 바닷가에서              
                Chinese: 致远方

This is a totally different concert than any concerts I attended before.  Almost all the sections were improvisation. It was so difficult to imagine that everyone joins and exits at will. It was harder to imagine that I needed to do  improvisation with my classmates by Chinese instrument.  I used to give up, but Dr. Gilbert encourage me to try it. Sure enough,  I did it, we did it. Not only that, we did network cooperation with  Tromsø and Belfast.  It is so fabulous! 



Paticipants --- 
NYU Expanded Music:                         
Brooks Berg                         ChenChong Deng                 Emirhan Tunca                      Pablo Rodriguez                  Ruoyao Bai                         Shanshan Jia                      Shanshan Yu                         Shuai Zhao                         Shuyi Ji                         
Victoria Schwartzman      Xuran Zhao                         Michelle Rampal                        Jun Zhang                       
Teaching artist and dancer: Jee Yun Hong                        

University of Tromsø                       
 Vidar Alvestad - Trumpet                      
 Anders Melhus - Violin                     
 Sigbjørn Thomassen - Acoustic guitar                       
Jon Marius Aareskjold – Electronics                       

Queen’s University Belfast：                       
 Min Kim — vocals                        
Lisa Conway — violin and electronics                        
Jose Moncaleano — charango                        
Andrew Childress — keys and electronics                       
Robin Renwick — engineer                        

NYU Collaborative Projects of Performing Arts:                       
Professor Tom Beyer                        
Shashank Aswathanarayana                       
Stanley Figaro                          
Lauren Rose Hood                        
Melissa Lucille Muscato                         
Jeet Paul                        
Ian M Pritchard                        
Dominick Paul Chang 



                        

Far From The Shores We Know Rehearsal & Program & Poster on 12/6/2013

In order to prepare the concert on December 8, everyone gathered in theater on Saturday and Sunday. We did sound check, connect with Tromsø and  Belfast. At the same time, Dr. Gilbert prepared delicious meals for us.   

In the mean time, Ruoyao Bai, Shanshan Jia and I need to reorganize the email information to design the program. It was our first time to do this thing, all of us had no idea how to finish it.  So I decided to split up. Ruoyao looked through all emails and picked up the important ones. Then I copied or rewrote the contents based on the template. At last, I sent the formal content to Shanshan to do the layout. 

We finally finished and printed all the programs at 9:00 pm.  All of us felt a great sense of achievement when we finished all by ourselves. 

Cello & Percussion： Steven Sharp Nelson

Steven Sharp Nelson learnt to play the Cello at the age of 8, and learnt Percussion instrument at the age of 12.  When he was 17 years old, he began to learn Guitar.  He combines these three instruments' characteristic elements, and creates a totally different ways to play Cello.

His playing includes such as parody, comedy and comic relief all these signature style.

【Cello Wars（Star Wars Parody）】

【Cello Wars（Star Wars Parody）】

【The Cello Song】

Ideas that developing for the Production

1.       Considering to have food as part of the show – cross cultural, 2 minutes food fest

2.       Part by part, different groups，instruments，styles  together.

3.       Considering using color as a big feature in some aspects of the performance.

a. We could wear different colors in context of the performance.

b. Color theory in relation to music (e.g. Scriabin. Scriabin could see different colors with the tones that he heard. The Philadelphia Orchestra once played Scriabin and projected the colors that went along with it.)

4.       Setting up a deaf student with a computer that enabled him to have a sense of pitch/combinations of pitches with the length/duration as a graph. He was able to graphically create compositions. They didn't have musical coherence, but if you take something strange and listen to it over and over, you start to create connections.

5.       Adding voice in different styles – different characteristics of regions/dialects

6.       Adding different countries’ music – matching pictures and movies.

7.       Chinese instruments （e.g. Guqin & Zither） 

8.       We could do a vocal improvisation – Sprechstimme- Scheonberg’s postmodern music.

9.       Percussion instruments in the resource room on the 7^th floor that we could make use of.

10.   Consider audience involvement – bring them into the scene or bring them onto the stage, or going to them.

11.   Color coding drumsticks or gloves, or something, with cue cards to direct participants with beats.

12.   Compose a small melody with lyrics

13.   We could improvise dance based on the different tasted – taste as scores

14.   Make a plotline / scenes; find a way to link everything as narrative. （e.g. morning & afternoon & evening / school / West and Chinese music / international students）

The Introduction of The Art of Tai Chi Boxing

PLANNING SESSION On 11/29/2013

Dr. Gilbert, Shanshan Jia and I met at 1：00 pm on Friday at Uncle Ted’s on 163 Bleecker Street. It is Chinese restaurant ， I like there so much! I was so grateful that Dr. Gilbert chose the such a nice restaurant. It seems familiar and close to home. We did some planning when we enjoyed the delicious lunch.

