Wu Fei's Music Daily

Hola everyone, How have you all been? Hope you all have had a fun and restful summer or winter break! I just got back home to Nashville from a tour in Colombia. It was my first visit to the South American continent ever. Before I went, I had zero idea what to expect. All I really knew about Colombia were two famous Colombian soccer stars from the 1990s from watching the World Cup on Chinese televi...

Good morning everyone, I just recorded this morning improvisation on solo guzheng inspired by the beautiful beach spider lily (photo below). Yesterday, I had a four-hour hike in the Montgomery Bell State Park in Tennessee where I saw these delicate flowers. The beach spider lily is native to warmer coastal regions of Latin America, Southeastern U.S. and a widely cultivated and naturalized plant in...

Hi everyone, This two-track guzheng waltz was composed and recorded today during a rainy day. Earlier, the sweet humming bird was drinking the sugar water from the feeder. It is always meditative for me to watch them come and go as if they dance a waltz in the air. Hope this piece brings a moment of calmness into your weekend! Wu Fei 吴非 Wufeimusic.com | hellogoldmountain.com | wufeimusic.substac...

Hi everyone, I composed and recorded this new song with voice and on the valiha yesterday. The valiha is a traditional 21-string tube zither from Madagascar (photo below). I want to thank my dear friends Tasha and David for bringing me this beautiful gift from Madagascar to Nashville, Tennessee. Playing it makes me miss Africa and the Indian Ocean, where I have spent some very happy times. I will...

Hi everyone, I recorded this solo guzheng improvisation yesterday. It is named after this elegant southeastern five-lined skink (photo below) that I saw during my hike in west Nashville. Southeastern five-lined skinks have five characteristic narrow stripes along their bodies that become lighter with age. The middle stripe tends to be narrower than the others, and the dark areas between stripes ar...

Hi everyone, This guzheng improvisation was recorded yesterday. I named the piece after encountering the mountain mint in Edwin Warner Park in Nashville (photo below). Other common names included wild basil or hoary basil. It is a herbaceous perennial in the mint family. The plant is widespread across Eastern United States and into Ontario, Canada. White blooms appear from July to September. Some...

Hi everyone, I composed and recorded two-track guzheng song yesterday in the middle a very hot day. Before I went into the studio, I had just finished making a promotional video for my upcoming tour Colombia. In the video, I spoke in Spanish entirely for the first time in my life. You can hear my joy in this track :) Hope this piece brings you joy too! Wu Fei 吴非 Wufeimusic.com | hellogoldmountai...

Hi everyone, I composed and recorded this three-track guzheng night song this morning. It is mostly played on open string harmonics. In physics, a harmonic is a sinusoidal wave with a frequency that is a positive integer multiple of the fundamental frequency of a periodic signal. The fundamental frequency is also called the 1st harmonic; the other harmonics are known as higher harmonics. On the gu...

Hi everyone, This fast étude was created and recorded on two-track guzheng yesterday. The wild blackberries are turning dark purple now all over the hills near my home in Nashville. They taste amazing (photo below). I don’t think I can ever eat store bought blackberries any more. They gave me great energy. Also, I had a great interview by Daniela Jaramillo Peña (baroque guitarist) from the world r...

Hi everyone, I composed this two-voice guzheng minuet yesterday. The wild rosepink flowers are blossoming all over the hills of west Nashville (photos below). It always amazes me how many wild flowers blossom almost all year long in middle Tennessee. That explains why I have allergy all year long. The rosepink is native to central and eastern North America. They are usually pink with occasionally...

Hi everyone, I just recorded this solo guzheng improvisation today. It is a nostalgic season for me. So I wrote down one of my favorite poems written by Wang We i 王維 (699 - 761 A.D.) of the Tang Dynasty (photo below). The English translation is: In the southern lands grow love peas,With spring new branches vegetate well. You may pick some more their red beans,For my ardent yearning they can best...

Hi everyone, Yesterday, I went to the park for a walk. A big red-spotted purple butterfly landed in front of me on the trail. It was surprisingly brave not flying away when I stepped closer. It was flapping its gorgeous wings for about a minute as if it was waiting for me to take photos. I had to accept the invitation :) Three older ladies walked by and saw my moment with the butterfly. I told the...

Hi everyone, This three-track guzheng composition was composed and recorded yesterday inspired by the gorgeous sunset we had in Nashville two days ago (photo below). I was picking wild blackberries with my children in the forest after dinner. The white bowl I was holding to put the blackberries in turned orange. I looked up and saw the sky was on fire. We were stunned by this scene. Hope this piec...

