Li Xingyu | Journey to the West

"In Xinjiang, almost every family has a dutar, regardless of whether they can play it or not."

Li Xingyu

Independent musician sound artist

I am from Beijing. Right across from my house is the Xinjiang Office, where the Xinjiang cuisine is very authentic. I often smell the smell of their grilled lamb skewers, but at that time I had no money and could not afford to buy lamb skewers for one or two yuan. So I set a goal since I was a child: one day I would eat Xinjiang lamb skewers to my heart's content.

Later, I studied music, and most of my creations followed the tradition of Western classical music. I wanted to create Chinese music, but I had no idea where to start. Where should I look for clues to understand Chinese music culture? What exactly is Chinese music?

Sound of Xinjiang

In the process of thinking and searching, I found that many musical instruments were spread to the mainland from Xinjiang thousands of years ago. Suona, pipa, zheng and other instruments were slowly spread to the mainland from the Western Regions.

Why did so many mainland musical instruments come from the west to the Central Plains and gradually evolve into Chinese musical instruments recognized by most Chinese people? This made me very curious, and I wanted to go to Xinjiang to find out. In addition, when studying music, I would think about what the future of Chinese music is.

This may seem like an ambitious goal, but for every musician, we hope that the Chinese music in the eyes of the public is no longer the Chinese music made by Hollywood, such as the music in Chinatown in Kung Fu Panda. That is not Chinese music. Chinese music is very diverse, especially in Xinjiang, which has thousands of years of accumulation.

Below is a reconstruction of Tang Dynasty court music that I produced as a producer (video 4:59, from the Tang Dynasty ritual music restoration team). Is it surprising? This is a restoration of Tang Dynasty court music that is completely based on the ancient score.

In addition, there is another piece of elegant music, which is quite different in style.

These two pieces of music, which are completely different in style, are the elegant music of the Tang Dynasty thousands of years ago. Some of the instruments in this music sound very special, but they may be very familiar to folk musicians in Xinjiang, such as the 筚篥 (also known as 管子, 巴尔曼), which is an instrument in Xinjiang, but it has gradually spread to the western region and then to the east.

Completed: 20% //////////

Uncover the mystery of the music capital thousands of years ago

In the Tang Dynasty, many musical instruments had been integrated. There was a place called Qiuci in Xinjiang, which is now Kuche. At that time, Qiuci's music was very prosperous. Today's music capital is Vienna, so the "Vienna" 1,000 years ago was Qiuci. At that time, people from different nationalities and regions gathered here, singing and dancing, exchanging different civilizations.

During the Sui and Tang dynasties, there was a man named Su Zhipo who brought music from the Western Regions to the Central Plains. He taught the music to the musicians there and established the concept of the five tones and seven sounds in ancient China. Although the five tones and seven sounds have been basically lost, some of the documents left behind can also allow archaeologists and music researchers to discover more secrets of ancient music.

These musics now sound very much like foreign music, and some people even think they are Japanese music. Yes, Japanese Gagaku was developed from Chinese Gagaku, and it retains many elements of Chinese Gagaku, some of which are called Tang music.

The movie "The Assassin" tells the story of the late Tang Dynasty. A lot of the music is from Japanese music, but it is not very related to Chinese music. This series of connections made me particularly interested in Xinjiang, so last year I did a Xinjiang sound search project.

Here, I want to commemorate a gentleman in particular, Mr. Zhou Ji. He has written many records about Xinjiang music, including Xinjiang music Muqam and other series of records. He integrated these music into the Western music system and then recorded them in five-line notation. Mr. Zhou Ji spent decades collecting folk songs and Xinjiang music here, compiling these things into volumes and publishing them into books.

Unfortunately, Mr. Zhou Ji has passed away, so the music culture in Xinjiang has suffered a lot of losses. Now there are still some young people doing this, including our guide of the Xinjiang Journey to the West project. He and his companions are still working hard to complete these things.

The reason I am giving this speech is to tell you from the perspective of an eyewitness and a musician that there are a lot of interesting things here, and I hope you will discover them.

Completed: 50% //////////

Listen to stories about music while traveling

The six of us rented two cars and traveled around Xinjiang for more than a month. We kept using exclamations to describe our feelings along the way. There is no way to describe such a magnificent scene in words. On the one hand, our trip was to trace the unique folk music here, and on the other hand, we also wanted to see the scenery of Xinjiang.

The scenery in Xinjiang is very beautiful. I have been to many places in the world before, but I was still impressed by Xinjiang. In just over a month, we enjoyed countless landscapes.

Our first stop was Yining, where the lake water was particularly clear. Friends in Xinjiang all know that it is a multi-ethnic settlement area, and I also found that there were many "foreigners" here. My friend told me that these were not foreigners, but Russians.

Ethnic minorities such as the Uyghur and Kazakh live in this area, where you can hear not only Uyghur Muqam music but also Russian music.

This is a very unique Russian artist we met in Yining. He collected hundreds of accordions produced in different eras and built an accordion museum.

