The melody to Prelude to a Serene Evening 良宵引 dates to 1614. The piece is divided into three sections. The first 起, beginning with harmonics, is introductory. The second section consists of two parts—承 embarkment and 轉 transition—characterized by unison series, one note of the pair sounding as a pure…
In my third lesson two weeks ago, Master Lui gave me the piece Returning Home (歸去來辭). The lyrics of this guqin melody are written by Tao YuanMing 陶淵明 (365–427 AD). When an arrogant official was sent by the provincial government to his home district, Tao, who then served as magistrate,…
In my second lesson with Lui Laoshi on April 29, 2012, he gave me two more pieces. The first piece is 古琴吟, also known as 相思曲, which is supposed to allow practice of accurate finger sliding positions for the left hand. The ethereal harmonics at the beginning and end of…
So on April 22, in my first lesson, Lui Laoshi had me start out with 仙翁操. The song describes XianWeng, or The Transcendent Venerable One, which points to the Song dynasty hermit, Chen Tuan. The main technical points, according to my teacher, is that it allows the student to learn…
After constructing three instruments, I finally started taking formal guqin lessons—from Lui PuiYuen (吕培源). This all came about in an interesting way. More than ten years ago, I found the 與古齋琴譜 (Abiding with Antiquity Guqin Manual, 1855, tr. Binkley) on the internet while looking for construction details. After making my…
This evening, Loma Linda University Medical Center presented an inspirational program of ThankSharing to celebrate our blessings and to reach out to our community. Ruthita Fike and Gerald Winslow opened the program with the welcome and prayer. Nicole Johnson, bestselling author, dramatized three messages for this evening’s event. In between,…
This evening, I recorded another piece: 陽關三疊 (Farewell at Yang Pass). Since the Han dynasty, Yang Pass served as China’s westernmost administrative center near the end of the Great Wall. The poet Wang Wei wrote of seeing his friend off to Anxi. Here, they part ways. His friend pauses here…
The first piece is 梅花三弄 (Three Variations of the Plum Blossom Theme). Its earliest source is thought to be around the 4th century, but this rendition is based on motifs transcribed in 1425. Ten sections make up the piece. The first part begins with the evening moon over mountain streams,…
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