After the lunch, we went to a long history coffeehouse named Dante’s. Dr. Gilbert suggested us to drink latte.
Then we continued to finish the scene structure that includes our partners in Belfast and Tromso. 

Celebrating Thanksgiving

This is my first time in New York. I heard lots of teachers and classmates said that there is a very famous parade for thanksgiving in the morning every year. So I woke up very early and  went to 42nd Bryant Park to watch the parade. I absolutely did not think of is,  so many people were waiting there, and some people even  had already waited there all night in order to get a good seat. That's so crazy! At the same time, I admire them so much for their passion！

 When I came home, I was pleasantly surprised that Dr. Gilbert sent our expander a email which he created a piece of song for thanksgiving and sang it by himself. It is so unbelievable. When I was in China, none of my teachers did such creative thing. I have to say, Dr. Gilbert is full of energy and vitality.

Improvisation & Blind People

Today Dr. Gilbert shared us a few stories. One is about a performance named Noah’s Flood, the other is about blind people.

Noah’s Flood was performed on this weekend. And it was also intended for combining professionals and nonprofessionals together performed at a church. It produced by the Lighthouse. There were lots of blind children in the performance. Lighthouse and our department have been developing a relationship, so some students in our department can interns there to work. One of our classmates from Chile serves as a intern at the Lighthouse. He is been learning Braille. Braille is designed for blind people. The blind people can read it through touching the dots. Helen Keller was a deaf and blind person. She was so wild that nobody could handler her. But one of the governesses helped her to feel the world by touching something again and again. She became one of the most educated people at last.

So, Dr. Gilbert thinks that what if we put the Braille typewriter into our performance. At the same time, music is expanded for people who don’t have sight but also can bringing a musical experience. In the mean time, most of blind people are very genius. They can perform improvisation because of their excellent sense of hearing and musicianship. As musicians, the most important thing is not how good we are but who we are. We need try our best to explore our potential. So to do improvisation is the best way to express our feeling and musicianship.   

Warming Up

In this week's class, one of our classmates Pablo brought his typewriter in the theater. The typewriter is designed for blind person. Dr. Gilbert suggested Jee Yun to do choreography. Then, Jee Yun designed a series actions for each of us. We imagined us as a blind person, and was feeling a piece of music by touching the blind scores. It is a different way to express the blind people's music life. It was very fun! 

Free Play

Dr. Gilbert gave us a book named Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art. It was written by Stephen Nachmanovitch.

The most impressive sentence is "i" am not "doing something"; it's more like following, or taking dictation. So the only thing we need to do is listen our heart and follow them. Lots of musicians are good at accurately expressing composer's music. When there are no solid scores for them, some musicians will feel anxious. I think the most living music is from communicate with our partner and then express what has feelings for the communication. This communication not only means language communication, but also can include music, dance, pictures and so on.

This video is a sand animation. A Russian woman named Kseniya Simonova drawn it based on the Second War. Even though I saw this video more than 10 times, I still was moved when I saw it again this morning. 

This video is totally improvisation. It is very funny.  

Expanded Music and Collaborative Projects at Choga

We had an amazing class this afternoon. We got together at Choga for a dinner instead of meeting in class. The food was so delicious that all of us were every full. 

After dinner，we did warm-up as usual. Jee Yun asked us to imagine that we own the power to touch the universe. Then, she cooperated with Emirhan. At the same time, some of classmates did the collective improvisation. It was so fantastic! 

Zen in the Art of Archery

Dr. Gilbert gave us a gorgeous book named Zen in the Art of Archery. I learn a lot from this book.

Zen is this kind of thing - A thousand words from the pen in a stream, but ten thousand li away from the subject. It is too simple that just needs to feel, but we need to go over again and again. Otherwise, we will forget it immediately. Maybe it is too simple to use logic and memory. If we don’t go over it regularly, we will forget it.

Performing music is likes archery，shot arrows one by one. Because once we start, we can’t stop. Every time we shot an arrow is different but is the same. The only thing we do is just bow and arrow. It is meaningless whether we hit or not.  The entire meaning of archery is to feel the spirit of Archery. Actually, when we achieve mastery the spirit, we can hit. But it has lost the meaning in that time. May be we can adopt some techniques to hit, which it is make sense. However， since there is meaningless whether we hit or not, what is the meaning of using techniques. It might become a block. So we just need to shoot one by one and feel the spirit. Then we have mastered the meaning. At the same time, it is not important whether we are the master or not, either.

