Arts and life

Days at Cold Spring Harbor (1)

2006-07-11T23:12:00.000-07:00

Sometimes you wish you were all of a sudden brought into another reality. A reality that you can actually lose control and transcend yourself. I just travaled back from one of such reality. It was at Cold Spring Harbor, the north shore of long island. I attended a summer course on "computational neuroscience: vision" there. It was the most intense two weeks that I had over a long time. It was like you were obsessed with something. It was a little bit like a heated love-affair. The only difference is that I committed this love affair with visual neuroscience, along with all other crazy scientists. For a continuous of 15 days, I think nothing but visual neuroscience.

1) The place
The place is amazing. It is completely isolated from the outside world. It used to be an estate of a rich person. The whole estate is located above the hill on the bay. There are three major buildings. One is called The Robertson house, which is a Victorian style white house facing a huge grassland. The bay is down the hill from the house. The Robertson house is where the boys live and where they serve breakfast every morning and serve lunch every other day. Another is called Samis Hall, which is a contemporary building and where the girls stay. It is much less stylish than the Robertson house. Every room in Samis is like a coffin, small, stuffed and without any modern entertainment. It has only one function: lodging. The third most important architecture on this estate is the Banbury center. It is a beautiful white church-like one-floor house. It is where we are having our classes and where we spent most of our time at. Banbury center is surrounded by apple trees. Inside the house, there is a big lecture room with huge wooden tables. There are about 25 mac computers constantly illuminating. That 's our love affairs are taking place.

"The World" by Jia Zhang Ke

2006-03-06T21:58:00.000-08:00

Jia Zhang Ke ‘s new movie "The World" is not as nostalgic as his other films such as " The Platform" and “ Unknown pleasures”. But I like its subject materials more than his other films. Maybe I found even more connected with the characters in the film than the characters in his previous films. Lived in Beijing and actually lived very close to a gathering center of immigrated labors, I was very touched by his characters in the films. Beijing, very much like Shanghai, has a big portion of its residents as people from other provinces and usually poor countryside. During the day, girls worked in beauty salons, hotels, restaurants and men worked in construction sites, parking lots, and many other service places. At night, they all gather around at certain part of the city and shared shabby dorm rooms with each other. These people were in many mainstream movies considered " people at the edge". They were never the focus of the entertainment industry in the economically boomed society where flashy new things appear every day. However, sadly, these people are the majority of Chinese younger generations. Their lives were almost ignored in the exciting and ever-changing society and their lives were seemingly uninteresting to those people who enjoy Korean TV shows and Hollywood movies. However, in Jia Zhang Ke ‘s film, they are his focus.

If the characters in " The Platform” were being able to experience cultural changes and tasted the various stages in life, then characters in " the world" have absolutely no future and no choice over their lives. Xiao Tao, a dancer from ShanXi who worked in a scene park, will never fly in a jet and take the real “ mono rail”. She will also never realize his longing for a committed love. All she can do is dressing in flamboyant costumes as various foreign women and pose for the tourists. Tai Sheng, the guard in the park and also tao ‘s boyfriend, carried an affair with seamstress Qun, whose husband is an illegal immigrant who lived in Chinatown in France. Their relationship was confined in the shabby workshop of Qun ‘s fake brand fashion store. A Russian dancer, who didn’t know how to speak Chinese and penniless, makes friend with Tao, and finally at one night in a hotel, Tao found her becoming a prostitute. When the Russian woman taught Tao a song in Russian and they sang together, I truly understood” hardship is our common language”. All these characters were so easily to be found on various corners in Beijing that we never look into their existence and their needs. We can easily pass by saying that they just want to make some money and bring to their poor hometown. However, when we actually came to learn about them, their stories and their dreams, we realized how unequal and cruel life can be.

"The world" is not a stylish movie. It is very much a realistic film. Though visually much more appealing than “ The Platform”, Jia still didn’t try to romanticize what he observed. It reminds me a lot of movies from the Neorealist movement of Italy, such as " the Bicycle Thief" and " Rome: 11 o clock". I can feel Jia 's sadness when I watched his camera followed Xiao Tao as she walked alone in the park or ridded in the
mono rail. If "The platform" is a memoir or autobiography of Jia, then he definitely dig deep into the social-economical situation of current China and its influence on personal fate of his powerless characters.

I also found Jia ‘s films poetic. His camera work is steady and long. It created a thoughtful spatial and temporal space for the audience. Another reason why I like his films is its closeness to the reality. Unlike Zhang yi mo and Chen Kai Ge used lavishly Chinese traditional costumes, beautiful actresses and visually powerful scenes to romanticize the reality. Jia pursues a natural and truthful style. His actors are all “earthy” and common-looked. He found beauty underneath the truth.

