lessons in music theory

I found an amazing site today with full scores of Chinese music. I'm a hack when it comes to playing Chinese music, and the only way I have to play in an ensemble is to play with other people who don't know what they're doing. That's why I'm really excited about this site; it gives me the opportunity to rewrite the scores and share them with people who don't actually play Chinese instruments, and wouldn't otherwise be able to play the music. Plus it gives me real music to practice on my gu zheng, instead of all these Christmas carols my teacher keeps giving me.

That's right. I can play Silent Night on the zheng.


So, here's how it works. This is the score I read from. It reads just like regular music: left to right, top to bottom. The 0's at the beginning mean that I don't have to play. Up at the top, it tells me that it's in 2/4 time and G=1. If G=1, then A=2, B=3, C=4 and so on. It's a musical code!

Of course, I always read D=1, because that's the key my instrument is tuned to, and I refuse to attempt playing in a different key until I'm a better player.

When the numbers have dots underneath them, you play the note an octave lower. When there is a dot on top, you play the note an octave higher. If there are two dots, you play two octaves higher, etc.

Just like eighth notes in Western music have flags that attach them to eachother, the numbers that are only an eighth note long have a line underneath them. If there are two lines, then they are sixteenth notes. If there is a dot beside it, then it's a dotted note.

The rest of it is pretty standard. (The er hu part even has 'arco' and 'pizz' written in.) Once you start playing it, it's a breeze to read. However, now that I've come this far, the prospect of trying to learn this on zheng hurts my head.

I'm going to re-write the parts for plucked instruments as guitar and banjo tab. It's going to rock.