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PODCAST

Wu Fei"s Music Daily

An original piece of music every weekday from genre-bending composer, guzheng virtuoso, and vocalist Wu Fei. Concerts & tour info on www.wufeimusic.com wufeimusic.substack.com

music performing arts

All Episodes

4:55

#807 — Man of the earth 野马藤

Wu Fei"s Music Daily ·

2023/06/19

This composition was created and recorded yesterday on two-track guzheng, inspired by the wild potato vine (photo below). They are blossoming on the hills near my home in Nashville. Yesterday was Father’s Day. What a wonderful coincidence that a nickname of the plant is called Man of the Earth! Happy Father’s Day! Wu Fei 吴非Wufeimusic.com This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wufeimusic.substack.com/subscribe

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12:46

#806 — Yarkant father 莎车的父爱

Wu Fei"s Music Daily ·

2023/06/15

This guzheng + vocal improvisation was recorded yesterday inspired by a live streaming music salon I watched. I got up early yesterday morning to watch this rare live event that was held in Beijing (Nashville is 13 hours behind Beijing). Muqam master Yiliham Reyim, from Yarkant County of Xinjiang, gave a two-hour music performance and Q & A, presented by China Digital Traditional Music 中国音网, an organization dedicated to preserving traditional music from all around China and its neighboring

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3:50

#803 — Farewell in the spring of 684 离堂琴瑟

Wu Fei"s Music Daily ·

2023/06/09

This piece was composed and recorded yesterday dedicating to the millions of high school seniors who are taking the national college entrance exam 高考 at this very moment in China. Every year, in the first week of June, the biggest and most intense exams on earth take place in China for three days. This exam will determine millions of young people’s future in the most dramatic way. I just found out that one of my cousins’ son is taking the exam right now in a high school that is in the neighborhood

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8:58

#799 — Baby San’r 宝贝三儿

Wu Fei"s Music Daily ·

2023/06/04

Every year on this day, I think of my hometown Beijing with a heavy heart. A group of mothers lost their teenage children in a horrific event on this day thirty four years ago in my hometown. I was still a kid. Now as a mother, I created this piece as if playing my child’s favorite song to put him to sleep. The melodic element from the beginning is typical intonation of traditional story telling art 曲艺 from northern China, especially Beijing and Tianjin 京津 area. This music art form has had more

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7:07

#798 — Woodland pink storm 雷雨花

Wu Fei"s Music Daily ·

2023/06/02

Summer is here! A big storm just hailed down in the forest right before I started to warm up for this recording. The sun was still out beaming while the rain poured down. I was inspired instantly by this natural phenomena and improvised this track in one go. Hope it brings you a moment of high energy into your adventurous weekend! Wu Fei 吴非Wufeimusic.com This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit

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5:29

#795 — The white campion 白玉草岭

Wu Fei"s Music Daily ·

2023/05/30

Good morning everyone,I just created this solo guzheng piece ten minutes ago after a long weekend of Memorial Day in the U.S.. The birds are chirping as you can hear in the recording. The white campion blossoms are still there in the early morning. I noticed them yesterday evening while I was taking a stroll. The flowers seemed to pop out of no where all of a sudden. The white campion is native to most of Europe, Western Asia and Northern Africa. So wild that they are in front of my house in

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3:40

#794 — Trailing blackberry fugue 豆蔻黑莓

Wu Fei"s Music Daily ·

2023/05/26

This counterpoint composition was created and recorded yesterday on half-prepared guzheng. I prepared my guzheng with a bandana which semi-muted some of the strings. All the 21 guzheng strings are open strings. The resonance is one of the main characters that make a guzheng sound enchanting. However, I like to have more rhythmic approach on the instrument. I have found an effective way to mute the strings with thin pieces of cloth. In music, a fugue is a contrapuntal compositional technique in

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6:18

#790 — Children of Leipers creek 莱珀溪的孩子

Wu Fei"s Music Daily ·

2023/05/22

This composition was created and recorded on two track guzheng, performed by me. I continue to explore tone colors in this piece by tuning the guzheng in two different scales in free tempo and time signature in each track. Tempo is the speed in music. The inspiration came from a beautiful afternoon I spent with family in Leipers Fork, Tennessee (photo below). Hope this piece brings you a moment of peace into your week. Wu Fei 吴非Wufeimusic.com This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this

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5:48

#789 — The cold bike 雪单骑

Wu Fei"s Music Daily ·

2023/05/19

This multitrack guzheng composition was created and recorded yesterday, inspired by a photo by my husband in taken Tibet in January, 1997. He rode a bike (photo below) by himself for a year from Pakistan to Xinjiang to Tibet and Nepal. I envy him to this day. The music started from double tremolos plucked by my thumb and middle fingers back and forth in a rapid speed. In music, tremolos create a trembling effect. The tremolos in the piece keep building to more layers on different pitches, which

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6:29

#785 — Crane fly 鹤飞

Wu Fei"s Music Daily ·

2023/05/15

This composition was created and recorded yesterday on multitrack guzheng, performed by me. Recently, I have been thinking about traditional compositional structures. The common ones are:* A B A * A B1 B2 A * The sonata form * Rondo ( A B A C A D A)* Theme and variations etc. I realized that I had been using these forms subconsciously because of years of music training. In this piece, I purposely broke up the old structures to give myself space for new perspectives.I’ve named the piece Crane Fly,

