The Songs I am Thinking About Learning by April 2nd (my final presentation day)

Fig.1 Score for The Red Bean Poem

The name of the song is called The Red Bean Poem (紅豆詞 - Hong Dou Ci), red bean in Chinese literature had always symbolized lovesickness. The lyrics were extracted from a novel written in the Qing Dynasty (清朝) by the famous novelist Cao XueQin (曹雪芹) called Dream of the Red Chamber (紅樓夢 - Hong Lou Meng). It is meant to be a poem that one of the female character from the novel "wrote" about the misfortune in her relationship with her arranged fiance who never married her.

More details about the song and lyrics translation can be found here.

◎◎◎◎◎◎◎◎◎◎◎◎◎◎◎◎◎◎◎◎◎◎◎◎◎◎◎◎◎◎◎◎

Fig.2 Score for The River Runs Red

This song is called The River Runs Red (滿江紅 - Man Jiang Hong) was written by a famous General in the Song Dynasty (宋朝), named Yue Fei (岳飛). He was very honorable and loyal to the Song Dynasty. When he wrote this poem, he was on the boarder of China defending the country from Mongolian intruders; however, he got summoned back to the capital city by the Emperor who believed the false accusation made towards him by a corrupted official who framed Yue Fei for treason. He ended up being executed for a crime that he did not commit. He wrote this poem to express his anger towards the corruption in the government and the fact he could not continue to serve his country because of the corruption.

Translation of the poem can be found here.

※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※

Note that these two scores also have the more well-known staff notation used in Western art music; however, I am still going to learn the pieces by the Numbered Musical Notation, and the aid of online video resources, as traditional Chinese music were supposed to be pass down through observation, and the Numbered Musical Notation is what they use for traditional musical instruments nowadays.

These musics were not specifically written for the Xun, in fact there really wasn't many music written for any specific instrument in Chinese traditional musical world; therefore, performers will have to make their own judgement call as to which set of fingering should they use. In this case, the two pieces I chose range from one-lower-dot 5 to one-higher-dot 1 or 2, so I would adapt the following set of fingerings:

Fig.3 Fingering I am using for the two pieces I chose

○●○●○●○●○●○●○●○●○●○●○●○●○●○●○●○●○●○●○●○●○●○●

The reason I chose these two songs was that they both mainly consists of 12356 (do-re-me-sol-la), now anyone with basic music theory training would know that these are the notes in a pentatonic scale, which is one of the main characteristics of Chinese traditional music. Also these two songs are actually written before any Western culture got into China, so it is more traditional than a lot of other "traditional" music written by modern Chinese composers.

First Video - Diatonic Scale for the Full Range of the Xun

Fingering is kind of rusty, and breath control is horrible, but I'm working on it~

Fingerings

There isn't many good fingering charts on the internet, and different Xun maker may tune their Xun slightly different than others, so I have to use the one given to me by the manufacturer. It is originally in Chinese, so I put translations on the charts.

Got My New Xun in the Mail!!

This is not exactly related to the project but more to show off my new Xun.

(And hence the goofy font)

It got here during reading week so I just picked it up last night.

I got one for myself and one for my academic adviser.

It's wrapped in enough bubble wrap for me to drop it off of the kitchen counter

and have nothing happen to it.

My new Xun, the words on it says "Happy Everyday"

and the first and last character is my Chinese name.

Getting & Taking Care of a Good Xun

How to pick a good Xun?

1. Choose wisely - a good quality Xun is preferred to have:
   
   Fig. 1 Comparison of a Good Xun and a Bad Xun

   1. Slanted breath hole helps control the air flow to create a solid tone
   2. Thicker, body wall for rounder, fuller sound
   you can see the thickness of the wall from the finger holes
   3. Key identifying stamp is a sign of the instrument has a set of organized tones
   (other words, it can at least play a set of diatonic scale)
   

   4. Rounded finger holes for comfortable playing 

   (also an indication of fine tuning of the instrument)
   
   
2. Purchase from reputable manufacturer - if you can't actually go to a store to look at the Xun in person, research on forums and find a reputable manufacturer to get the Xun from, they are "REPUTABLE" for a reason!! (I'm not going to publicly advertise for the manufacturer I got mine from, but message me in private and I'll send you their way if you want to get one for yourself.)

