Getting Emotional About Silk:
Guqin Hours with John Thompson
in Weehawken, New Jersey

Before I left San Diego I got a random message on Facebook from UCSD music grad student Alex Khalil. He informed me that I had just missed events surrounding guqin maker Wang Peng's visit to campus. He blamed limited publicity. I blamed finals. Still, neither despaired, for each of us had discovered the other. One good thing to come from this virtual meetup was my introduction to guqin master John Thompson, along with my eventual meeting with him today.

Alex had been staying at Thompson's house in New York. I contacted Thompson through his very extensive website. He was very personable and we found a window of time to meet at his home, escaping the heat for hours in his guqin-lined basement studio.

Thompson is convinced that silk strings are superior to the more commonly used nylon wrapped steel strings first introduced during the Cultural Revolution. I had never played on silk, except on one occasion when Shanghainese friend You Xin （右心） let me play his "grandpa" qin, given to him by an old woman who'd had the qin in her family for hundreds of years.

What's Upsetting Mozi?

Thompson's guqin playing technique is to make the one song he's working on his favorite.

It so happened that his current work is on "Mozi Bei Si (墨 子 悲 絲)," which is commonly translated as "Mozi Sings with Feeling," or "Mozi Grieving over the Dyeing of Silk." Thompson's translation brings out a deeper meaning to this story about one of China's great philosophers, who said the qualities of a person are determined by those who surround him. To Mozi, the dyeing of silk was like joining a new crowd. Your friends are the dye.

Instead of Mozi grieving over the fact that "silk" is being "dyed," Thompson thinks the sage is experiencing a much deeper emotion. In ancient Chinese, "bei" not only meant sadness, but, according to some scholars, "the emotion that one is feeling when something is so beautiful it brings tears to the eyes." Thus, Thompson perhaps more accurately translates this song as, "Mozi is emotionally moved by (comparing human nature to the nature of) silk."

I later played some of my favorite tunes on the silk strings. I really enjoyed the feeling of the silk against my fingers. It wasn't enough to make me cry, but then maybe I'd had too much coffee.

Playing Old Songs: Reconstruction or Excavating?

Thompson calls this work "reconstructing" （打譜） guqin songs from the ancient tablature. I heard it sometimes described by qin friends in China as "excavating" （挖 or 發掘）, but Thompson says most people use the term reconstruct. Yet I think "excavating" is closer to what Thompson says he is doing than reconstructing, because it leaves one with the sense that a song is being unearthed and replayed exactly as it was preserved.

Thompson feels he is recreating the songs, while most qin players say they are interpreting them anew. His strategy is something everyone--Thompson himself included--admits is impossible.

Whether or not Thompson's reconstructions/excavations are actually closer to the original or not, it's not surprising that a westerner would somehow to be truer to tradition than mainland Chinese are. Ever since the fall in the Qing Dynasty, Chinese seem to have had a chip on their shoulders about traditional Chinese music and have overall viewed it as something that can (or even should) be improved upon. I'll admit that Beijing Opera gongs get old really fast, but nothing in from the west can match the depth of feeling of the qin.

Duels

Before I hopped back on the bus to Manhattan, we walked to the bank of the Hudson River. "This is a view of New York that few get," my qin friend told me. (see picture at top of this post).

We walked to Hamilton Plaza where Aaron Burr killed Alexander Hamilton in their famous duel. While Hamilton's bust was prominent, Burr was absent. "Burr was evil," Thompson said jokingly before citing a few books that shed a favorable light on him.

The guqin world is a little like politics. Alliances shift. Jabs are made. Some parties ("schools") and masters fight and stop talking. Winners take credit and get to write history (or at least music).

After this visit, one thing to me is clear. Silk is stronger than steel. The next chance I get, I'm switching. Today I'm pretty sure I met with a Hamilton.