Wu Fei's Music Daily

Good morning everyone, Thank you for subscribing to Wu Fei’s Music Daily. This is episode #446 — Falling syrup 糖人儿. This piano piece was composed and recorded yesterday, performed by me. The inspiration is from 糖人— sugar people. Sugar people is a traditional Chinese form of folk art using hot, liquid sugar to create three-dimensional figures (see photo below). These fragile, plump figures hav...

Happy Friday everyone, Thank you for subscribing to Wu Fei’s Music Daily. This is episode #445 — Ball of big teeth 大牙之舞. This piano piece was composed and recorded yesterday, performed by me. I love the pumpkins at my children’s school that are carved by all the talented parents (see photo below). They are hilarious! Wish you all a fantastic Halloween weekend! Wu Fei 吴非 Wufeimusic.com Twitte...

Happy Monday everyone, Thank you for subscribing to Wu Fei’s Music Daily. This is episode #442 — Old road to Memphis 故途. This piano composition was created and recorded yesterday, performed by me. Driving can be very meditative, especially in rural areas. This hobby has taken me to forty five states of the U.S.. I hear sound in my head every second while I am behind the wheel. Nature stuns me, a...

Happy Friday everyone, Thank you for subscribing to Wu Fei’s Music Daily. This is episode #441 — The eighth epic pepper 八大椒. This piece was created and recorded yesterday. All instrumental and vocal tracks are performed by me. I used a southern sanxian (Chinese three-string fretless lute) 三弦 for all the plucked string tracks and the percussion part. It was a very fun experiment for me creatin...

Happy Monday everyone, Thank you for subscribing to Wu Fei’s Music Daily. This is episode #437 — Batman queen genie 蝙蝠精灵. This piece was composed and recorded yesterday on multi-tremolo guzheng. Every tremolo with new pitches were started eighteen seconds after the previous one was introduced. Gradually, a sound cluster was built. Every tremolo was ended because my fingers were exhausted. That...

Happy Friday everyone, Thank you for subscribing to Wu Fei’s Music Daily. This is episode #436 — Sichuan dollhouse 娃寨. This piece was created and recorded yesterday on multi-vocal tracks, sung/spoken by me. It draws from the tradition of Luogu 锣鼓经. Luogu literally means "gongs and drums." Luogu is a Chinese percussion ensemble that typically comprises several types of drum and several types o...

Happy Monday everyone, Thank you for subscribing to Wu Fei’s Music Daily. This is episode #432 — Si la re mi 老电话. This composition was created yesterday on multitrack guzheng, performed by me. I used four pitches as the motif for the entire piece. They are singing pitches: si la re mi in solfège. Solfège is a music education method used to teach aural skills, pitch and sight-reading of Western...

Happy Friday everyone, Thank you for subscribing to Wu Fei’s Music Daily. This is episode #431 — Honey brothers 蜜兄弟. I created this piece yesterday on multitrack guzheng, inspired by the honey fungi I saw in the forest (see photo below). I admire its delicious color. Honey fungus spreads from living trees, dead and live roots and stumps by means of reddish-brown to black rhizomorphs (root-like...

Happy Monday everyone, Thank you for subscribing to Wu Fei’s Music Daily. This is episode #427 — Jana 詹娜. This piece was created and recorded yesterday on multitrack guzheng, performed by me. I would like to dedicate this composition to a dear friend of mine — Jana. Jana and I have known each other for twenty one years. She was my first friend in the U.S. when I arrived in Texas in 2000. She was...

Happy Friday everyone, Thank you for subscribing to Wu Fei’s Music Daily. This is episode #426 — The secret clone 神秘克隆. This a cappella piece was composed and recorded yesterday, all tracks sung by me. After a morning hike in the woods, I get completely recharged. The forest is gradually becoming more colorful by the day. Recently I have slipped a few times on certain paths where I had never s...

Hi everyone, Thank you for subscribing to Wu Fei’s Music Daily. This is episode #423 — The tale of purple clay 阅紫砂. This solo guzheng composition was created and recorded yesterday, performed by me. I would like share this newsletter with all my subscriber for free because I want to share this exciting book release that I am part of. A few years ago, Abigail Washburn and I were invited by Princ...

Happy Monday everyone, Thank you for subscribing to Wu Fei’s Music Daily. This is episode #422 — Dancing in one shoe 一枝独秀. This piece was created and recorded on 4-track guzheng, performed by me. It is an etude using a rhythmic pattern called syncopation. I start the piece with playing tutti, and then develop it into counterpointing the melodies and rhythms. It was a fun experiment! Hope your...

