Guzheng and Note Flight "What a score"

Since I have been learning Guzheng, I've been trying to come up with creative ways to practice whilst I'm waiting for my own actual Guzheng to arrive. It's hard to keep up with a class full of chinese students, even if they are only very young, because I think as most people know, Chinese students work ethics are VERY high. I'm grateful for my background in music because not only am I dealing with learning the instrument but I'm also dealing with learning the Chinese for everything. It adds a few seconds on to my thinking process when I have to first translate in my head what Tu Laoshi has just asked me before I can do what she wants me to do. For example play "bei di yin mi " (very low register "mi" string, as in do,re,mi,so,fa,la,ti,do) or gao yin do (High registered "do" string.)
For those who are musically inclined, the Guzheng is split into 4 registers, bei di yin qu, di yin qu, zhong yin qu, gao yin qu, tuned in a major pentatonic scale and 1 high string "bei gao yin do string". 21 strings which as the teacher calls out (in chinese obviously)or writes, in the unusual way that Chinese write music (with numbers and dots above and below them and dashes for note values)...I have to find...very quickly. What a challenge!
Last week I drew the guzheng strings onto a big piece of card, so I could practice what each string is called and where each string is. This week I hit GOLD on the internet when I found this site
http://www.noteflight.com/info/make_music
Not only is it great for me to practice memorising melodies for guzheng (like the short tune we have to be able to sing and identify the notes for at this weekends lesson) but also at "Noteflight" I can start writing and composing songs again, something I havent done now for many many years. For my Muso mates, I urge you, CHECK IT OUT!

General Report

General report.....
#1 Work
#2 The never ending chore of thinking of lesson plans and making them fun for the kids.
#3 Restaurants, baoziguan and more restaurants.
#4 Learning Theory and basics for Guzheng
#5 Shopping(mostly window) and hanging with friends
#6 Enjoying the sudden change in temperature...last week below 10C... 24C today....31C tomorrow. Bring on the beautiful sunshine :-)

Oh for some reason this semester, many teachers come and watch my classes. Not unusual now for a different english teacher to often sit in the corner and take notes (or I usually try and get them to join in:-) Most of the J1 teachers seem to incorporate many of my ideas and games (and their own) into their lessons now or ask for advice on activities they could do to enhance whatever they have to teach from the text books (which I kind of feel proud about!) UNFORTUNATELY it seems to have morphed into a "teaching the teachers" period once a week and....it seems that the "English Club" (fancy name, just meaning an extra lesson)will also appear on my timetable for a class of the best english students.
All I see my job as here, is to teach the kids to have fun with english, give them an opportunity to listen to a native english speaker and understand and use what they learn. They work sooo hard on grammar and all the key basics in their "real english class", my stuff is just supplementary...Still if they think it's helping...Great!
A lot like life really...seem to need to find a balance of "realising there is some kind of purpose" but also "not taking it all too seriously".

China, the good,the bad, the good and the Gu Zheng

I knew that coming to China would be heading down a new path to unknown adventures and who knows what. I have a very distinct memory of my brother saying that to me at the airport at 1.00am in the morning before I jetted off to the "Middle Kingdom". Something along the lines of "You're off on a life changing pathway, but you don't know where that pathway will go yet"...yes, very nervous and exciting times. I really had no idea just what a huge impact China would have on my life. I still don't know where the courage came from to get on that plane, why I came to Yichang (a strange little city) out of the millions of places in China that I could have picked? That has since become very clear!
China of course can be very challenging and along with many other foreigners living here, I too feel the complexed mixed emotions of a love for this country and it's people and the times of dispair and disillusionment. Infact, I think one of the big things that China has taught me is that "You just never know".Things are never what they seem. At a time when things seems like disaster and chaos, well this is when the most unexpected and best things can follow. They say that life is suffering followed by happiness on a perpetual cycle.
ANYWAY...this post has gone in a different direction to what I originally intended. What I was going to talk about is one thing that I do love about China, it's rich culture and history. Before I came here I didn't know what would happen, but one thing I did have in my mind to do was learn a Chinese instrument. Up until know I have had little time. Last year was mostly spent adjusting to the lifestyle, the job, the language etc....BUT this term I have managed to enrol and start lessons to learn how to play "GuZheng". It really is very exciting for me and I think I have fallen in love with the instrument almost instantly. Having majored in Drumkit at University, this is of course a completely new direction for me to take but one that i think will give the blocked musical creativity within me a chance to burst out:-)lol
Because it is such an old traditional Chinese instrument, it also gives me huge opportunities to learn more culture...AND...because the teacher only speaks Chinese, more opportunity to learn Chinese.
Hey, even if it bores you, I'm afraid you may have to put up with lots of Guzheng information in my up and coming blog posts

The Cup Game

These are some great kids and myself playing the cup game I showed them...Looks cool I think :-)