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8:22

#784 — The Hanging Temple étude 悬空寺一百六十五拍

Wu Fei"s Music Daily ·

2023/05/12

This guzheng étude was recorded yesterday at 165 beats per minute (BPM). BPM measures how fast or slow the music is. A song with a BPM of 120 would be considered relatively fast, while a song with a BPM of 60 would be considered relatively slow. In this track, I plucked four times per beat in the tempo of 165 BPM throughout the piece, with occasional pauses. It means I plucked 660 times every minute on average. That is why I named the piece an étude, which means a musical composition written to be

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5:23

#780 — Five rings 五指环

Wu Fei"s Music Daily ·

2023/05/08

I composed and recorded this piece yesterday on prepared guzheng. A prepared instrument is that instrument has had its sounds temporarily altered by placing bolts, screws, mutes, rubber erasers, and/or other objects on or between the strings. I used five keychain rings in this piece (photo below). This way of playing and making music has had about one hundred years of history. Important composers who were influential in making prepared instrument music (primarily piano) were Henry Cowell

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9:48

#779 — Amur honeysuckle 金银忍冬

Wu Fei"s Music Daily ·

2023/05/05

This solo guzheng composition was created and recorded yesterday, performed by me. The Amur honeysuckle are blossoming everywhere in the forest near my home in west Nashville, Tennessee. The Amur, or Heilong Jiang (black dragon river) forms the border between the Russian Far East and Northeastern China. The Amur honeysuckle, is a species of honeysuckle in the family Caprifoliaceae that is native to temperate eastern Asia; specifically in northern and western China south to Yunnan, Mongolia,

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4:55

#775 — Guzheng night song 54 and album review 古筝夜曲第五十四号

Wu Fei"s Music Daily ·

2023/05/01

This night song was composed and recorded yesterday, performed by me. Hope this track start your week with a moment of calmness. I would also like to share an album review of the duo record “Wu Fei and Abigail Washburn” released by Smithsonian Folkways Recordings in 2020. The review was written by musicologist Jay M. Arms (University of Pittsburgh, PA), and published in the Yearbook for Traditional Music on Cambridge University Press. You can read the full review here on Cambridge.org or pasted in

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7:13

#774 — Westside phlox 西苔有花蕊

Wu Fei"s Music Daily ·

2023/04/28

This multitrack guzheng piece was created and recorded yesterday. Every track was played by my left hand. The inspiration was from the wild flowers that are blossoming all over west Nashville. The colors of the flowers are stunning. The best way to give my eyes a break from the screen is to gaze far into the forest for a long time. You should try it too if you haven’t. I am a right handed person. After decades of playing the guzheng and the piano everyday can put a lot of stress on my arms and

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4:53

#772 — Happy hatching 山不在高，有壳则盈

Wu Fei"s Music Daily ·

2023/04/26

This multitrack guzheng composition was created and recorded yesterday, performed by me. I saw a broken eggshell in the middle of the hiking trial (photo below). It wasn’t there the day before. I wonder if it’s a bird or a tortoise. Or could it be a snake? Whatever it is, I hope it’s growing strong and taking on the world with bravery! Hope this piece brings you a moment of joy. Wu Fei 吴非Wufeimusic.com This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to

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6:48

#770 — Gravity smile and concert review 力万像

Wu Fei"s Music Daily ·

2023/04/24

This three-track counterpoint guzheng piece was recorded yesterday. The quarter-dotted note theme is throughout the piece. Everything else is an extension of the theme in an non-strict canon style in terms of compositional structure. I did not intend to develop the piece this way when I started the first track. Hearing what I had come up with from the first track drew me into an irresistible force that the second and third part came out instantly. I would also like to share a wonderful concert

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7:01

#769 — Lady Su Hui 蘇蕙

Wu Fei"s Music Daily ·

2023/04/21

This composition was created and recorded yesterday on multitrack guzheng. I was inspired by a painting from the Song Dynasty China called Lady Su Hui and Her Verse Puzzle (photo below). It is a collection in The Met. “This scene appears in a later copy of a Tang-dynasty painting illustrating the story of a literary legend, Lady Su Hui, who was supposed to have lived in the late fourth century. The dating of the original painting is supported by the types of instruments depicted in it. Both the harp

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4:20

#766 — A flower for Ahmad 阿玛德的花

Wu Fei"s Music Daily ·

2023/04/18

This piece was composed and recorded yesterday. Maestro Ahmad Jamal, the legendary jazz pianist/ composer passed away yesterday at age 92. I am beyond grateful for his brilliance, beauty and inspiration. Words are weightless to say what I want to say how much joy and wisdom his music has brought to my life. He was a treasure of our time. Wu Fei 吴非Wufeimusic.com This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit

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12:40

#765 — Guzheng night song 53 古筝夜曲第五十三号

Wu Fei"s Music Daily ·

2023/04/17

The guzheng (古筝 lit. 'ancient zheng'), is a Chinese plucked zither. The modern guzheng commonly has 21 (most common like the one in the recording), 25, or 26 strings, is 64 inches (1.6 m; 5.3 ft) long, and is usually tuned in a major pentatonic scale. In this piece, I tuned it completely different from the traditional scale. It was inspired by Arabic music. Guzheng has a large, resonant soundboard made from Paulownia wood, walnut or rosewood. Guzheng players often wear fingerpicks made from

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