High Art

2006-03-02T18:57:00.000-08:00

I personally think the most attractive feature of a film, or any narrative art, is its sincerity. I perceive films as a way to express thoughts, philosophy, ideas and feelings of a director, truthfully, no matter if it is an epic, sci-fic or a romantic. If the sole purpose of making art is to express sincerely, then it will eventually reach out, and even if it only reached out to a small group of people, it is worthwhile. That 's why I like "High Art". It is an honest character study of two women and the crossing of their paths in their lives. I especially like the character Lucy. I don't know maybe I appreciate her character, someone who fell hard but still get a very strong hold of absolute principles of making art. I also connect to Syd. I understand her ambitions and her aspiration. And the contrast between the two is very well presented. I like the scene that when she first visit Lucy 's apartment and was instant carried away by her photography. However, High Art is not only about a love story. It has so many layers of thoughts. It displayed the director 's ideas about art vs commercialism; self-realization; self-destruction; fame and its price; what art is really about. I also very much like the atmosphere, dreamy and dark. Though there are many weakness of the movie, for example, the ending is like a forced solution and the other characters are not well-developed. But i think what winning me over is the truthfulness and the one-of-a-kind acting by Ally Sheedy. The director later on made other movies which were disappointing. However, this one movie have kept her a position in the history of independent film making.

Mozart on the ceiling of a concert hall

2006-01-19T20:07:00.000-08:00

It is a cold and rainy Tuesday. I came to the concert with an impulse, leaving behind all kinds of piled up work in the lab. Leif Ove Andnes with Mozart is a combination that I cannot let pass, especially in such a dreary winter ‘s night. I need that perfect sound to dilute the blue.

The music hall is sparsely seated. When the small chamber orchestra from Norway is quietly settled down, my heart started to speed up for the up coming of the pianist. He came with swift steps(just how he sounded in Cds), wearing a black wrinkled shirt, which is far from formal, black pants and shoes. He sat down in front the Steinway, his back facing the audience, and gave a small gesture to the orchestra. The program includes two Mozart ‘s concerto, No.14 and 20, an arranged Beethovan string quartet and Mozart ‘s Eine kleine Nachtmusik. But it is basically a Mozart night. Beethoven is there to let the audience have a breath and listen to more Mozart.

The orchestra gave a delightful performance. The E-Flat minor concerto is a dashing Mozart, happy, bold, smiling, childlike and most importantly, young. There is nothing heavy, nothing cold, nothing dark, nothing old. It is a bursting laugh and a spring brook running through the mountains. The carefully controlled orchestra and piano made layers and layers of sound. Sometimes, when the violin plays the solo, you feel like someone is singing in front of you. At other times, when the orchestra trembles quietly together, you feel like hearing sound of chorus from miles and miles away.

No. 20 is true gem, especially the third movement. I lost in the swirling enchanting world that the music created. On top of the orchestra or underneath it, rather, the pianist plays extremely fast and every key he touched flows into the heart with effortless charm. The lead of the orchestra, also the artistic director, is an amazing musician. It felt the emotion of the orchestra is under control of his bow. Sometimes, at one ecstatic moment, I looked up and see the cello-shape ceiling of the concert hall, and I seem to see Mozart in his carriage in a hectic corner of a Vienna street. He wear dazzling clothes and his face looked sad. He has a life to make and parties to go to and concerts to conduct and a whole mundane world to live and to suffer and yet, in his head, there is this pure, perfect, eternal world of joy he created. Centuries after at one winter night, his music become my own shelter.

I don’t want the music to end. Every thought is so right in the music. It ended in stormy joyfulness and I stood up and applauses. They encored with fast movement from a Hayden piano concerto while I am still singing the Mozart.

It started to pour after we walked out of the concert hall. My friend who came to the concert with me said,” What a wonderful evening!” It sounded like a cliched ending of pupil ‘s essay. But for some reason, I agree very much with her. I can not help but recalling Roman Roland ‘s saying in the novel John Christopher, ” She doesn’t know, like herself, at the same time, there are many other wounded souls who are sheltered under the warm wings of music!”

statement about life

2006-01-11T15:20:00.001-08:00

Simple life is for people to enjoy; complex life is raw material to make arts.

It is a fortune to have a relatively simple life. That is a life that maximizes happiness and minimizes sufferings. But sometimes, it is not easy to have such a simple life. How about these people whose life is not as simple but always have certain "twists"? Nobody want a life that is full of struggles and conflicts. But people who can live with the struggles and conflicts might also experience more in life. Can one turn these struggles and conflicts to comprehension of pains of others and reach out? Can one turn these pains into active thoughts and hence into arts and literature? Very possible. I believe the pains and suffereings are the very motif of a lot of master work in arts. Life leaves when arts enter. I guess in this famous statement, "life" means the "simple" life that everyone persues and not everyone could easily have.

my taste in art

2006-01-06T13:27:00.000-08:00

I found the older I am, the more rebellious I become. How did I come up with this? My taste in arts is evolving these years. I no longer only listen to classical music; I am more interested in going to art galleries of shows of alive artists than those one who are already dead; I am more interested in going to a Jazz bar than a opera house; I am only energetic in seeing modern dance(the idea of Nutcrackers and swan lake are bores). The only thing connects me to the past and tradition is history and folk music. I am more and more interested in reading about human history dating back to the prehumans. I found reading history makes me more aware of the current times and where we are seeing from a higher level, Hence, i am able to appreciate the world. Folk music doesn't froze in the time frame. That s' why I like it. Folk music continue to evolve through time and at the same time, reserves culture elements and record human activities.

