Inheritance through sound
Print Edition
When I was a child, I once saw a TV program about ancient China. A word in the program attracted me: inheritance. I asked my grandfather, what is inheritance? Grandpa smiled but didn’t speak. He took out a zither from the box and played it. The beautiful music fluttered in the room and planted a seed in my young heart. “Did you see the zither? Did you hear the voice? What you saw and what you heard is inheritance.”
However, when I grew up, I did not learn zither or folk music, but piano. I thought the sound affect of folk music is not as beautiful as Western ones. After studying the piano for several years, my technology has improved continuously. One day, the teacher of the school folk music club suddenly found me, which puzzled me a lot. It turned out that their zither player was ill, and she hoped that I could play the electronic organ to take the place of him. “How ridiculous!” I thought. But I still wanted to have a try.
The next day, I went to the club and joined the team of these folk musicians. Erhu, pipa, sheng and xiao, with the sound of those musical instruments, I felt something in my memory was going to be awakened.
One afternoon, after hours of training with other club members, we had a break. I asked the flute player why he was interested in folk music. “There must be someone to inherit the things left by their ancestors. This is the crystallization of the wisdom of the Chinese nation! It is the mission of each Chinese, isn’t it? What’s more, playing it is also interesting for me. It’s a great pleasure.” Hearing this, I suddenly remembered what my grandpa once said: “What you saw and what you heard is inheritance.”
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