Reading is like drinking milk, what milk you drink. Or like a car, what oil you add. Only when you have the right oil can you have strength and you can ride on the boat of your life. What kind of boat this boat is, you are not someone else to build for you. What energy you have gained, what books you have read, what kind of wisdom you have, what kind of concepts you have, and what kind of realm you have, all lie in what you have absorbed as a spiritual person.
In this issue, Teacher Guo talked about the importance of "listening" as follows:
Listen first, because the piano is an art of sound. If you don't listen, look at the historical documents, I can see Ji Kang's "Theory of Sound without Sorrow" to a very high and unfathomable realm.
But what it looks like, if we don't have the opportunity and the conditions to hear a really high-level guqin performance, then everything else is empty talk. Fortunately, we live today, and I think people who play the piano are particularly lucky to be able to hear very good things.
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When an art cannot penetrate deep into the level of language, the thing is left with only a skin, and the things inside it have disappeared, or there is a great change in its essence.
I can give you the simplest example, and you will understand. For example, Ma Sanli's cross-talk, "Teasing You". I said it again, word for word, even the same time and speed. But here are two things.
Whether the taste inside is related to the strings or the piano has a certain relationship. But fundamentally, it's its mood, its tone, this very subtle, little detail that fits in with me.
Today we want to learn the tradition, into the guqin, it is not the guqin to play rock music, not the guqin pop music, not the guqin to play Western music. Then the taste of this thing, I go to smoke dyeing. Smoked over and over again, you're like that.
If I don't have any other voices in my ears, I listen to Ma Sanli every day, no one else talks to me, I think every day is Ma Sanli, and finally you are like him.
That's what I said, what books you read, what you touch, over time, like. The last time I watched you play the piano, the students of the Man Academy played the piano, and it is needless to say that it was Teacher Wu Na who taught it, and the famous and upright school is the famous and upright. It feels like it's a family count, right?
Then we listen to the old eight, listen more, a family is different, listen more you know this is right, you will learn a lot of things in the middle. Because it is a continuous inheritance between the blood veins of the guqin culture that has not been interrupted.
And listen carefully, if you say that everyone plays the guqin, it is not to enjoy it casually, listen to it comfortably, make a background music, but you go to it as an object to study in depth, then after you listen more, the more you listen to the more things, the more you listen to the more you can learn things.
In addition, after all, we are modern people, we should have a world vision, and Western classical music can also be listened to more.
Only when you listen to the most first-class classical music works, and you judge your own taste, do you know that they are mirrors, all external existence, it is a mirror. What's more, sometimes, people are in the same situation, the realm ah... Different peoples, different kinds, different styles, it is the same at the highest level.
A few years ago, I went abroad and went there for a long time. I'm going to bring something to listen to, bring a Walkman, I don't have much cd, and I have to bring a lot of books.
I brought 4 discs with me. I think these 4 discs can be heard without getting tired. The two are Mr. Guan's guqin, "Guan Pinghu Guqin Song Collection", hong Kong dragon tone. The other two are of a Spanish cellist, called Casals, whose 6 a cappella suite, Bach's.
I think these four sheets, I can listen to one lifetime, the next life will not be bored. And I think they're the same, the same. One is played on the cello, the Western classic, Bach, and the other is the guqin of our pipe, how can it be the same?
Because the character of beauty that everyone pursues is the same.
Music and bibliography recommended by Mr. Guo
Lao Ba Zhang, "Silk Tong Shen Pin", folk songs, folk music, opera music, Western classical music
"Qinqu Integration", Yang Zongji's "Qinxue Series", Xu Shangying's "Xishan Qinqin Situation", Guan Pinghu's "Ancient Fingering Examination", "Guanpinghu Guqin Ququ Collection", Gu Meitang's "Qinxue Preparation", Zhang Ziqian's "Caoman Trivia", Gao Luopei's "QinDao", Lin Xili's "Guqin", Cha Fuxi's "Compilation of Guqin Music Scores", Xu Jian's "New Compilation of Qin History", "Guqin Song Collection", "Guqin Examination Grade Song Collection", etc.
"Fu Lei's Family Letter", "Mein's Conversation", "Chaplin's Autobiography", "Duncan's Autobiography", Mei Lanfang's "Forty Years of Stage Career", "Longing for Life", "Music in the History of Western Civilization", Li Zehou's "The Course of Beauty", "History of Chinese Aesthetics", "Zhu Guangqian's Aesthetic Anthology", Zong Baihua's "Aesthetic Guide", Liu Xun's "Wenxin Carved Dragon", Sikong Tu's "Poetry", Yuan Ming's "Poetry in Suiyuan", Wang Guowei's "Words and Sayings in the World", etc.
The Book of Poetry, Chu Ci, Analects, Lao Tzu, Zhuangzi, Zuo Chuan, Shi Ji, Han Shu, Han Shi, Cao Cao, Ruan Zhi, Ji Kang, Shi Shu Xinyu, Tao Yuanming, Tang Poems (familiar with Wang Wei and Du Fu), Ouyang Xiu, Su Shi, Xin Shuyi, Zhang Dai's Tao An Mengyi, Gui Youguang, Classical Novels, Eight FingerEdo Tuo Poems, Lu Xun's Works, Mao Zedong's Selected Works, etc.
The Bible, Shakespeare's Plays, Goethe's Faust, Tolstoy's Works, Hemingway's Short Stories, Camus's The Outsider, James Joyce's Dubliners, Chever's Short Stories, Carver's Short Stories and My Father's Life, Singer's Short Stories, Duras's Lovers, Kafka Short Stories, Borges's Works, Kawabata Yasunari's Novels, etc.
Calligraphy: Oracle Bone, Great Seal, Han Li, Han Jian, Wei Stele, Jin and Tang Calligraphy, Song Sijia, Dong Qichang, Fu Shan, Wang Duo, Hongyi, Liang Kuan, Xie Wuliang, Lin Sanzhi, Lequan, Seal Carving
Paintings: Dunhuang paintings, temple murals, Song and Yuan landscapes, Xu Wei, Bada Shanren, Shi Tao, Qi Baishi, Huang Binhong, Lin Fengmian, Fu Baoshi
Utensils: ceramics, lacquerware, stone carving, bamboo carving, fabrics, jade, furniture, gardens, bonsai, architecture, piano
Teacher Guo concluded,
We talk about "The ExquisiteNess of Playing the Piano and the Cultivation of the Piano People", the cultivation of people, in the end, I think it is still the cultivation of life, or the cultivation of life. The piano is only a part of life or life, it is not all, it cannot be regarded as the whole. I've always thought that there are things much more important than the piano. If there are no people in this world who we miss, care about, love, and love, the piano cannot be played well. If there is no respect and cherishing of other things, it will not play well. Reading, just like Zhu Xi said, the source of living water, the sky light and clouds, the world. All this, in the middle of a limited time, all the eyes, faces, lives, friends, enemies, hurts, joys that do not come, all of this, I think, is the "intention" of the piano. With this intention, it is interesting and fun. Without these things, without carrying, the piano would be too frivolous, too free, too tall. Cherishing your own life and cherishing all the people around you is the most important thing.