How Braille Music Scores Important is for Blind Pianist

Eunah Chio is a Korean blind pianist. She explain the need for Braille music scores in this video below. 

This video shows that how amazing the performance of blind pianist is. 

The minutes of Production Meeting Oct. 28

Location: Choga ( 145 Bleecker St, New York 10012 )

Performance Times:       Sunday, Dec. 8

Performance Venues:     Loewe Theatre

Preliminary Planning:

   1. Inviting two or more dancers;

   2. Connecting different culture;

       (Countries: Norway, Columbia, Latin, Mexico, Argentina, Korea and different regions of China

   3. Putting in some warm-up exercises;

   4. Editing videos, compiling pictures 

5 Piano Guys 1 Piano

My friend recommended me this video 2 years ago. When I first saw this video, my heart had already been deeply shocked. It is so amazing that piano provide so many uses! That's awesome!

I regarded piano as a classical western music instrument before. Through watching this video, I have to think about maybe we need to break out of our patterns of thinking, and how to approach our improvisation.

Thinking of an Old Friend - GuQin played by Wu JingL

Wu Jinglüe (Jinglue) (1907-1987) is considered one of the most important Guqin players of the 20th century and was also an active researcher and teacher. He was born in the town of Xitangshi, Changshu County, near Suzhou in Jiangsu province, China, on February 5, 1907, and died in Beijing on August 16, 1987. His son, Wu Wenguang, is also a famous Guqin player. Wu Wenguang teaches in China Conservatory which is my alma mater. 

The Cooperation of Dance and Guqin

This week Jee Yun and I had an amazing cooperation in the class. She is an excellent dancer. When I was playing Guqin, she was responding the music. This was my first time to cooperative with the dancer. I feel so good! 

But when Dr. Gilbert asked me to introduce Guqin, I suddenly didn't know how to explain it. One reason is that my English is limited, the other one is I never thought I need to suggest this instrument one day. So after class, I searched online and try to translate it into English. I hope I can explain it clearly. 

Guqin is a plucked seven-string Chinese musical instrument with a history of more than 3000 years. The prefix "gu-" (meaning "ancient") was later added for clarification.

Guqin has traditionally been favored by scholars and literati as an instrument of great subtlety and refinement. Guqin has always been viewed as the first place among the four Chinese high culture activities such as Guqin, Chess, calligraphy and painting.

There are a lot of symbols around this instrument.
Guqin’s measurement line is 3 feet 65 inches representing the 365 days in a year. The top part is round representing the sky. The bottom part is flat, representing the earth. The body of Guqin looks like the human body, with head, neck, shoulder, waist and feet.

There are 13 markers representing the 13 month of Chinese lunar year. The markers are filled in the Guqin with shells or gold, silver, jade make point, called the "Hui” (emblem) to indicate the sound position. The biggest Hui representing the lunar month.

There are 7 strings in Guqin. The first 5 string representing 5 elements Metal, wood, water, fire and the earth. The 6th string was added by King Wen when his son died. So the 6th string is sorrowful. The 7th string was added by King Wu when he encouraged his soldiers to go to the war. So the 7th string is very strong.

There are 3 category sounds produced by the Guqin. Harmonics is representing the sound from the Heaven. Scattered Sounds is representing the sound from the earth. Stopped Sounds  is representing the Human Beings.

Introduction of Expanded Music

During the first class，Dr. Gilbert introduced us the history of Providencetown Playhouse where is Expanded Music classroom. Actually, it is a small theatre. Dr. Gilbert said people call it playhouse instead of theatre because it looks like a multi art thing. There are many new ideas in the arts came out of here. The most famous playwright Eugene O’Neil once premiered all of his plays in this theatre.

Expanded Music is the first course which Dr. Gilbert taught when he came in NYU. He thinks this course is not just about technology, but the way of sharing. Because we are living in a time which is more open, fluidity and things are coming to light. There are many ways to communicate and share with each other all over the world, such as Facebook, Google and YouTube. Even though these social networks are restricted in China, Chinese have our own ways to find and share information, such as Renren, Baidu and Youku. In some sense, both the function of social networks of US and China are the same. 

Dr. Gilbert said as musicians, we have a very clear experience of that. We have been trained not to experience the music, but to experience knowledge about the music. There is a difference between knowing and knowledge. I think we not only need learn to expand our expression and bring it into our music.  

MINED MUSIC: musical innovation

 Yo-Yo Ma and Lil Buck

MINED MUSIC is a new way of musical expression.  As this video shows, it is the perfect and meaningful combination of the classical and modern. The many-faceted career of cellist Yo-Yo Ma is testament to his continual search for new ways to communicate with audiences and to his personal desire for artistic growth and renewal.