Wu Fei's Music Daily

Happy Friday everyone, I created this two-track guzheng piece today thinking about the walk I did with my band mates from the House of Wu Fei last week in a town called Dötlingen in Germany. An unexpected wheat farm popped out of the forest (photo below). It gave me a sense of sudden comfort that I wanted to lay on top of the farm. I hope this piece brings you sweet dreams tonight. Here is the lin...

Happy Friday everyone, I just created this solo guzheng étude in a very fast tempo. I didn’t wear finger picks and used a bandanna threading through the strings. You can hear the half muted sound effect of the guzheng. I was inspired by the fire pink flowers that are blossoming in the wet forest near my home in Nashville. The rain from earlier boosted a lot of new blossoms! Hope this piece brings...

Good morning, afternoon, and evening, This night song improvisation was recorded this morning. It captures the delicate pink early azaleas of Nashville. Yes, they have blossomed fully (photo below)! It is a song good for meditation if that is something you do. When I play or compose, I like to do deep breathing as I phrase the melodic passages. It feels like nature’s cycles—where flowers bloom, fa...

Good morning, afternoon, and evening, I composed and recorded this two-track guzheng piece this morning, inspired by a flamingo. My first sight when I entered the Audubon Zoo in New Orleans last week was a flamingo standing on one leg and taking a nap. As a yogi, that is a goal for me to work on now: to sleep standing on one leg! House of Wu Fei Europe Tour 2025 I will be sending out more free mus...

Happy Passover, Easter and Earth Day! My children had their spring break from school this last week. We went on a road trip to New Orleans. At the Audubon Zoo, a free-range peacock (photo below) caught our attention. It was my first time seeing a peacock only a few feet away opening up his tail. He shook his feathers and made loud callings. It was quite of a show! Apparently, he’s used to having h...

Good morning, afternoon, and evening, This guzheng solo was recorded today, inspired by the early pink azalea—also known as the pinxter flower (photo below). These delicate blooms are lighting up the hills of West Nashville right now, and they’re my favorite wildflowers in the area. Native to eastern North America, they thrive everywhere from Alabama to New Hampshire, their pink-and-white blossoms...

Good morning, afternoon, and evening, Thank you for being patient with me for the last a few days! I had a great time performing for the community of University Notre Dame with my dear friend and music collaborator Abigail Washburn. We started off with a stressful drive leaving Nashville last Thursday. Tornado warnings and flood warnings kept popping out of our phones every twenty minutes. The rai...

Good morning, afternoon and evening, This two-track guzheng composition was recorded today. It is inspired by a Virginia spiderwort (photo) in the forest near my home. How brilliantly the purple and the yellow are together! The crispy green leaf is like an eye massager. I would love to have an outfit that has the exact same color combination as this flower with the same sunshine on me. I hear thes...

Good morning, afternoon and evening, Hope you are all having a restful Sunday. Thank you for being patient with me in the last few days. Today, I am back in my recording rhythm again. This improvisation was just recorded in my studio as the soft and constant rain was coming down. My crabapple tree is in full blossom now (photo below). I have been waiting for this day since a year ago. Hope my musi...

Good morning, afternoon and evening, I just recorded this two-track guzheng (partly prepared) piece today. I used a metal handle that fell off from a measuring cup as part of the instrument (photo below). Now, it is my new music toy and a tuning fork. It produces a perfect D (below A4). During my morning hike, I saw budding magnolia flowers in the forest (photo below) when many trees were still ba...

Good morning, afternoon, and evening, I just composed and recorded this piece on a warm spring day in Nashville. We had a big rain storm this weekend. There was a tornado watch alert. No tornado appeared, but a stretch of our road got washed up. It is drivable, but a repair is needed soon. Today, the weather is stunning again. Everything is growing. The birds, the creek, the frogs, the flowers, an...

Good morning, afternoon and evening, This piece was recorded yesterday after I heard the news of maestra composer Sofia Gubaidulina’s passing. She was 93 years old. The first time I learned about Gubaidulina’s work was when I was in high school studying composition at the China Conservatory of Music. One day, my main professor put this solo accordion recording on his Kenwood stereo (the best Japan...

