Making music from mud

• Source: Global Times
• [09:17 July 20 2010]
• Comments

Musical instruments (clockwise from left): trumpet, drum and xun made of clay. Photo: Courtesy of Peng Sihan

By Hu Bei

Oscar-winning Chinese musician and a cultural ambassador of the World Expo 2010 in Shanghai, Tan Dun is turning dirt into music.

Lumps of clay from Hong Kong, Taiwan and Xi'an have been made into musical instruments: drums, trumpets and xun, a traditional Chinese wind instrument, for Tan's new classical work called, Earth Concerto.

From July 23 to 25, Tan's music creations, straight from the earth, will be premiered at the Shanghai Grand Theater. Earth Concerto will be the third piece for Tan's "Organic Music" series.

Previously, Tan explored the sound of water by using water vessels and containers to create an experimental percussion work called Water Concerto, which was the first "Organic Music" work.

The second piece, Paper Concerto, used nine different types of paper to produce different sound effects, accompanied by voices.

Earth Concerto involves 99 ceramic and clay instruments, all of which were fashioned from the loam of Xi'an, Lantau Island in Hong Kong, Yingge Town in Taipei.

According to Tan, the creation of the deep red ceramic trumpet in the orchestra was inspired by his grandmother's hookah.

"When I was a child, I saw my grandmother sucking on her hookah. Every time she exhaled, she habitually used her tongue to hold the pipe, which seemed to be artistically beautiful," he said.

"And I was considering whether something like that could be played as the music of the earth."

The traditional xun, is made of black soil from Shaanxi Province. "The xun is one of the oldest musical instruments in China with more than 7,000 years of history. And it is only Shaanxi's black soil that could create such kind of primitive simplicity in music," Tan said.

The white clay from Taiwan is transformed into a ceramic drum, which Tan describes as "an instrument from the earth."

"I am of the belief that earth, like all natural elements, holds a deep spirit, speaking with a language all its own, singing and vibrating alongside all beings. Ancient Chinese wisdom states that humans and nature are one. In harmony with this philosophy, I use the sounds of earth and stone to symbolize the connection of the heavens and the earth."