Wu Fei's Music Daily

This waltz was composed and recorded on guzheng yesterday, performed by me. Yesterday, I learned about a friend who had been going through a cancer recovery. He has been one of my very first substack supporters since I launched this music daily project in May 2020. His name is Richard. We occasionally exchange thoughts on music and history topics that we both have a lot of passions for. I hope thi...

This solo guzheng and vocal improvisation was recorded yesterday. The melody I sang was inspired by a song that I’ve loved since I was a child. It is from the TV series — Dream of the Red Chamber 红楼梦 (1987), composed by Wang Liping 王立平 (1941), based on the classic novel. Prof. Wang spent more than a year to finish composing and orchestrating all the music for the 36-episode TV dram series. T...

Hi everyone, Thank you for subscribing to Wu Fei’s Music Daily. This is episode #534 — Leaps and trills 润物无声. This piece was composed and recorded yesterday on multitrack guzheng, performed by me. Acorn is bright red when it sprouts in the spring. It happens quietly, yet powerfully. It falls from the tree to the ground, grows into the soil. It breaks the brown shell, and splits in half for the...

Hi everyone, Thank you for subscribing to Wu Fei’s Music Daily. This is episode #533 — Bluet’s blues 蓝号子. This piece was created and recorded on vocal and guzheng yesterday, performed by me. The tiny bluets (photo below) are coming out of the ground. There will be a lot of them very soon, although I only saw these three yesterday. They are the pioneers of their pack for the year! Wishing you a...

Happy International Women’s Day! Thank you for subscribing to Wu Fei’s Music Daily. This is episode #530 — The silver sandals 银色趿拉板儿. It is a free newsletter to all my subscribers to celebrate International Women’s Day. This fun composition was created and recorded yesterday on percussion and vocals, performed by me. I hit the wooden body of my guzheng with my fingers that made the percussiv...

Hi everyone, Thank you for subscribing to Wu Fei’s Music Daily. This is episode #529 — A belated waltz 迟到的华尔兹. This composition was created and recorded yesterday on multitrack and partly prepared guzheng, performed by me. I put two key chain rings on two strings to prepare the bell-like sound from the strings. The difference of the timbres create a sensation of an off-beat delay in the 3/4...

Hi everyone, Thank you for subscribing to Wu Fei’s Music Daily. This is episode #528 — Six echoes 六声轮. This piece was created and recorded yesterday on guzheng and vocal, performed by me. I felt like singing again to welcome the fresh breathe, the hot sun, the bright flowers. The shift from freezing night to sweaty noon happened just like that. To nature, that is normal. To modern humans who ha...

Hi everyone, Thank you for subscribing to Wu Fei’s Music Daily. This is episode #524 — Guzheng night song 18 古筝夜曲十八号. This guzheng improvisation was recorded yesterday. The world has been shockingly disturbing in the last week, especially the last twenty four hours in Europe. I have to be honest that I struggled to stay calm and positive about the future at this very moment. I feel very for...

Hi everyone, Thank you for subscribing to Wu Fei’s Music Daily. This is episode #523 — Charging the silk 蚕丝阵. This guzheng etude was composed and recorded yesterday, performed by me. I read about how silk was made in China more than 5000 years ago. Silkworms are the larvae of Bombyx mori moths. The caterpillars eat only mulberry leaves. When they get big, they spin two threads of silk from the...

Happy Monday everyone, Thank you for subscribing to Wu Fei’s Music Daily. This is episode #519 — The apple farmer’s secret 苹果秘笈. This solo guzheng improvisation was recorded yesterday. There was an article in Ask magazine about grafting — an old trick the ancient Greeks came up with in 400 BCE for growing sweeter apples. That was around the same time when the guzheng appeared in China. This ne...

Happy Friday everyone, Thank you for subscribing to Wu Fei’s Music Daily. This is episode #518 — A bumpy telegram 颠簸的电报. This composition was created and recorded yesterday, performed by me. My daughter made her own U.S. postal letter to her father yesterday. She shared an interesting story with him in the letter. As she was reading it to us, my brain was instantly taken to a world where I st...

Happy Lantern Festival and Valentine’s Day! Thank you for subscribing to Wu Fei’s Music Daily. This is episode #514 — Slicing the wind 风片儿. This guzheng composition was created yesterday, performed by me. It got much colder in Nashville all of a sudden. I saw ice shaped like this on the ground (photo below). After searching on the internet, many similar patterns came up that were from rocks, tr...

Happy Friday everyone, Thank you for subscribing to Wu Fei’s Music Daily. This is episode #513 — Snapping the burning man 火人镖. This composition was created yesterday on multitrack guzheng and vocals, performed by me. I saw this modern-art looking wood in the woods yesterday (photo below). Who knows how many times it had been struck by lightening. It looks like it’s running away from me. Hope yo...