So why did my taste in arts changed? I think because I no longer perceive arts as a pure creative or entertaining channel.
I still appreciate classical arts and respect tradition, I just don't only restrain myself into it. I still play harpsichord in baroque ensembles though i found it slightly boring in comparison to playing modern works. Though when I was a kid I rarely appreciate what my father 's career, now as an adult I start to look at music as a cultural activity,which exactly what my father 's perspectives are. In my world, music ( or any other creative art) is no longer a pure art form full of technique and providing joyfulness to people. It is also a basic human activity and reflects individual, culture and society at its own time. Hence, though arts, I can retrospect on culture and lives. This trend of thought is very similar to Chinese film-maker Jia Zhang ke 's approaches. Though I am not a big fun of his movies. I thought his movies are lack of basic attraction of film arts, I appreciate his effort of using music as a witness of history and human activities. In his movie" the Platform", it is the music who is the lead. Pop songs, lyrics, music bands, dancing are markers of the time from 80s to mid-90s. They represent the spirit of the time and it didn't lie. It is very truthful of him, though he could improve his technique of story-telling a little better to be more persuasive.

current readings

2006-01-04T15:29:00.000-08:00

Post War: History of Europe after 1945
History of Human Race
The History of Western Philosophy

Twenty two cafe

2005-12-28T22:25:00.000-08:00

This is the closest coffee shop to where I live. I always plan to read there but really never get a chance. I usually get up around noon and rush through the day and never had time to sip over coffee and read. Today, four days away from the new year and four months after i moved to this area, I was able to find some time to sit down there reading. I was reviewing a paper for a journal, a quite straight-forward study with simple experimental design, little data, little data analysis and little results. One of those papers that you can use your eyes to understand. At the same time, I was reading a book i bought for my friend, which is called " Drama from Ibsen to Bracht". I don't really care about drama these days. I don't' remember when was the last time I watched a drama.I was reading some of the excerpts of W.B. Yeats 's poems in it. The lines are quite intricate, much harder to understand than the paper. In the mean while, a woman was meeting her old classmate and they were gossiping all of their acuiqantance and all. They sounded like they teach art or English or something humanities. The radio is at that time was playing Beethoven 's Sonata Opus 31. No.1. I always like that sonata 's second movement. The pianist was very dramatic. So the Beethoven he played sounded very angry and full of passion, which was kind of intriguing given how much I care about Beethoven these days. I was thinking:" the only way to make classical music sound good is to personalize it and make it sound faraway from its own era". Accurately perusing the style, sometimes, only makes the music boring. Anyways. Back to the woman who is talking loudly. Based on the conversation that I overheard( since everyone else in the cafe is reading), i figured out that she is lesbian and teaches art in a college and she adapted a cat who suffers from some type of brain-damage: cerebellum lesion. Somehow the man was quiet and I didn't catch much of what he was talking. He seems like a quiet guy in comparison to her. It was funny that she dominated the conversation and everyone in the cafe can hear her stories. The girl sitting beside me was browsing at pictures of her pets. The old man sat at my back is looking at his various bills. I was being able to concentrate for half an hour after the loud woman left. Then I stayed until 5pm until the cafe closes. I took a picture of the cafe after I walked out of the cafe using my new camera. As you can notice, it is also a art gallery but I barely noticed the art in it.

Piazzola：listening to Tango

2005-12-22T20:57:00.000-08:00

最近每天一回家，就习惯性的听Piazzola。这盘Hommage A Piazzolla 真是百听不厌。音乐一放，空气里就弥漫着令人心醉的忧郁和无与伦比音响。Gidon Cremer 的小提琴，既抒情，有铿锵有力，对节奏完美的控制，加上风旋深沉的手风琴，Vadim Sakharov的激情的钢琴，偶尔出现的勾魂的单簧管，将探戈舞的各种姿态情绪表现的出神入画。Tango是我最喜欢看的拉丁舞，原因在于她的音乐。如果别的拉丁舞的音乐节奏单调，音乐形式化，Tango的音乐包涵着丰富的因素，从极抒情的慢版，到激情似火的快板，不论快慢，Tango永远是忧郁的，怀旧的，深沉的。大部分的舞蹈用眼睛看就行了，Tango需要用耳朵听。Piazzola 的 Tango 音乐更加艺术化，或者和民间音乐不同之处在于，他将古典音乐，爵士乐和传统的Tango舞曲结合，既有室内乐的精确，复杂的和声，又有市井音乐的激情，好听的旋律，随意和大众性。这一点从演奏他的乐器可以看出来，除了小提琴，钢琴，单簧管这些西方古典乐器，手风琴是极其重要的。手风琴营造着梦幻的音响，民间舞的气氛，她和小提琴的对位，有着特别缠绵悱恻的效果。他的音乐中也时常出现无调性的片段。所以他的音乐更多不是舞蹈的伴奏，而是可以独立欣赏的音乐。Pizzola是植根于阿根挺民间文化的现代作曲家。他的音乐承载着独特的文化，一种特殊的美的形式。Piazzola 的音乐不是在音乐厅里欣赏的“严肃“音乐，他的音乐属于布意诺斯。爱立斯大大小小的咖啡馆和夜晚的客厅。

a moment of indulgence

2005-10-29T12:52:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, music can be very simple and yet so alluring. Just like a piece of fallen foliage on a wooden bench. The composition is so simple and yet you just can not move your eyes away from it.

