Video of Chinese Sheng playing

Subject: RE: Video of Chinese Sheng playing
From: Azizi
Date: 29 Dec 08 - 02:50 PM

Thanks for that info & interesting commentary, Jack.

I appreciate it.

Subject: RE: Video of Chinese Sheng playing
From: Jack Campin
Date: 29 Dec 08 - 02:31 PM

Azizi - I think that drum is a djembe. The Chinese drums I know of are either fan drums or else two-headed barrel and hourglass types.

Djembes have been around the UK for a while, though their peak of popularity was 10-15 years ago. For a while they had a reputation as being the last resort of the musically clueless and permanently stoned, the sort of people even bodhran players would make jokes about. But the survivors seem to have learned something - these days when somebody turns up at a session with a djembe you can have a reasonable expectation that they know what to do with it.

Subject: RE: Video of Chinese Sheng playing
From: Valmai Goodyear
Date: 29 Dec 08 - 02:01 PM

A sheng player regularly busks in Lewes, Sussex, UK, with a pre-recorded orchestral backing. His name is Wang Shun Xin, a former soloist with the China National Film Orchestra. He also plays the Dizi (wooden flute) and the Suna. His CD 'The Herdsman's Song' is mostly of Chinese music, but includes a rendition of Danny Boy, described on the playlist as an English Folk Song.

I feel that is some consolation for finding 'Sussex By The Sea' on a website dedicated to Irish music.

Valmai (Lewes)

Subject: RE: Video of Chinese Sheng playing
From: katlaughing
Date: 29 Dec 08 - 11:35 AM

Q, maybe this was one of the ones you meant: Miao Lusheng Dance & playing?

Subject: RE: Video of Chinese Sheng playing
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 29 Dec 08 - 11:05 AM

Most interesting. Thanks for posting.

Subject: RE: Video of Chinese Sheng playing
From: treewind
Date: 29 Dec 08 - 02:48 AM

I met a sheng in about 1986, played by one of the Guo brothers. I was busking in London and they came up to ask when I'd be finishing so they could take over the pitch. They've become better known since then... They were quite intrigued with my concertina and melodeon too, but I had to hear the sheng and I stayed and listened for some time after they started playing.

The playing in that video seems much more sophisticated than what I remember from that encounter.

Anahata

Subject: RE: Video of Chinese Sheng playing
From: Azizi
Date: 28 Dec 08 - 10:12 PM

Thanks for posting that link to that video. I'd never heard of that instrument before.

Somewhat off-topic, is the type of drum being played in that video a traditional Chinese instrument? That drum can be seen at about 1:32 in that video. It looks just like the West African djembe drum which has become quite popular among many African American drummers and other American percussionists since the 1990s.

Click here for a photo of a djembe drum.

And here's a link to an article about the jembe {djembe} drum:

http://echarry.web.wesleyan.edu/jembearticle/article.html

Subject: RE: Video of Chinese Sheng playing
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 28 Dec 08 - 04:42 PM

Something about a malformed video. But type in lusheng and find it.

Subject: RE: Video of Chinese Sheng playing
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 28 Dec 08 - 04:40 PM

Oh, heck- try this:
sheng

Subject: RE: Video of Chinese Sheng playing
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 28 Dec 08 - 04:35 PM

See an old-style handmade one- Miao people of western China.
Tan Dun, the operatic composer, made a dvd featuring this and other folk instruments.
Also called lusheng (other videos on youtube).

sheng

Subject: RE: Video of Chinese Sheng playing
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 28 Dec 08 - 04:34 PM

Tim, many thanks. That's incredible. I've heard the sheng played before but only the basic chord models. I didn't know such advanced versions existed, let alone such virtuosity. Can somebody contact Alan Bearman and get a British tour arranged, please?

I have a basic old model with some bits missing that I use in concertina workshops just to show what the concertina's ancestor looked like. Mine has beaten gold reeds with the tongue actually cut out of the plate so not only do they work both ways (suck/blow)they are plate and reed one piece.

And yes it was the sheng that directly inspired CW to design the Symphoneon which was initially mouth-blown like the sheng, and CW just added the bellows to his key system to produce the English concertina.

You can get them on ebay, a basic model for about £100 from China, but there's a shop on Chalk lane, between the Chalk Lane tube station and Camden High Street that sells pretty decent shengs for about £300-400, nothing like the beast on the video though. Wow!

Subject: RE: Video of Chinese Sheng playing
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 28 Dec 08 - 03:48 PM

Yes, that's generally given in histories of the Western free-reed instruments.

~ Becky in Tucson

Subject: RE: Video of Chinese Sheng playing
From: michaelr
Date: 28 Dec 08 - 03:42 PM

"From the commentary accompanying that video: "It is thought that Johann Wilde and Pere Amiot traveled to China and brought the first shengs back to Europe in 1740 and 1777 respectively, although some believe shengs were known in Europe centuries earlier. However, it was only in the early 1800s that Amiot's sheng inspired the invention of the harmonica, accordion, and reed organ."

Is that a fact?

Subject: RE: Video of Chinese Sheng playing
From: Charley Noble
Date: 28 Dec 08 - 03:34 PM

Wow!

I want one too!

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Video of Chinese Sheng playing
From: katlaughing
Date: 28 Dec 08 - 03:04 PM

Hey, Tim, that IS amazing! I've never heard a sheng before. Sounds as though she has the whole reed section of an orchestra and then some, and her such a little thing! I listened to some of the other sheng videos, too. Very intriguing and fun to listen to. Thanks!

kat

Subject: Video of Chinese Sheng playing
From: GUEST
Date: 28 Dec 08 - 08:02 AM

Hi all - hope you had a great holiday?
Someone on the Concertina net linked to this video.

It is pretty amazing and worth looking at:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=TyugJexoa8I

Tim Radford