Happy Monday everyone, Thank you for subscribing to Wu Fei’s Music Daily. This is episode #509 — Giggling sorghum 高粱咯咯. This piece was composed and recorded three days ago, performed by me on multitrack guzheng. It was a cold day when I wrote this piece. My fingers needed a lot of warm up. So I decided to record this whole process of how I got to the “warm” and “relaxed” stage at the end. Hope...

Happy Friday everyone, Thank you for subscribing to Wu Fei’s Music Daily. This is episode #508 — Six gourds on a boat 六条葫芦船. This piece was composed and recorded yesterday, performed by me on multitrack guzheng. One of my family traditions during lunar new year is my mother making a sweet sticky rice / dates dessert. This year, she made a 吉 dessert (photo below). The character means “luckine...

Happy Monday everyone, Thank you for subscribing to Wu Fei’s Music Daily. This is episode #504 — Tiger prelude 水虎序. This piece was created yesterday on multitrack guzheng, performed by me. In two days, we will enter the year of the Water Tiger. I am utterly excited about this lunar new year, so I wrote this piece to welcome the big spring festival! Speaking of big spring, I want to reach out to...

Happy Friday everyone, Thank you for subscribing to Wu Fei’s Music Daily. This is episode #503 — Elle from Montréal 艾老师. This multitrack vocal + guzheng piece was composed yesterday, performed by me. I would like to dedicate it to a very special woman who has touched our family since we moved to Nashville in 2015. Her is name Helene “Elle” Harvey, teacher, director, and founder of A New Leaf an...

Hi everyone, Thank you for your generous support to Wu Fei’s Music Daily. This is episode #500 — Charlotte lullaby 1 夏洛特摇篮曲之一. This vocal and guzheng piece was recorded last night. After a busy day driving my family all over town, I finally had a moment to practice music. It had been a while since I recorded music at night time. Playing music in the dark brings out very different of yearni...

Happy Monday everyone, Thank you for subscribing to Wu Fei’s Music Daily. This is episode #499 — Pot bellies 冰塔. This multitrack guzheng piece was created and recorded yesterday, performed by me. I was amused by these cool looking icicles (photo below) and wrote this song for them. It was fun putting this composition together. Hope you enjoy it! Wu Fei Twitter @wufei Facebook @realwufeimusic Ins...

Happy Friday everyone, Thank you for subscribing to Wu Fei’s Music Daily. This is episode #498 — Frisbee turtle 飞盘龟. This piece was created and recorded yesterday on multitrack guzheng, performed by me. My daughter was reading the latest issue of a magazine that seh reads called Ask . She was naming some pictures on a page and I heard “Frisbee turtle”. How perfect! I gave myself a proposition t...

Happy Tuesday everyone, Thank you for subscribing to Wu Fei’s Music Daily. This is episode #495 — A boot in the woods 草靴子. Hope you had a wonderful long weekend if you were in the U.S.. I celebrated Martin Luther King Day by creating this piece yesterday on guzheng. It has been raining and snowing in the last few days in Nashville. I got to see all kinds of different scenes in the forest. One d...

Happy Friday everyone, Thank you for subscribing to Wu Fei’s Music Daily. This is episode #494 — Moon hunter 月球猎人. This composition was created yesterday, performed by me on multitrack guzheng. When I look at the photo below, I see endless patterns — random on the surface when every piece of flake coming from the same origin. The patterns look like a song. And then, I went down a rabbit hole o...

Happy Monday everyone, Thank you for subscribing to Wu Fei’s Music Daily. This is episode #490 — In my pitches 字里行间. This piece was created yesterday, performed by me on partly prepared guzheng. I had a fun time watching the birds eating on our bird feeder the last few days. Their interaction with each other while they ate was quite interesting. There were timid birds. There were brave birds....

Happy Friday everyone, Thank you for subscribing to Wu Fei’s Music Daily. This is episode #489 — The silent fable 无声的寓言. This vocal and guzheng piece was created and performed by me yesterday. The snow came down quickly and quietly in the morning yesterday. It went from nothing on the ground to an inch of snow in less than 10 minutes. I tried to listen to the sound of the massive snow flakes....

Happy Monday everyone, Thank you for subscribing to Wu Fei’s Music Daily. This is episode #485 — Lady Crane 鹤夫人. This composition was created yesterday on multitrack guzheng, performed by me. The scale is a combination of major, minor and the Balinese gamelan scale. The timbre is a mixture of open strings and half muted overtones. The photo below is of a Chinese vase that I saw in The Metropoli...