Today, I ran across this little piece of music in an online music library. It is for saxophone and electric keyboard, composed by John Adams. It is called " I was looking at the Ceiling and Then I saw the Sky". It could originally set for voice and keyboard. The first movement is called " alone... Again or at last". But the saxophone rendition is extremely romantic and touching. The gentle sound of saxophone and the dreamy background of the keyboard is twisted in such a romantic way. The music is not complicated. It is mostly toney and has no complicated harmonies. The lingering long melody is played out almost carelessly by the saxophone and enhanced by simple chords on the keyboard. It is just one of those naive beautiful minimal and yet extremely poetic pieces of work. It could be simple-minded but it sucks you into this dreamy mood without drain you deep down. The music is like a portrait photograph of someone 's transient emotion. It is a moment of indulgence. You really care less about the stories behind it. The moment itself carries on.

Maybe sometimes we just have to let our emotions flow, expressing them in whatever form we come across and worry less about the style. At these moments, the very mood is a style of itself. The other night, I was sitting before my piano and I just let my fingers play out my heart.

"I was Looking at The Ceiling and Then I saw the Sky" is originally an opera based on the 1994 major earthquake in California. "Alone... Again or at last " is one aria from the opera.

Last night at Curtis(1) Mozart 's sonata OPus 331

2005-10-22T15:35:00.000-07:00

Consider this is my first time sitting in a concert hall in three or four months, I will write a few thoughts down.

The students played three pieces, Mozart ' sonata Opus 331, Frank 's violin piano sonata in A major and Chopin 's piano concerto E minor. I am very familiar with the three pieces, with the two piano piece I played myself and the violin piece that I heard thousands of time in my lonely hours in the lab.

Mozart 's sonata Opus 331 is a lovely piece. The first movement is a variation of a rather nonchalant and yet graceful theme. It has this very careless sentiment that is usually not considered very Mozartian. The reason is that its first movement is in slow tempo though the last few variations tend to speed up. Unlike most other Mozart 's sonata that seizes you right away. This piece requires you really listen to it and appreciate its transient beauty.

The theme was used by the movie star/ director Robert Redford both in his movies "out of Africa" and " horsewhispers". Using the exact piece twice in movies whose production time were separated in 15 years showed how much Robert Redford, a rather tasteful actor, loved Mozart. I kind of know why he loves it. The music is so pure and naive and yet contains all sorts of scales of human emotions through its rather tedious variations around this nonchalant theme. Robert Redford, whose roles in both movies are kind of outsider of the mundane world, suits very well of the mood of this piece.

The Korean girl did a good job in producing very delicate and controlled sound of Mozart. However, she lost the audience 's attention by not putting together the variations as whole piece. You felt like she is playing one piece after another and since Mozart has a very prolonged development of his theme through carefully designed subtle change in each variation, it requires great artistic skills to keep the dynamics through out the whole piece. So her playing is rather plain and forgetful. But the bottomline is that Mozart 's extremely challenge to a young pianist.

Arvo Part, building emotions on a single pivot.

2005-08-30T09:17:00.000-07:00

My recent favorite composer is Arvo Part. I actually listened to his music before but not very systematically. He is amazing of using very simple melodic and harmonic material to develop beautiful and profound music, which is a big contrast to many other contemporary classical music composers. His uses a lot of elements from medieval chants and some renaissance harmonic scales. He can create pure, lyrical and minimal-technique piece such as " fur Alina" and also rather dense, tragic, profound piece such as " Cantus for the memory of Benjamin Britten".

In " cantus", the basic music material is a dialogue betwween a descending natural scale on the " A" played by the strings and the repeatable " church bell" sounds played at the high end of the scale by the percussion session. The piece starts with a few remote sounds of "church bells". Then the string session opens the piece by repeating a descending of natural scale of "AGFEDCBA" in very quiet "pianissimo" dynamics. The violin session and viola/cello session plays the scale with a different time difference as if it is a counterpoint. This descending scale sounds almost unbearably sad because it feels like you are walking down the steps toward an unknown abyss and it repeats itself again and again with different parts in the string sessions. In its increased dynamics from "pianissimo" to " forte", you almost felt waves and waves of nothingness are approaching you. In parallel, the "church bells" from faraway strike at the top end of that scale on "A" to contrast this draggy scale as if to remind you the existence of pains and time. As the string sessions become louder and more grave, the "church bell" sounds changed its strength accordingly. The " church bells" in this piece have two roles. They are not only a marker of in space as to contrast the sound of the string session, they are also a marker in time to keep the listeners aware of the procession of teh melodic line. Toward the end of the piece, the descending of the scale become extremely slow and grave and the strings all linger at one note "B" before the resolution to "A" for a long time. And You, the listener and also a passenger, is stuck at the step on the descending staircase toward death and it is so painful that you can not reach the next one. And yet, the church bells still ring to remind you the time is imminent. At the end of the piece, when the strings are all trembling at the end of the scale, you feel like you are choked and your heart stops. At this moment, you felt the death is falling upon you and part of you has transcended with the church bell. Your body and soul are separated and you reach eternity.

