Farewell at Yang Pass

This ancient Chinese song was written during the Tang dynasty. The poet was Wang Wei. Since several of my students are Chinese, I wanted to learn one of their cultural songs and attempt to wrap my voice around the traditional Chinese vocal style. I have my working on the song in video. The sound is not loud but I hope you can get a flavor. Following my video is a beautiful rendition of the piece. It was originally written for performance with the instrument called "Guqin." That is the long stringed instruments in the second video. To hear the sound of the music takes me back immediately to my trip to China in 2009. It was transformational. It makes me so happy to try to step into their culture by trying to "fit" into this song. My students have been very kind and careful teachers. Whatever I have accomplished is to their credit.