10 MOST INTRIGUING MUSICOLOGICAL RESEARCH QUESTIONS:7

7:Music Breathing and Phrasing Typology

One of the greatest contemporary Chinese erhu soloists, Min Hui-Fen, used to say to me, in a definitive manner, that 'what is special about bowed string instruments, erhu and violin alike, is that it delivers a continuous line that flows without stop--different from a sound point in time delivered by plucking a string or striking a key on the piano'. She suggested that I must follow this and play always a long, continuous musical line that hold the continuous breath and vibrato. Now Indonesian rebab player would disagree with this generalization--they are trained aesthetically to play fiddle music in a highly discontinued manner. Where they got this idea of breaking a continuous musical line into several parts and let them flow out one by one is for sure from the singing, if you've heard the Indonesian singers, whom the fiddle imitates. Where erhu master got her idea--not necessarily a traditional Chinese one--is possible to be related to the modern solo erhu aesthetics that is akin to the influence of violin music. Yes, to think about it, great violinists know how to play a long continuous line of music that can last a few minutes without apparently taking a breath, and that is for sure a very different typology than the Indonesian rebab.

10 MOST INTRIGUING MUSICOLOGICAL RESEARCH QUESTIONS:8

8: Fiddle Music Typology

Indonesian Rebab is mostly used to accompany and imitate singing by following closely the melody of the singers. Indian Sarangi has the same relationship with the singers but at the same time is not regarded as the important instruments such as sitar and tabla. Chinese huqin plays a great role in the ensembles that accompanying the Chinese opera singing, but never follow the singers that closely as it stands out. Violin in Western classical music usually do not serve as the imitation of the singers and by all means developed the most specialized techniques that requires an excessive amount of specialized training to master. How and why do cultures classify, value, and make use of fiddle instruments differently, on top of their diverse musical styles, playing techniques and conventions?This is one important question if one wants to understand the lives of different fiddles---a most common instrument found in many many cultures.

印地語，文字，古琴

我想這個博客的文字更豐富起來也倒是件有意思的事情。不過上一篇文章變成了印地語（HINDU)純屬意外。不知為什么我的博客上有這幾種輸入的選項， 印地語，馬來語，泰米爾語等。

最近學習古琴，覺得其實演奏樂器與音樂悟性本沒有直接關聯。人的身體動作之協調其實獨立于大腦對音樂的感知能力。另外，動作的規范與演奏樂器本身的傳統有很大關系，所以必須有人為的約束，而非像對音樂領悟的天成。不過古琴的音樂是很有意思的。

榮先生的香港老師，蔡德允先生，活了106歲，到前兩年才過世，看照片顯得精神矍鑠，聰明過人。她家祖居浙江，家譜可追溯到東周或春秋時期，到她是第28代，真是奇人。

Musical Instrument Collection at Met, New York

Today I went to New York and spent some time again at Met. This is the third time that I went to Met, and I went through the musical instrument collection with more attention to detail this time. I was so much more fascinated also because I recently re-discovered my strong interests in the study of musical instruments. For instance, I spent a lot of time in the European collection, from the long neck lute, course stringed guitars (just like the ones in Latin America), harpsichords, organs, to viola de Gamba, the predecessor of the violin family, etc. I got to see what Bach's Sonata for Viola de Gamba was playing on. It is believed that while the bowed string instruments first appeared around 10th century in middle Asia, the modern violin family did not get its shape until early 16th century. Before that, we have all kinds of shape and sized pre-violin family instruments, including viola de Gamba. They are equally fascinating to me as the violin family. There are some finest violins in the exhibition, by the way.

For the world music collection, I found that their Chinese collection is really old, the instruments are old style that are very different from today. They come from a collection of 1889. Looks very authentic. They believed that the huqin originated from Yuan dynasty, brought in by the Mongolian, rather than dating back to Xiqin in Tang Dynasty. They made a reasonable argument that the bow hair in between the strings reflects the need of the Mongolians who plays while riding their horse. The Gamelan instruments, sadly, has very few of them. I was surprised because Gemelan is so popular here in America. But Rebab they do have. The term Rebab(or rebel, rebec,etc.) is seen across the Islamic world from Egypt to Southeast Asia. Thailand seems to have both rebab-like instrument and huqin-like instrument.

A device called the sympathetic strings is seen both in European and Asian instruments, notably, many instruments of India. Sarangi is certainly very complicated looking. The folk forms of Sarangi seems simpler to play. I look forward to look into all these some day in the future.