周五喝酒记

2005-07-25T22:31:00.000-07:00

最近又点儿颓废，于是经常借酒消愁。但是每一次都没能喝醉，上周六在同学的生日晚会上，稀里糊涂的尝了好几种酒，看着大家一个个酩酊大醉，自己确坐在楼梯上保持清醒，似乎没有心思再喝了，但是也不舍得走，看着大家嬉闹，挺好玩儿，但是确不能加入，好像自己在另一个世界看热闹。大家喝醉了跳舞，打人，亲吻，真的不亦乐乎。我却觉得惆怅，摆脱不了现实。不得以，又喝了一杯朗姆shot,突然有一点点晕。直到一个叫ingrid的傻里傻气的金发姑娘把我带到她的房间看相片，用法文腔的英语和我说奇怪的话，拉着我跳贴面舞，我才突然紧张的走了。为了不让她失望我从后门溜走，在一个全体人醉倒的晚会上，我是最后一个清醒的人。我喝酒好像是怕他们失望，到了街上，忽然很轻松。

这个周五，好朋友来F来看我。她一来看我，我就想回到了无忧无虑的大学时代。我们在听了柴可夫斯基和拉赫曼妮诺夫的两首钢琴协奏曲之后，来到了城里。我们首先到我最喜欢的希腊饭馆儿。我在吃饭的时候喝了一杯白葡萄。那天晚上，天气闷热，空气好像都凝固了。我们吃完饭，在放射热气的街上走了好多路才到了一个叫“肮脏的弗兰克”的酒馆儿。这个酒馆儿以便宜的啤酒，态度很坏的女招待，肮脏的厕所，看上去像知识分子的人群，著名。其实和别的酒馆儿没啥不同。我要了一杯伏特加和红梅，她要了一杯Jin酒和苏打，都极其劣质。两个人环顾左右想看看有没有漂亮的人影儿，这是我们最喜欢干的事情。F想抽烟，却找不到火柴。我看到我旁边放着一个打火机，打火机下面是一篇打印的文章，我就看了看看文章的人。是一个有一双大蓝眼睛的小伙子，他热情洋溢的地递上火机。他说这个酒巴椅子太少，我问他是不是学生。他说是学哲学的博士生，于是问我学生么。我一边喝我的劣酒一遍漫不经心的回答着他一个又一个关于我的专业的问题。F在旁边暗笑，她想这人真是典型的PHD。他的声音挺好听而且看上去挺真诚，但是我觉得异常的疲惫。于是再想他解释了视觉皮层以后，我就礼貌的再见。我的神志已经有点儿不清楚了。

有来到街上，我说要戴她去一格又现场爵士表演的酒吧。

我在北京长大（2）

2005-07-02T16:41:00.000-07:00

我其实并不完全是个小傻子。我敏感的性格从在歌剧院住的那几年就形成了，我虽然穿着
出口转内销的刻着小锚的格子短裙，但眼镜后头是爱观察的眼睛。我们家的只有一间房间
，但是挺大的，集客厅，饭厅，书房，卧室，琴房为一体。我每天放学回家，就要练琴，
练完了吃饭，吃完饭做作业。这是候，别的孩子们已经开始玩儿了。我却看着窗外，做无
聊的作业，不过我也有我的乐趣。这时候，妈妈往往在和别人合伴奏。她那时是歌剧院的
钢琴伴奏，说好听点儿，是艺术指导。所以，总是有唱歌的人找她排练。于是我从小就熟
悉了好多声乐选段，不过我更感兴趣的是来访的人们。有的人在练习过后，就开始议论别
人，更多的人抱怨领导。在我八九岁的日子里，这些还显得很陌生。我经常听见楼道里的
人吵架，也看见我邻居的阿姨偷偷的哭。

我记得有一个唱女中音年青女孩子非常漂亮。她当时演Carmen里的梅瑟戴丝，不太重要的
角色。她声音纯美，但是不会演戏，所以总是得不到好角色。她打扮得和一般演员不一样
，非常随意，但是很有风度。我总是盼着见到她。我妈很快和她成了好朋友，她们在排练
的间隙总是商量衣服的试样，这以后我就有了各式各样的太阳裙。这个女孩子（其实当时
也二三十岁）的家人在外交部工作，她介绍我去找一个从美国回来的老太太学英语。这个
经历非常有意思，也挺影响我的将来。这个老太太家比我们家漂亮多了，她住在相当豪华
的大公寓，家里布置得也非常讲究。她是个驼背老太太，说着老式的英语（当时听不出来
）。她教英语的方式很特别，总是让我学儿歌，小诗歌什么的，如果我学会了，就可以吃
她从外国带回来的巧克力。那些巧克力太诱人了，一个盒子里那么多种，每一个都与众不
同。

后来这个女孩子出国了，她走得是候把她的玩具狗给我了。我可是有点儿难过，不过她后
来经常寄给我头上的饰物，我就总是有比别的女孩子更多的发卡。我现在觉得，她一定是
我妈妈很好的朋友。但是后来她们失去联系了。不过我的英文课一直进行到四年级，我又
要搬家了，马老师病了。我一直都不知道她的身体有多不好。而同时，我已经开始和音乐
学院的老师学钢琴了，每周都要去，我成了一个忙碌的小学生。但同时，我在学校里的学
习一点儿也不好。所以回家经常挨骂。