How to take good care of your Xun?

Day-to-day maintenance:

The manufacturer recommend musician to wipe down the Xun with dry, soft cotton cloth before and after each performance. The wiping before each performance can warm up the Xun so that it can create a rounder, fuller sound; wiping it down after a performance can get rid of the condensation on the Xun so it would not get mould (not THAT important when you're in dry places such as Canada, but better safe than sorry, eh?!). 

Cleaning (whenever needed):

To clean the outside of the Xun, it is recommended to use a damp cloth to wipe it once, followed by wiping it with a piece of dry cloth. To clean the inside of the Xun, it is best to just use compressed air to get any dust out of it, . When not in use, store the Xun in the bag provided by the manufacturer to keep dust from collecting inside of the Xun. 

※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※

So I combined the two maintenance advice I got from the manufacturer, I decided that before I put the Xun back into the bag it came with, I wrap it up with a cotton face-towel, that way the Xun gets extra protection and I have a handy little wiping cloth!!

※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※

Updated March 3rd: I've asked the manufacturer, you can also warm up the Xun by putting it in front of a space heater, or wrap it with an electric heating blanket. They also told me it is only necessary to warm up the Xun before playing when it's cold, though I would still prefer to warm it up for a bit as it is easier to get a decent tone out of the Xun when it's nice and warm.

The Numbered Musical Notation

The "Actual" Traditional Notation

First of all, this is NOT the original notation system that my ancestors used. Traditional Chinese music, as a lot of you might know, was composed on a pentonic scale, what a lot of people do not know is how they used to notate the music, they used Chinese words "宮(gong)", "商(shang)", "角(jyue)", "徵(ji)", "羽(yu)", to represent "Do", "Re", "Mi", "So", "La" respectively, and they have other Chinese words to indicate the rhythms, and performing technique, as you can tell, that's some heavy "reading", and it's difficult to understand (see Fig.1 below for an example of antient Chinese written music); therefore, the musicians in China started to adapt the Numbered Musical Notation in 1904.

Fig.1 Antient Chinese written music

The Numbered Musical Notation

The Numbered Musical Notation was invented by a French composer named Jean-Jacques Rousseau in the 18th century. Despite the fact it was invented in Europe, the world of Western music never really adapt this notation system, when the modern Chinese scholars are trying to organize some ancient written music, they adapted this simple system that is easy for just about anyone to sight-read.  The Numbered Musical Notation is now more commonly known as JianPu (簡譜), which means "simplified notation" in Chinese.

The Basics

1. The Notes
• Rest = 0
• Do = 1
• Re = 2
• Mi = 3
• Fa = 4
• So = 5
• La = 6
• Ti = 7
2. Notating
   Write the base key on the top left corner of the score; for example, 1 = E means the music is in the key of E Major
3. High and Low Pitches
• Base key = just numbers
• Octave above base key = "." on top of number
• Octave below base key = "." below number
• 2 Octave above base key = ":" on top of number
• 2 Octave below base key = ":" below number... the more octave away from the base key, the more dots you add to the number
• Usually the base key refers to the C4 - B4 on the piano keyboard; however, it really depends on the range of the instrument, for instance, if you want to notate an instrument with higher pitches, you lower the base key by an octave when notating.
4. Note values
• Rhythm trees                          
  
  

  Fig.2 Western Music Notation version
  
  

  

  Fig.3 Numbered Musical Notation version
• For dotted note values the Numbered Musical Notation is the same as Western Music Notation, which means, 5. = 5 + 5; however, to notate dotted half and dotted whole, one simply add extra dashes behind the number, for example, dotted half = 5  -  -