I am being completely blown away working with a guzheng player. Lately I’ve felt the urge to put into words simple breakdowns of what musicianship is, and this powerful musician demonstrates it so clearly in her playing. If you’re curious, her name is 蘇暢 (Su Chang), but the videos and recordings that I found of hers don’t even remotely do justice to her live playing and presence. They give a glimpse though. (Such a persuasive example of the importance of going to live performances. Easier said than done though for people, like myself, whose anti-social and introverted streak creates more than a bit of resistance.)

Besides her flawless control and her incredibly layered and compelling story-telling, there’s a unique quality in her movement that’s almost dance-like that’s all part and parcel to her music-making. It shows such a perfect union of intellectual understanding of the writing of the music, a thorough understanding of how to translate that to tell a story, and a nuanced and deep communication of feelings without any note of extraneousness or falsity. It’s thrilling to see how much her gestures are completely part of the sound, part of the drama that makes the music feel more unimaginably vast and living and capturing — a whole richer level of 3D. I am not sure if I remember having ever seen such an all-encompassing powerful physical and aural embodiment of the drama in music (instead of superfluous theatrics). And oh her sense of time: the flawless control in integration of the rhythms between her gestures and musical pulses amplifies the effect of both to degrees I had not known possible. While a part of how much I’m awestruck could be from the novelty of this style of music for me. (it’s not even so much to my taste, but I am in awe of the way it’s done). It’s why I think we all need to not stay stuck in our own lanes. I love being inspired by different-same, and how wide that net could cast is only limited by one’s imagination or capacity, or lack thereof (I feel this breadth of capacity determines the quality of a mind. It’s not what I can/cannot do that I know are my limits ultimately, but where I feel resistance/blockages — whether due to intellectual limitations or emotional restrictions or all sorts of reasons — to stretch how far I can connect the dots). In this case, it’s not even very wide at all, and yet so often people see no relevance between the so-called expertise in different instruments, or genres of music, let alone music and other fields.

Anyway, so happy to be playing with this highest level of artistry. A part of me would rather just be watching and listening to fully absorb that way though!

This brings to mind another musician who feels like they ARE music to me in the most naturally all-encompassing way. The accordionist Richard Galliano. Though I don’t find the movement element in his playing to be defining as in how I feel in Su Chang’s. This quality of hers is unique in my experience. I adore many, many great western classical musicians. But I think because of the nature of the music, it’s much harder for classical instrumentalists to find that same level of physical movement to contribute to their expression. Or rather, maybe it’s not even a matter of difficulty, but that is simply not as essentially part of the makeup of western classical instrumental music? Now I’m left with more questions about what it is we play/do. Opera singers certainly need to have a marriage between their gestures (acting) and singing—look at Maria Callas. But in instrumental music, I feel like this was the first time I’ve experienced this level of unity in the drama of gestures and music that elevates the entire experience in such a way.