我在北京长大(1)

2005-07-02T16:39:00.000-07:00

我妈从小在北京长大，书香门第，她家以前住在西四那边儿的一大片胡同里。我爸不是北
京人，读书才来北京的。我两岁搬到北京，我爸妈文革时候在外地工作，我爸后来考上了
北京的研究生，我们全家才逐渐搬回北京。搬回北京就开始流离失所。最开始住在我不爸
学校的宿舍，就是现在的恭王府，是非常简易的宿舍楼。后来我爸工作了，我们又搬到他
单位的办公楼。那时候，我开始学琴，我们没什么家具，只有一台星海钢琴。紧接着，我
妈找到了在中央歌剧院的工作，我们终于在她们单位后院的平房里安乐家，那间房子小的
只能放下一张书桌，一张床，一个书柜，当然，还有星海琴。房子前面是单位食堂的煤堆，
我们就在煤堆后面的小屋里做饭。那房间光线很差，可是我一直在哪儿张到八岁，还戴
上了近视眼镜。

我很讨厌上幼儿园，小学。我好像从来都显得比同龄人傻，总是受气。我经常听不懂老师
说的话，和同学也个个不如。我总是吃不下学校的饭，我妈接我回家时我的嘴里还有学校
的晚饭。我上小学二年级的时候，我们家又搬家了。这一次搬到了我妈单位的宿舍楼。那
是个筒子楼，大家在走廊上做饭，煤气罐儿到处都是。整栋楼住的都是歌剧院的演员和家
属。真热闹！练声的炼生，弹琴的弹琴。我妈的同事们是典型的文艺单位的人。爱虚荣，
爱攀比，有点儿俗气，但又非常有趣。一天到晚，绯闻不断。我爸是搞音乐学的，所以，
我的气质和别的小孩儿不一样，我很喜欢看书，被我爸妈逼着学这学那，从小就不会合别
的小朋友玩而。比如，我不会跳皮筋。别的小孩儿就不喜欢和我玩，我只好一个人和我妈
练习。我妈从小在四合院长大，很会这些。而我只是个被锁砸家里做白日梦的小傻子。

今天弹海顿 I played Haydn today.

2005-07-02T13:22:00.000-07:00

在楼下的咖啡馆吃了马粪和卡布基诺，就回来练琴。一首很简单的海顿奏鸣曲，刚呈示部
就背了半小时，还没背下来。我的钢琴也太破，谈快的时候，音都溜溜的。其它人都去玩
儿或看live 8 音乐会了。

我决定在家乘凉。这首曲子小时后就谈过，前几天在唱片店听北欧钢琴家Andnes以惊人的速度演绎之后，立志从弹。那第一乐章的动机就像小女孩儿跳皮筋，让人什么时候听了都亲情好。这曲子看上去不难，太快了可真难，一大串一大串的十六分音符跑的肌肉酸痛，但曲子太有活力了，所以在激情之下一冲到底，音不清楚都过瘾。当然，我要把每个音以及快的速度弹清楚。只有这样，曲子的动感结构才能一耳了然。

海顿太牛了。他的音乐比莫扎特的还有生命力，仿佛青春焕发的少年。活力源源不短。不过Andesenes弹得太好了，比我强百倍，他一气呵成，但又变化多端，触键轻盈，我弹得像赛跑，他弹得像滑冰。我弹得像蠢笨的胖男孩儿，他弹得像优雅的小姑娘。钢琴艺术的真谛在于自然又不失控制。

I ate my brunch at Greenline cafe. They are out of bagel today so I had muffin and cappuccino. I came back to play my piano. It took me half an hour to memorize the exposition part of a Haydn sonata. I realized that my piano is becoming really shabby since whenever I played fast, these keys feels slippery under my hands. It is so quiet in my neighborhood. Everyone else went to see the live 8 concert.

I decided to chill at home. I played this piece when I was a little kid. Its opening theme always seizes my ear whenever I heard it. A few weeks ago, I heard this sonata played by the Scandinavinian pianist, Leiv Olf Andnes. His performance stunned me by its extremely fast tempo and the sharpness of the dynamical structure. I decided to practice and play this piece again. The first movement sounds like rope-jumping of young girls. Its up-beat makes you feel cheered everytime you listened to it whenever and whereever. The piece doesn't look hard when　you read the score, but it is very hard to play it fast. The passages of 16th notes will sour your muscles very quickly. However, the piece is so charming and dynamical, you can not help to run through it to the last note and feel very satisfied even if you missed a few notes on the way. It is like biking down hill in a windy evening. Of course, I am trying to dance it instead of running it. I am trying to keep my elegance while I am performing my triple jump, suc as in figure-skating.But a triple jump needs speed. Without a fast tempo, the dynamical structure of the piece will not be heard.