Happy Friday everyone, Thank you for subscribing to Wu Fei’s Music Daily. This is episode #421 — Autumn hoofing 秋叮咚. This piece was created and recorded yesterday on multi-track guzheng, performed by me. The deer in the forest have become much more relaxed around humans. The mother and her doe have been coming out in the morning to play on my neighbor’s lawn. What a way to start my day! Hope yo...

Happy Moon Festival everyone 中秋节快乐! Thank you for subscribing to Wu Fei’s Music Daily. This is episode #418 — The lunar maria 月海. Today is the Moon Festival, also known as Mid-Autumn Festival 中秋节. I would like to share this post with all my subscribers. Hope you are with your loved ones on this day. If you can’t be together, please tell each other that you can watch the full moon tonight...

Happy Monday everyone, Thank you for subscribing to Wu Fei’s Music Daily. This is episode #417 — High desert, red willows 高漠有红柳. This piece was created and recorded yesterday on solo guzheng. A dear friend of mine whom I hadn’t seen for many years came to visit me yesterday. We had a wonderful catch up. He told me that he was going to Taos, New Mexico. I was fascinated by this place from what...

Happy Friday everyone, Thank you for subscribing to Wu Fei’s Music Daily. This is episode #416 — Magnet’s wedding 铁磁铁磁的. This composition was created and recorded on three-track guzheng yesterday, performed by me. The two elements in this piece sound like twin sisters getting married at the same time, pulling each others away and getting back to each other again. They are different, and yet,...

Happy Monday everyone, Thank you for subscribing to Wu Fei’s Music Daily. This is episode #412 — Hiding in seagrass 海的女儿. This piece was created and recorded yesterday on three-track guzheng, performed by me. I had a busy three days last week giving classes and playing a concert in Butler University in Indianapolis. After returning home on Saturday, my fingers were craving proper exercise. Thi...

Happy Friday everyone, Thank you for subscribing to Wu Fei’s Music Daily. This is episode #411 — Drop it and shine 退一步, 海阔天空. This multi-track guzheng composition was created and recorded on September 7th, 2021, performed by me. It is another piece where I did not wear finger picks so I could pluck and mute instantly. It is a technique I learned from playing Balinese gamelan music, where mo...

Happy Rosh Hashanah everyone, Thank you for subscribing to Wu Fei’s Music Daily. This is episode #408 — The last river 谷蓝松. This piece was created and recorded yesterday on guzheng, performed by me. The weather in Nashville has been beautiful. It has entered my favorite season — autumn. In the morning, I had a hike in the forest. The forest was full of birds’ calls. Suddenly, I heard birds sing...

Happy Friday everyone, Thank you for subscribing to Wu Fei’s Music Daily. This is episode #407 — Curving train 遥拜. This improvisation was recorded yesterday on my vocal and guzheng. We live in a very strange time — the strangest time I’ve ever remembered in my life time that is not long, not short. Sometimes I feel I’ve barely lived. Sometimes I feel I’ve lived for thousands of years. Everything...

Happy Monday everyone, Thank you for subscribing to Wu Fei’s Music Daily. This is episode #403 — Switching twigs 连理枝. This composition was created and recorded yesterday on four-track guzheng, performed by me. It is another etude for finger exercise. I created this piece right after practicing Bach’s preludes from The Well-Tempered Clavier for piano. There might be some of the “left-over” flavo...

Happy Friday everyone, Thank you for subscribing to Wu Fei’s Music Daily. This is episode #402 — High horse school 麒麟斋. This composition was created and recorded yesterday on multitrack muted guzheng, performed by me. I am excited to announce that my chamber orchestral composition Hello Gold Mountain will be performed on September 9, 2021 at the Schrott Center for the Arts in Butler University...

Good morning everyone, Thank you for subscribing to Wu Fei’s Music Daily. This is episode #398 — Maybe shimmering 能灻否. This solo guzheng improvisation was recorded yesterday. I had a moment reconnecting to the music root I was raised on. I hear the folklores from the old dynasties; I see the caves that are full of paintings on the walls; I walk by the foothills of the ancient Great Wall ruins,...

Happy Friday everyone, Thank you for subscribing to Wu Fei’s Music Daily. This is episode #397 — Deep garden 蝶恋花. This composition was created and recorded yesterday on multitrack guzheng, performed by me. Hiking on the hills of west Nashville, I am often stunned by how many butterflies there are. They fly quite high and fast that I sometimes mistake them for bats. This handsome black swallowta...

Happy Monday everyone, Thank you for subscribing to Wu Fei’s Music Daily. This is episode #393 — Feathers in the field 翼. This solo guzheng piece was created and recorded yesterday. A dear friend came to visit us yesterday. He told us about the “field parties” he had growing up in Tennessee. After he left, I went into the studio and recorded this piece thinking about the field parties and my frie...