After my last post about Liang Zhu, there was some interest in the sheet music. I realized that it’s actually quite an advanced piece, I would say it requires at least 5 years of pretty serious piano study to attempt this piece. So I went back through my music and found two more pieces that I loved playing, one that is much easier (I think I learned this after 2-3 years of piano), and one that is slightly easier but considerably shorter.
I will be uploading all MP3’s and sheet music to this dropbox folder! Liang Zhu is in there, as are the two songs I am discussing in this post. Disclaimer: copyright, I don’t own any of the sheet music or the MP3’s, yada yada… Apologies also for my poor scanning quality!
One of the ideas we are entertaining for the Moon Festival celebration coming up in September is to have the kids break up into groups and perform skits of various Chinese myths and stories.
One of the most famous is the legend of Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai, often abbreviated as Liang Zhu, and it is considered the Chinese Romeo & Juliet. “Liang zhu” means “butterfly” in Chinese, so the English translation is “Butterfly lovers.”
Long story short: Zhu is a brilliant young girl and pretends to be a man in order to attend school, where she and her classmate Liang fall deeply in love. When she finally reveals her true identity as a woman, they prepare to get married, but her parents have already arranged her engagement to another man. Liang dies of a broken heart, and Zhu commits suicide. The two are reincarnated as a pair of butterflies (hence “liang zhu”).
Due to the nature of the ending, I preliminarily decided against the inclusion of this in the Moon Festival skits. However, I wanted to post about it because not only is it a famous legend, but in 1959 it was adapted into a violin concerto that is now extremely famous both in and outside of China. This is easily one of my favorite works of music. I used to play both piano and flute, so I learned the piano solo arrangement as well as the flute part in the original orchestral arrangement.
This is a breathtakingly beautiful piece, listening to it instantly brings all kinds of emotions for me, this is one of the pieces I grew up listening to (and playing!). Please share this with your children, especially if they play instruments!
I would be happy to send an MP3 to whoever would like to download the song to listen to. I can also scrounge up the piano arrangement if anyone would like a scan! (It is intermediate/advanced skill level though, so someone playing for 1-2 years probably shouldn’t attempt it, will get discouraged :P)
Email me or drop a comment if interested in MP3 or sheet music!
I was born in New York, but my family is from Shanghai, so I’ve spent a lot of summers there. The last time I went is 2010 so my information may be ever so slightly out of date, but I will be sharing many pointers for those looking to visit Shanghai, and China in general! Continue reading →
For everyone who watched the Triple Eight show this weekend: did you like the music?
Most of the contemporary pieces featured Korean pop music (known as “Kpop”), which is very popular among Asian-Americans, including Chinese-Americans like myself. Actually, I listen to more Kpop than Cpop (Chinese pop music).
However, if any of you remember the circus-themed final number, that piece was set to a Chinese pop song by one of the most famous modern Chinese musical artists, Jay Chou.
I absolutely adore Jay Chou, and I will write a far more thorough post about him in the future, but for now – if anyone is interested in that song, here it is! “魔术先生” or “Mr. Magic”
Not one of my favorite Jay Chou songs but it was very fitting to the choreo and the show, and I thought it was a phenomenal closer!
I will be posting plenty more Cpop in the future, especially by Jay Chou; but if anyone would like some more info on the Kpop, that won’t be going on the blog, so you can email me for more info/recommendations ecai@princeton.edu