Bravo to Haydn! He is even more youthful than Mozart. His music is like waterfall running through a gorge. Butta....Andesnes plays way better than I do. His playing is spontaneuous, smooth and his touch is so delicate sometimes and yet doesn't lose the power. I played the piece as if I was in a running race and have the danger to fall all the time; He played the piece as if he is figure skating on ice. I played the piece as if I am a crumsy fat boy; He played the piece as if he is a graceful ballarina girl. The arts of piano playing is being natural and yet having everything under perfect control.

You can find this album at Amazon.com:
Leif Ove Andsnes plays Haydn Piano Sonatas
EMI Classics

Notes on the piano masterclass from Paul Roberts

2005-01-25T22:12:00.000-08:00

Notes on the piano master class given by Paul Roberts
Part 1
1/23/05

In a lovely Victorian house located in center city of Philadelphia, the alluring afternoon sunshine tenderfully shines onto a grand Yamaha piano, which elegantly sits in the middle of its living room. A few chairs are set up by the side of the piano. It has snowed for more than 24 hours; you can still see the wind blowing the snow through the big bay windows. But the living room is very warm and everyone is anticipating Paul Roberts, an internationally-known pianist and Debussy authority to give his master class. The performers of the class will be three local Philadelphia musicians.

1) On Mozart: the classical style
Guy is our first performer. The twelve-year-old boy is already a virtuoso. He played the first movement of Mozart ‘s piano sonata KV333. Paul said he was very impressed by his dynamics, clearness and his commitment. Indeed, Guy played naturally and confidently and without a technical flaw. An then Paul asked the boy, “ What don’t I like?”. The boy answered, “My rhythmic control”. Paul then said, ’’Exactly, but I don’t think there is anything wrong with your rhythm, you played perfect in rhythm, but not always in tempo. Everything is related to the style of the 18th century music, the classical style. No one can play in tempo all the time, and the fact that you didn’t play in tempo is much better than you played perfect mechanical. But lacks and need to improve is the control of poise. ” Paul said he was very interested in learning how a boy at Guy ‘s age play Mozart, who has relatively less experience with the classical style in general. Paul then asked the boy,” Do you know what Poise is?” The boy said no. Paul said, “Poise is like when a person walks, no matter how fast he walks, he can still keep the balance, being elegant and have certain grace. It is one thing that is very close the center of the beauty of Mozart‘s music. It is his music never loses poise. It is always perfectly balanced. You can find such poise also in Haydn and Schubert ‘s music.” So how does “poise” related to the tempo? I guess it is a balance of freedom and flexibility and what the music requires you to do. Another important technique related to “poise” is accentuation. Theoretically, the order of accents of the beat should be first, third, fourth and second. So it is never right to place the accents on the second beat, which is a common mistake because it is at the end of a phrase( such the theme of the sonata). However, in practice, overly accenting the first beat will make the sentence short and clumsy (which lost poise). Instead, it is sometimes the fourth beat in a bar got accented. Interestingly, Mozart starts his theme on a fourth beat, so accenting on this beat make the sentence really natural and elegant. Another way of learning how to place accents is through the harmony. It is always the dissonant note which is leading to resolution got accented (which is a rule of thumb also in Baroque music).

To be continued

walk with me in dreams

2005-01-10T17:11:00.000-08:00

I dreamed of Qing last night. I haven't dreamed of her for a long time. I guess it was because a friend of mine mentioned her name to me yesterday. She said:" Have you heard of Qing?" I said, " no'. I didn't understand why after so many years, she still asked me about her everytime I told her something of other members of the band. I always felt a little sad after I said :"no" to a question like hers. I myself already stopped asking this kind of question to my other friends. Her name already became a common taboo of our scarce correspondence.

She is always splendidly beautiful in my dreams. Again, it was a music gathering. They were playing music in a big room without me. How jealous I was! Playing music without me was unacceptable! Qing was playing a tiny little digital piano instead of her usual violin. Dan was playing the violin and Ni was playing her cello. A dramtic movement from Beethoevan. So they got me replaced! I was about to loose my temper! But Qing standed up and looked at me with her usual calm and tenderful smile and she said:" Little girl, you were always late. Your piano was waiting for you." Her hair was cut short( she always wear her hair long in reality) and she was wearing a black blouse. She looked like dressed up for a performance. When I was approaching the piano, it became tiner and tiner and then it disappeaered. I wasn't even be able to touch a key. Then I saw some cynical smiles or looks from Dan( hope she wont' read this). Then i couldn't find Qing anymore. It was a piano trio and we had enough people. But there was no piano and no Qing.

I woke up realizing I was choking with tears. I started to recollect my meomories not of her but of my other dreams about her. I barely remembered how she looks now. And I thought maybe I should write to Dan and instantly felt how stupid she would think about my dreams. I once wrote her about my dreams of Qing. Dan replied, "She wont' think about music anyway," i can image her saying these, " there are things more important for her right now".

I m thinking about writing a fiction about all her and all these. It will not be a fiction. But it was the fiction-like reality.

Blow Up : a solved mystery

2005-01-06T13:37:00.000-08:00

I received the DVD version of this movie as a new year 's gift. It is newly released with commentaries from a professor of film studies.