Hi everyone, I recorded this guzheng improvisation yesterday during a thunder storm. The piece starts with the sound of the pouring rain outside of my home studio in Nashville. A few thunder strikes also made it to the track. I ended the piece with the fading rain. Hope this track brings you strong and soothing energy altogether. Wu Fei 吴非 Wufeimusic.com | hellogoldmountain.com | wufeimusic.subs...

Hi everyone, I composed and recorded this three-track guzheng étude yesterday to celebrate my 1000th episode of Wu Fei’s Music Daily. I launched it on May 3, 2020 during the pandemic. It has been amazing journey for me to grow my subscriber group and to connect to the whole world every day. Thank you for being here and supporting me. This is the beginning of the next one thousand! Meanwhile, I wou...

Hi everyone, This morning’s guzheng song was recorded yesterday, named after the American bellflower (photo below). During a hike in Edwin Warner Park in Nashville, I saw many American bellflowers along the hiking trails. The bellflower is an annual or biennial native wildflower that likes wet and humid places in shady areas of eastern North America. The bellflower is a pollinator magnet: many spe...

Hi everyone, This upbeat étude was recorded yesterday on two-track guzheng. I spotted a big wild turkey’s feather on my hike in west Nashville. It looked very firm and fresh (photo below). I wondered if there had a fight in the middle of the forest among two wild turkeys. I often see wild turkeys near my home. They used to fly away as soon as they heard me. The last two days, I saw two turkeys wal...

Hi everyone, Today is the Dragon Boat Festival (Duanwu Jie in Chinese: 端午節). The holiday which falls on the fifth day of the fifth month of the Chinese lunisolar calendar. There are several stories about the origins of the festival, but the most widely-told is that it commemorates Qu Yuan 屈原, a patriotic poet and minister of the kingdom of Chu during the Warring States period (475-221 BCE). Q...

Hi everyone, This solo guzheng night song was recorded yesterday. It was an improvisation inspired by the silverleaf hydrangea (photo below). It is blossoming all over the forest along the creek side near my home in Nashville. You can hear the birds’ constant chirping in the recording. Silver hydrangea is native to the mountainous region (usually above 2,000 feet elevation) in the southern Blue Ri...

Hi everyone, This three-track guzheng composition was created and recorded yesterday. This last week, I had a wonderful time visiting family in Austin, Texas. One of the places we went to for dinner was next to a river. People fed turtles while they waited for their tables to be ready (photo below). It was a lovely experience for me. Hope this piece brings you a moment of joy. Wu Fei 吴非 Wufeimus...

Hi everyone, This two-track guzheng étude was created and recorded yesterday inspired by a bright red dewberry I saw during my morning hike on the west Nashville hills. After a speedy hike in the deep green lush forest full of spider webs, this dewberry caught my attention. It was sticking out of the low bush where I would walk by everyday. It was so red that I had to take a closer look (photo bel...

Hi everyone, I just composed and recorded this two-track guzheng piece an hour ago, inspired by a beautiful Luna moth in my front porch this morning (photo below). It is also called the American moon moth, or the giant silk moths. The moth has lime-green wings and a white body. Its caterpillars are also green. Its typical wingspan is roughly 114 mm (4.5 in), but wingspans can exceed 178 mm (7.0 in...

Hi everyone, What an honor to be speaking on the Nashville Composers Panel with three of my heroes: Jeff Coffin (saxophonist of Dave Matthews Band), banjoist Béla Fleck and double bassist Edgar Meyer , moderated by Ryan Middagh (director of Jazz Studies at Blair School of Music at Vanderbilt University) as part of the International Society of Jazz Arrangers and Composers Symposium 2024. There will...

Hi everyone, I recorded this vocal and guzheng improvisation yesterday with the memory of a beautiful gift I received during my artist-in-residence in Joshua Tree last month. I played for four public elementary schools during their assemblies. It was such a heart-moving experience for me to bring music to these kids. Many of them had never seen live concerts before. We had so much fun singing toge...

Hi everyone, This two-track guzheng composition was created and recorded yesterday, inspired by the gorgeous aurora on top of Christchurch in New Zealand (photo below). The photo was sent from my sister-in-law from New Zealand when we were celebrating Mother’s Day to each other. The entire piece was primarily played on harmonics of the open strings. Hope it brings you a moment of peace to begin th...