Expat Story: an Irish Musician in China

By Godefroy Lepy [France]

Coming from Paris, France to teach in a university in Wuhan, Godefroy Lepy loves Chinese culture and art, and enjoys communication with artists and putting down all the insights he got into words.

S potlight on an amazing Irish musician in Wuhan.

Godefroy LepyTo begin with, let me introduce Joanna S. Chab, an Irish musician who has lived in Wuhan for seven years. You were born in 1991 in Dublin and you moved to the USA to study music at the University of Michigan, where you graduated with a degree in ethnomusicology and Chinese in 2011. Then, you went to New York to study music under John Thompson, an expert in classical Chinese music, and eventually came to China in 2012.Joanna S. ChabThat is quite a biography, even though I am not sure your readers have much interest in my life—besides my music, it is a rather boring one!

G. L.So why did you choose to learn Chinese music? How do you feel about playing such a different type of music?

J. S. C.Different from what? Western music is pretty diverse: what's in common between Gregorian chant, Mozart's symphony, contemporary opera, and hip-hop? They are all as different from each other as Chinese music can be. Chinese music is also diverse: Tang's songs, Song's rhapsodies, and Beijing Opera sound as if they were from different worlds.

To be honest I do not see many differences between Chinese and Western music: they both bring joy and harmony. I feel that R&B, rap music, or reggae are more different from classical Western music than traditional Chinese music is. But maybe I am biased, when I was a kid, I was listening to Beethoven when my schoolmates were fond of Michael Jackson (laughs).

定居武漢七年，愛爾蘭音樂家喬安娜對于東西方音樂自有一番獨特見解。Staying in Wuhan for seven years, Irish musician Joanna S. Chab has her own opinions towards Eastern and Western music.

So why did I choose to study Chinese music? At some point in my life I felt “trapped” in Western music, as if I was not able to do anything new and creative within the tradition I was born into. Therefore I thought learning music from a different point of view could help me find new inspiration—a new way of enjoying my art. But I have to confess that I got interested in Chinese music by mere chance: my teacher was lecturing about Eastern and Western music's differences and I was captivated by the subtlety and simplicity of the Chinese form.

G. L.So do you like Chinese music for its simplicity?

J. S. C.Theoretically, Chinese music is quite simple. It might be the only activity where Western culture is more complicated than its Chinese counterpart. Compare a Western orchestra, with a hundred musician playing a dozen of different instruments, and a Chinese Beijing opera orchestra: there are four, maybe five instrument—but as I said earlier, the most important is not the complexity, but the feeling that accompanies it.

As for Chinese music, I obviously prefer the qin repertoire: as a lot of aspects of Chinese culture, a seemingly simple object can be used in such different ways! What I truly love about this instrument is its intimate nature, caused by its faint and ethereal sound. Within the qin tradition there is a real emphasis on playing for oneself, and even for no one…

To be honest this kind a Taoist idea is quite far from my personal practice of music. Maybe my Western mind pushes me to meet my audience's demands? I don't want to venture further in speculative reasoning about qin ideology, but there is a famous line from Tao Yuanmin that captures this paradox: 但識琴中趣，何勞線上聲，which my master J. Thompson translated as “If one just knows the inner significance of the qin, why make the effort to put on the strings and make sounds?”

G. L.What problems have you faced when studying Chinese music?

J. S. C.It's a tough process. I would say that the complexity of the notation is a huge problem, this being the consequence of a lack of unification, and an absence of a standard tuning.

I will take an example that will make things clearer: consider “Wild Geese Settle on a Sandbank” （《雁落平沙》）, a pretty famous song since the early Qing Dynasty. The title itself is a political allusion to exile, but it can also be interpreted as detachment from worldly matter and thus can be associated with a great deal of Chinese poetry. If I dared, I would love to sing along playing the qin, but I am slightly afraid my pronunciation would spoil the music. This alone shows us how guqin songs are deeply intertwined with the whole of Chinese culture.