I have seen this movie for at least 4 times. But I never really get it all. It has an everlasting mysterious attraction to me. At first, it was all about the strange plot. Then I got a bit obsessed with the style and the philosophy that the director was trying to convey. And later on, it is about the actor (David Hemings) and his cool and rather disturbing actions in the movies. And now, it is about all the details. Every single scene in the movie is interesting enough to study. And then it is about the final concern. After all, it is a movie that is not about the plot. It is about one or two points. The commenter said it was about the relation of arts and reality. I thought the movie itself is piece of great art and hence interperate the reality beyound its time and details.

I saw it first in public TV in China. I actually read it first in a film study book. I was told from the very old-fashioned Chinese film study school that it is about the decandent bourgeois society of 60s London. It is about people wandering without aims; It is about drug and jaded artists; It is about modern technology and its failure to relate life and reality. But when I actually saw the movie, all these things seem not really relevent. I have to admit I didn't understand at all about the first half. I didn't understand why there are so much about the fashon photographer 's daily life as a jaded artists and all these models look incredibly thin and unhealthy. I was stupid enough to see it as a detective story with open-end. I was extremely intrigued by its ending. At that time I was an aspring 18-years-old who like nothing but avant-guard arts and fancy philosophical interperations of life and people. That ending is indeed pretty avant-guard. i have never seen such things in movies. It left al ot of questions to me and I didn't really care to think too much after that.

About 6 years later, I saw the movie for the second time. I put more thoughts this time. I was paying attention to the first half of the movie. I noticed the setting of the scenes. The unusal atmosphere of the 60s. Though I still like the park scene and the "blow up" scenes the best, I start to put all these details together along with the various figures in the movies. I start to feel its beauty as well its detective-story like tension. It is actually quite relaxed to see it since i knew the end. But I was still very curious since I constantly have new interpretations and I am not sure if it could be put together to explain what I saw. I noticed a lot of details: Why everyone look so dull in the rock concert? Why david hemmings ask the models to close their eyes? What does the look of the painter 's girlfriend signify in her first meeting with the photographer? And of course the whole meaning of the tennis playing at the end of movie becomes much more clear.

But what does all these things mean? Why he bother to shoot a movie just to tell us reality is not real? Is the final result a shocking punishment for the Don Juan-like main male character? Is life all a disillusion? Is the conclusion simply pathetic like all the other post-modern movies from Bergman, Takovksy and others?

I saw the movie about three times last week with and without commentaries. The commmentaries are very helpful. He pointed out that Antonioni is very interested in abstract design and the movie is mainly about the relation between arts and reality. His arguments are that since reality is heavily dependent on how we interpreted it, reality doesn't mean anytying without interpretation. On the other hand, it is the interpretation and perception of the reality that cause people to act but not the simple facts itself. Due to the commenter, Antonioni is trying to make an assertion that abstract arts have meaning to exhist because it is the process of giving meaning to the reality.

All these are very concrete and helpful points. It is very positive and instructive. But why I still feel quite sad to see the photographer, after believing he witnessed a murder, simply accepted the rule of stupid empty-handed tennis game in the park? Is it all about a new art-form? Isn't it a globle feeling of fakeness and being faked? Or it is a sacarstic, cyninical critique of modern art itself. Though modern art coule assign menaing to the reality, did ti also distort, misplaced and lie to the audience? Its shocking effects and pure artistic joy could be misleading as well as enlightening.

"Blow up" is a must-see masterpiece and delightful contemporary movie. It uniquely seperates itself from overly supressive, overly-self-centered, overly depressive, overly paranoid, avant-guard films of the 60s. Its smart use of the camera and lights, its perfect acting and mentally engaging plots all serve up to the final concern that modern cimema goers had in mind.

My own experience with vocal art (1)

2004-12-16T11:07:00.000-08:00

I grew up in an opera company in the prime time when China was developing its western opera as a new trend. The opera company resided in a chinese army academy, which was a weird location. In the back of that army academy, there were basically two 60s style buildings seperated by a garden. One building was residential apartment for the musicians and officials in the opera company and the other was for researsal. It had practice rooms and also dorms for the young musicians who just graduated from music schools. This was where I spent my years between age 6 and 11. It sounds quite romantic in a way. Though everyone cooks in the doorway, it was always mingled with tunes from Marriage of Fiagaro or a kids practicing Mozart 's sonata. And during the evenings, even though I was playing in the garden, I could hear tragic voice from the rehearsal buildings when the main character, Mimi, from La Bohemia, was dying.

My mother was a piano accompanist for the opera house. She accompanied and also coached singers both individually and in group. Her main job was playing through the rehearsals before the orchestra came in in the later stages of an opera production. For her, it was a job without very much superficial honor since she rarely had chance to show up in the stage. For me, however, my ears were trained when i was doing my mathe homework when various men and women were singing different arias and arts songs from different composers. During the rehearsal of an opera, usually a day long, I would sit in the back of the theater and listen it through. I saw so many times that the music director lost her temper and the actress was crying on the stage. I forgot all the details and though the music is beautiful, the whole artistic tatse was pretty bad at that time in China. But I still almost knew every single songs from Carmen.Ms.Butterfly, La Bohemia and the very difficult part that thesee opera brought to its singers both technically and musically.