During this trip, we also visited a respected artist, Master Mushajiang. He passed away three months after we met him, and we were the last group of people to interview him face to face.

I told him that we are not journalists or media, but a group of people who love music. We came here to listen to your story about the dutar (a traditional stringed instrument of the Uyghur people). In Xinjiang, almost every family has a dutar, regardless of whether they can play it or not. When we get together, as long as someone can play it, they can play it and sing.

We visited Master Musajiang at his home and were impressed to see his disciples still making dutar there.

After we left Yili, we arrived in Korla. Our route was to go from Urumqi to Yili via Sayram Lake. When we were in Bayinbuluke, we passed a plateau with an altitude of about 4,000 meters. Our photographer even had a hypoxia problem, but the scenery there was very beautiful.

After we arrived in Yuli County, we found some folk artists to chat and play music with. They showed me a very interesting instrument called the Tanbul, which has many resonant strings.

When you play the dutar, you hear the sound of strings; when you play the burqa, one string produces the sounds of many strings. Its sound is very rich. I played a piece of music with them using South American instruments.

There, we enjoyed delicious food and drank Ili kvass every day until late at night. Although we grew up in different environments and had different experiences, and lacked common topics, when we picked up musical instruments, we had common topics and became very good friends.

The experience of the person in the picture is very interesting. He is a inheritor of Lobu folk songs. Now let’s listen to a song of his.

There is a line in this song: My head turns like a windmill. Many times when we write, we don't use such metaphors. Some folk poems are very interesting and have imaginative lyrics.

This man's grandfather was a bard who was over two meters tall. When people from different regions had disputes, he often went to fight for justice. At that time, bards expressed their dissatisfaction and upheld justice by writing songs. When he was young, he was walking on the street and saw two girls riding horses and knocking down passers-by, but they had no guilt and were arrogant. Later, he learned that they were the king's daughters.

At that time, the bard wrote a song to record the scene and educate the two girls. At that time, there were few bards and few songs. One person spread ten, ten spread a hundred, and the whole country understood and learned the song. The two girls were so embarrassed that they dared not go out.

This story is very interesting. I learned a lot of such things during my field research, which were completely unimaginable in my previous life.

Completed: 70% //////////

Use sound to release loneliness and establish communication

After we left Korla, we arrived in Turpan, the hottest place I have ever been to. Here we met a blacksmith. It may be hard to believe that many of these folk music masters were born as farmers. They had farm work to do and their own professions.

This blacksmith has a unique skill - invisible hands. After he finished playing, we were all shocked. His hands were basically invisible? Every finger of his was plucking the piano.

In Kuqa, we invited the director of the local cultural center, who found some local veteran artists to demonstrate music for us.

There is another thing in Kuche that we will never forget. In the old city of Kuche, there were basically no tourists. Suddenly, a little girl came up to one of my companions and said, "Sister, why are you so beautiful? Can I kiss you?"

My friend was very surprised, but she slowly lowered her head, and the little girl kissed her. The little girl also introduced her brother to us, a very shy little boy. It was her brother's birthday that day, and we all greeted him and said "Happy Birthday", and both children were very happy.

Everything that happened along the way was very interesting. It is difficult for people who have lived in the city for a long time to have such an experience, that kind of very simple communication between people.

After leaving Kuqa, we arrived in Kashgar, where we met some children. They were celebrating their birthday together in a room, and we watched them secretly from outside the door.

The Daolang tribe is very special and very different from other places. When they sing, they are in a roaring state, as if they want to release all the anxiety and loneliness in their hearts in the Gobi Desert.

Finally, we returned to Urumqi, and I rented a recording studio and worked with musicians from Xinjiang to improvise. I made electronic music, the drummer made percussion, and the Xinjiang musicians made folk music. We did a very different cross-border creation. I worked with different musicians every day, and each musician improvised for three hours and recorded on the spot.

Finally, I want to say that today's time is limited, and I can't share all the stories that happened in Xinjiang with you. What I want to do is to use sound to record many behaviors. Why? Because when you listen, you will find that you can have a very effective and reasonable communication with the other party. You will find that when you chatter, the other party doesn't hear a word, because when others chatter, I will think for a while what kind of language I use to describe him, or what kind of language I use to respond to him, so the communication is broken.

Listening - Establishing an equal communication

I use sound to record, and I also want to establish a reasonable, effective and fair communication with many different people and places, and listen to each other, so that we can find peace on this land. This is all my itinerary in Xinjiang. I hope that people who like Xinjiang will come here to experience it for themselves. Don't listen to what others say, but experience this process yourself, this is the most meaningful.

The articles and speeches only represent the author’s views and do not represent the position of the Gezhi Lundao Forum.

"Gezhi Lundao", formerly known as "SELF Gezhi Lundao", is a scientific culture forum launched by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, co-sponsored by the Computer Network Information Center of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Bureau of Science Communication of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and hosted by China Science Popularization Expo. It is committed to the cross-border dissemination of extraordinary ideas, aiming to explore the development of science and technology, education, life and the future in the spirit of "Gewu Zhizhi".