My point is: how do I play this song in the best way? When I am studying the score, I am free to choose the way I will tune my qin, in order to emphasize certain harmonics, build tension, or soothe with the melody. I can either choose the standard Western tuning, the so-called equal temperament that modern qin players seem to be fond of, or try to venture into more complex ways of tuning. Honestly the same kind of problem exists in Western music, although musicians are reluctant to talk about it for the sake of orchestral music…

So this would be a double edged problem: beginners might overlook this and play a dull version of “Wild Geese” and complain how hard it is to play guqin, but musicians who are sensitive to harmony can offer a more charming version of this song by tuning their instrument accordingly.

G. L.You are talking a lot about the guqin, could you explain what it is? Why do you like it so much?

J. S. C.It is one of the oldest Chinese instruments: it is basically a long zither with seven strings. I like it for its odd shape. Very long and seemingly frail, it can nevertheless produce an amazing range of notes: from C2 to D5. It sounds very much like a cello, although you pluck the strings, which produces quite a different feeling； and like every string instruments, there is such a variety of plucking techniques.

Traditionally the guqin is played during literate gatherings and its purpose is to soothe one's mind with its evanescent sound: quite the opposite of our Western music where we are looking to strike directly at someone's heart with aggressive chords and passionate melodies.

From a more personal point of view, when I was studying music in America my teachers taught me to play quite fast. I think they were right since, as I said, Western classical music is made to impress and strike one's mind. But with the guqin it is pointless to play hastily and I must confess I rediscovered the beauty of a slow pace, the charm of a single note, a lonely sound, with the zither.

If you are a musician, try to do this at home: play a note, and just listen to it, try to imagine the harmonics, listen to the vibrations, feel the color of the sound—you might be surprised by what you hear.

G. L.As a lover of classical Chinese music, what do you think Chinese people could do to promote their traditional music culture?

J. S. C.I regret that more and more Chinese musicians are adopting the Western tuning. I am also sad to see that not many young people are attracted to old Chinese music: a lot of Chinese people have never seen a qin in their life. Of course it is the same in the West: it is hard to find young oboe players in music school. Maybe Chinese schools could teach more music classes? Maybe not the qin, as they are expensive, but by simply teaching how to sing traditional songs, students would get so much out of it.

G. L.What do you think are the benefits from listening to Chinese music?

J. S. C.To be honest I think that listening to Chinese music, and having a basic knowledge about it, is as important as mastering the Chinese language. How could one understand a country if you know nothing about its music? It is like trying to know someone, but paying no attention to the color of their hair, or their eyes, or the grain of their voice. Of course a lot of Chinese people, especially the younger ones, are fond of Western pop music, but if you start to speak with them about Bo Ya, Mei Lanfang, or Cheng Yanqiu, you will see how pleased they are. Communication with Chinese people can be hard, because they always assume you have a poor command of Chinese, but as soon as I start to talk about music with them, I feel like they forget I am a foreigner and that is quite a rewarding feeling.

G. L.How about Wuhan? You have been living here for seven years: you must know all the secrets of this city?

J. S. C.Wuhan is different everyday, you know. It is not the same city it used to be seven years ago. I came to Wuhan because it is located in a central area of China, which is convenient for me because I have to travel around China a lot—I barely spend more than three months a year in Wuhan.

But as you may know, Wuhan is like the capital city of the guqin, also known as the Chinese zither. The Gu Qintai in Hanyang is considered as a high place of music: you probably have heard of the Chinese saying 高山流水 describing a perfect mutual understanding through music； this story originates from here. That is why they created the Qintai Theater, to celebrate this long history of musical creation. Wuhan is also rich of an engrossing underground musical scene: beside the guqin I also like electronic music and it is good to see how developed this kind of research is here.

G. L.As a conclusion, where and when can our readers listen to your music?

J. S. C.I will be in Chengdu the next month for an important guqin event: I will meet the oldest guqin artisan living in China. I will also perform there, although I am slightly afraid to play in front of such a master… But fear is good for music: when you embrace it you can make something out of it: a more nervous sound, a more accurate interpretation, a deeper understanding of the harmony, etc.