Wu Fei's Music Daily

I had fun creating and recording this 3-track guzheng composition yesterday while it was raining outside in Nashville. Before music was became serious in my childhood, I thought about becoming a scientist. Albert Einstein wished he’d be a musician if he wasn’t a scientist. I would’ve loved to have met him and play silly! Hope it brings you a moment of joy into the weekend! Wu Fei 吴非 Wufeimusic.c...

This composition was composed and recorded on 3-track prepared-guzheng, performed by me. Musical instruments whose timbre has been altered by placing various objects (preparations) on or between the instrument's vibrating strings (or other sound source). In this piece, I used four metal key chain rings to be attached on four different strings - one ring on one string. The sound that may sound like...

I composed and recorded this piece on three-track guzheng yesterday. Most of the pitches are played open string harmonics. It means I lay my left fingers lightly on the strings at the exact half way point of the total length of each strings. And then I use my right hand to pluck the strings to get the pitches that are an octave higher than the actual strings. Playing in such a way not only gives m...

This multitrack guzheng composition was created and recorded yesterday. Last week, I was visiting my cousin and her husband in Rouen, France. They have been living there for more than 30 years. They were thrilled to have family members to visit them from overseas since we are all scattered around the world living in different continents. They took us all over the place to see local sights. One was...

This multitrack guzheng piece was composed and recorded yesterday, inspired by my a zither made by my friend Xabier Irinodo, an Italian musician and instrument inventor. In 2006, I played at Xabier’s music shop called Sound Metak in central Milano. That was my first time seeing this zither (photo below) made by him. Two weeks ago, I stayed with Xabier’s family in their holiday home in Mendexa in t...

Dear all, I have finally returned home in Nashville, Tennessee. Thank you for your patience. My holiday was extended by three extra days by the cancellation (Air Canada) of my return flight from Montréal to Nashville that was supposed to bring me home last Saturday. My family and I were stuck in Montréal until Tuesday. However, we were lucky to turn the stressful situation into another holiday in...

This solo guzheng improvisation was recorded yesterday after a couple of days of stormy and steamy weather in Nashville. I had no power for a whole night because of the strong wind and rain on Friday. The city was extremely quiet and calm after the storm knocked out the power. I was surprised how many noises were in the house when the electricity was on all the time. When I sat down to record this...

This guzheng waltz was composed and recorded yesterday, named after a humming bird drinking in the feeder in front of my window (photo below). What an amazing creature it is! I heard the sound of its wings flapping which intrigued me to imitate the sound from my fingers’ plucking. Hope this piece brings you fun energy into your weekend! Wu Fei 吴非 Wufeimusic.com This is a public episode. If you'd...

This night song was composed and recorded on two-track guzheng yesterday. I used the form of a baroque minuet as an intro in the piece. A minuet is a social dance of French origin for two people, usually in 3/4 time. The English word was adapted from the Italian minuetto and the French menuet . The term also describes the musical form that accompanies the dance, which subsequently developed more f...

Dear all, A childhood dream is coming true for me: The Philadelphia Orchestra will perform my symphony orchestral composition Hello Gold Mountain 同舟, presented by Carolina Performing Arts featuring me on guzheng/voice and oud master Shanir Blumenkranz (Silk Road Ensemble). Time : September 21, 19:00pm Venue: Memorial Hall, UNC Chapel Hill, North Carolina Hello Gold Mountain is inspired by real s...

This composition was created and recorded yesterday on two-track guzheng, inspired by the wild potato vine (photo below). They are blossoming on the hills near my home in Nashville. Yesterday was Father’s Day. What a wonderful coincidence that a nickname of the plant is called Man of the Earth! Happy Father’s Day! Wu Fei 吴非 Wufeimusic.com This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this w...

This guzheng + vocal improvisation was recorded yesterday inspired by a live streaming music salon I watched. I got up early yesterday morning to watch this rare live event that was held in Beijing (Nashville is 13 hours behind Beijing). Muqam master Yiliham Reyim, from Yarkant County of Xinjiang, gave a two-hour music performance and Q & A, presented by China Digital Traditional Music 中国音网 ,...