Hi everyone, This video is the first one that I filmed outside this year. The weather is glorious in my Tennessee holler. I’ve double-dosed my allergy pills so that I can enjoy outdoor more. Playing music outside is the best, especially now before the bugs come out. Hope you enjoy this piece. You can hear my neighbor’s dog barking off and on in the background. Wu Fei 吴非 wufeimusic.com This is a...

Good morning, afternoon, and evening, This three-track guzheng waltz was composed and recorded yesterday. I am never satisfied by music in tonal chromatic scale anymore. The chromatic scale is a musical scale with twelve pitches, each a semitone, also known as a half-step, above or below its adjacent pitches. In this piece, I initially laid down two tracks: the baseline and the melody, both in ton...

Good afternoon and morning, I am back to alive from a week of strep throat torture! If you just got out of a sickness, let’s celebrate it. I recorded this three-track guzheng composition two hours ago. There wasn’t any particular inspiration except feeling good about not being sick again. You can hear my energy from this piece. I used a glass slide, a metal slide and a tuning fork to make a lot of...

Happy Friday everyone, I just composed and recorded this three-track guzheng night song. Yesterday, I had to skip a recording day because my spring allergy was killing me. There was not one minute that I could sit straight up without blowing my nose for an entire day. I got too much back when I was wishing for a warm weather :D Today, I feel much better. Thank you all for your support and patience...

Hi everyone, I composed and recorded this two-track prepared guzheng piece yesterday. There are two elements that inspired me: prepared instrument, and the nine scales from the Yuan Dynasty in China. Prepared instrument (music) refers to experimental music played with a prepared instrument, a musical instrument with objects inserted or attached to alter its sound. In this piece, I stuck two metal...

Happy Friday everyone, I have a lot of videos of home practices, concert footages, and scenes from different places where I have performed. Now Substack is making it really easy to share video, so I will be sharing some of them with you in the coming months. If you are not familiar with the guzheng 古筝, you can see more of how I play and sing at the same time—this is rather rare in the guzheng wo...

Hi everyone, I recorded this solo guzheng improvisation yesterday. Last week, I heard the frogs chirping in the creek close to my house in Nashville. It was a sign of the spring coming. I was excited because I have had enough of the cold weather. However, it is going to get cold again this week and it might even snow. Hope this piece brings you a moment of warm energy into your day! Wu Fei 吴非 Wu...

Happy Friday everyone, I just composed and recorded this three-track guzheng étude in the tempo of 211 BPM (beats per minute). 211 beats per minute is considered crazy fast. It means I play 3.5 beats every second. In the recording, I played 4 notes per beat. Therefore, I played 14 notes per second. Today, there was a lot of strong energy in me that I needed to take out of my head. I was also think...

Happy Lantern Festival 元宵节快乐! I have missed you! My performance with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra was mesmerizing. What a high note to kick off the year of the Snake! I want to thank the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, maestra Naomi Woo who conducted all the pieces performed by featured fellow artists Stella Chen, Dashan 大山, and the Yang Yang Dance Studio. A huge thank you to Mayor Olivia Cho...

Hi everyone, Happy Chū wǔ 初五 — the fifth day of the Chinese New Year. On this day, people welcome the God of Wealth 财神 by preparing feasts, eating dumplings, setting off firecrackers, and cleaning their homes, hoping for prosperity and health in the new year. It is one of the few more significant dates during the new year celebration. I am also getting ready to head to Toronto in a few days to...

Happy New Year of the Wood Snake! This is the first piece of the year of the Snake. I hope it brings you a moment of joy and peace. I had a wonderful family New Year’s Eve dinner. As a family tradition, my mom made a sweet rice cake with the character 福 (fú, meaning happiness or luck) on it that’s made of dates (photo below). The photo is upside down because the “upside down 倒了” also can be sai...

Happy Monday everyone, I just recorded this three-track guzheng piece. The weather is finally warming up in Nashville! My fingers are coming back to life again. As the Chinese New Year approaching soon (tomorrow is New Year’s Eve), I am feeling super excited to the year of the Snake to begin! I was picturing my fingers moving as fast as firecrackers popping, fueled by “way” too many sweets. Hope t...

Happy Friday everyone, The cold temperatures in here in Nashville will soon end. Instrumentalists really don’t do well in the cold. Hopefully this morning will be the last day at freezing level for a while. If you’re somewhere freezing and struggling to practice or exercise today, let’s pull through the cold together! On another subject, I am honored to be featured by Represent Asian . The full ar...