Lead Stories

Crouching Tiger and Hidden Dragon ·A Collection of Pop- song- revised Chinese Zither Tunes for Playing and Singing (the first volume) (adapted by Wu Li), one of the series of expert-made popular classics, has already been published throughout China.

The Thing You Must Know

The series of expert-made popular classics is the series that Hunan Literary Publishing House plans to publish as a focal point. Among them, the Chinese-zither-playing-and-singing series is the one which is published at first. It is adapted by the famous Chinese zither player Wu Li. Unlike other previous tune collections, this series of tunes no longer has the problem of having too big tune limitations. It contains various kinds of tunes, ranging from those still mellow “reminiscent classics”, to those picture-like “songs from movies and TV series”, and then to those heart-shaking “pop frontier”. We can say that, each song, which has ever moved or now is moving us, could be found in this series of Chinese-zither-playing-and-singing series.
As an outstanding Chinese zither player in the modern time, Ms. Wu Li elaborately adapted these tunes. It is just because of this that every tune embodies the professional level of adapting and mixing which is extremely artistically appealing. And what’s more, carrying out the principle of “Experts make fashion, and fashion embodies expertship”, we adapt those tunes which not only are among those understandable popular classics, but also have the value of very professional technical training. So while playing those tunes from this collection, you could not only experience the unique easiness and amiability, but also have professional technical training unconsciously. Hence, your technical level of playing could be improved. And this is also where the tenet, “the professional-celebrities-made popular classics”, lies. As Ms. Wu Li wrote in the preface, “This is not only a tune collection which mixed traditional art and modern music, but also a Chinese zither teaching material which combined professional playing and modern tune fashion.”

More Details

Most of the Chinese zither players, especially those amateurs, treat playing zither solos as the major part in the process of learning. As a result, they usually have very good ability of playing solos, but at the same time, lack the ability of cooperating with other musical instruments. Since it requires certain conditions to train the ensemble with other musical instruments, for those ordinary zither learners, it really has some difficulties. But this form of playing and singing solves this overwhelming urgency to some extent. Because in order to cooperate this kind of ensemble, one mainly should have the ideation of multiple voice parts, and at the same time, the form of playing and singing undoubtedly makes us note the part for singing while playing. The training of mixing these two parts is good for that of the multiple-voice-part ideation. But it requires that the zither-playing part is not the simple repetition of the singing part, but should have the relation of mutual echoing. Then this could suit the concept of real multiple voice parts. During the process of adapting and mixing this tune collection, the author paid enough attention to this aspect. I believe whether using the form of playing and singing all by oneself, or the form of one playing and the other singing, one could gain an unexpected pleasant surprise during the process --- unconsciously, one’s ideation and controlling ability of multiple voice parts are improved.

Some Amiable Hints

In order to let you play the tunes from this tune collection better, more quickly and precisely, we advise you to read the 8 points in “the Hint for Playing” at the end of the book attentively before playing. In addition, you also should combine them with the “playing helper” attached to each tune so as to fully understand the problems that you may meet during the process of playing. But even playing on this basis, you still would meet some other problems and difficult points. If so, you can come in this website (www.wulimusic.com) and leave your questions in the area of “zither fans’ leave word”. The author, Ms. Wu Li, will give you the correct direction at the proper time.

The Focus of This Book (Please click here to enlarge the small picture)

cover	catalog