This piece was composed and recorded yesterday dedicating to the millions of high school seniors who are taking the national college entrance exam 高考 at this very moment in China. Every year, in the first week of June, the biggest and most intense exams on earth take place in China for three days. This exam will determine millions of young people’s future in the most dramatic way. I just found o...

Every year on this day, I think of my hometown Beijing with a heavy heart. A group of mothers lost their teenage children in a horrific event on this day thirty four years ago in my hometown. I was still a kid. Now as a mother, I created this piece as if playing my child’s favorite song to put him to sleep. The melodic element from the beginning is typical intonation of traditional story telling a...

Summer is here! A big storm just hailed down in the forest right before I started to warm up for this recording. The sun was still out beaming while the rain poured down. I was inspired instantly by this natural phenomena and improvised this track in one go. Hope it brings you a moment of high energy into your adventurous weekend! Wu Fei 吴非 Wufeimusic.com This is a public episode. If you'd like...

Good morning everyone, I just created this solo guzheng piece ten minutes ago after a long weekend of Memorial Day in the U.S.. The birds are chirping as you can hear in the recording. The white campion blossoms are still there in the early morning. I noticed them yesterday evening while I was taking a stroll. The flowers seemed to pop out of no where all of a sudden. The white campion is native t...

This counterpoint composition was created and recorded yesterday on half-prepared guzheng. I prepared my guzheng with a bandana which semi-muted some of the strings. All the 21 guzheng strings are open strings. The resonance is one of the main characters that make a guzheng sound enchanting. However, I like to have more rhythmic approach on the instrument. I have found an effective way to mute the...

This composition was created and recorded on two track guzheng, performed by me. I continue to explore tone colors in this piece by tuning the guzheng in two different scales in free tempo and time signature in each track. Tempo is the speed in music. The inspiration came from a beautiful afternoon I spent with family in Leipers Fork, Tennessee (photo below). Hope this piece brings you a moment of...

This multitrack guzheng composition was created and recorded yesterday, inspired by a photo by my husband in taken Tibet in January, 1997. He rode a bike (photo below) by himself for a year from Pakistan to Xinjiang to Tibet and Nepal. I envy him to this day. The music started from double tremolos plucked by my thumb and middle fingers back and forth in a rapid speed. In music, tremolos create a t...

This composition was created and recorded yesterday on multitrack guzheng, performed by me. Recently, I have been thinking about traditional compositional structures. The common ones are: * A B A * A B1 B2 A * The sonata form * Rondo ( A B A C A D A) * Theme and variations etc. I realized that I had been using these forms subconsciously because of years of music training. In this piece, I purposel...

This guzheng étude was recorded yesterday at 165 beats per minute (BPM). BPM measures how fast or slow the music is. A song with a BPM of 120 would be considered relatively fast, while a song with a BPM of 60 would be considered relatively slow. In this track, I plucked four times per beat in the tempo of 165 BPM throughout the piece, with occasional pauses. It means I plucked 660 times every minu...

I composed and recorded this piece yesterday on prepared guzheng. A prepared instrument is that instrument has had its sounds temporarily altered by placing bolts, screws, mutes, rubber erasers, and/or other objects on or between the strings. I used five keychain rings in this piece (photo below). This way of playing and making music has had about one hundred years of history. Important composers...

This solo guzheng composition was created and recorded yesterday, performed by me. The Amur honeysuckle are blossoming everywhere in the forest near my home in west Nashville, Tennessee. The Amur, or Heilong Jiang (black dragon river) forms the border between the Russian Far East and Northeastern China. The Amur honeysuckle, is a species of honeysuckle in the family Caprifoliaceae that is native t...

This night song was composed and recorded yesterday, performed by me. Hope this track start your week with a moment of calmness. I would also like to share an album review of the duo record “ Wu Fei and Abigail Washburn ” released by Smithsonian Folkways Recordings in 2020. The review was written by musicologist Jay M. Arms (University of Pittsburgh, PA), and published in the Yearbook for Traditio...

This multitrack guzheng piece was created and recorded yesterday. Every track was played by my left hand. The inspiration was from the wild flowers that are blossoming all over west Nashville. The colors of the flowers are stunning. The best way to give my eyes a break from the screen is to gaze far into the forest for a long time. You should try it too if you haven’t. I am a right handed person....