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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

6:14

#1108 — The first fú 木蛇福

Wu Fei"s Music Daily ·

2025/01/30

Happy New Year of the Wood Snake! This is the first piece of the year of the Snake. I hope it brings you a moment of joy and peace. I had a wonderful family New Year’s Eve dinner. As a family tradition, my mom made a sweet rice cake with the character 福 (fú, meaning happiness or luck) on it that’s made of dates (photo below). The photo is upside down because the “upside down 倒了” also can be said as “arrived 到了” . The Chinese tradition of presenting character 福 (happiness) is always to show it upside

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3:26

#1107– Guzheng sugar rush 色糖热

Wu Fei"s Music Daily ·

2025/01/27

Happy Monday everyone, I just recorded this three-track guzheng piece. The weather is finally warming up in Nashville! My fingers are coming back to life again. As the Chinese New Year approaching soon (tomorrow is New Year’s Eve), I am feeling super excited to the year of the Snake to begin! I was picturing my fingers moving as fast as firecrackers popping, fueled by “way” too many sweets. Hope this piece brings you energy! Wu Fei 吴非wufeimusic.comYou can buy my album Yuan from Tzadik records or

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7:50

#1106 — Stretching 蔓指 (video)

Wu Fei"s Music Daily ·

2025/01/24

Happy Friday everyone, The cold temperatures in here in Nashville will soon end. Instrumentalists really don’t do well in the cold. Hopefully this morning will be the last day at freezing level for a while. If you’re somewhere freezing and struggling to practice or exercise today, let’s pull through the cold together! On another subject, I am honored to be featured by Represent Asian. The full article is here.Thank you all for your support! Have a restful and fun weekend! Wu Fei 吴非wufeimusic.comYou

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11:56

#1102 – Guzheng night song 94 古筝夜曲第九十四号

Wu Fei"s Music Daily ·

2025/01/20

Good morning everyone, Lately, I have been doing Yin yoga in the evening before bedtime. I find it to be helpful for my sleep by adding this night time routine. Having music that is in the right vibe can make a big difference when I practice yoga. To pull myself out of the digital madness these days is essential to maintain a healthy life. This coming week and year will be full of ups and downs in the world. I hope this piece brings you calmness to begin this week. Wu Fei 吴非You can buy my album Yuan

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5:44

#1101– Ringing in the lunar moon 小步迎春

Wu Fei"s Music Daily ·

2025/01/17

Happy Friday everyone,All my friends and relatives in China have started the count down for the year to change to the Snake on January 29th. The traditional celebrations will last for 15 days once the new year starts. I am completely feeling the excitement now. I have also been practicing a fantastic guzheng concerto lately in preparation for the Lunar New Year Concert with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. Below is the concert info if you are in Toronto: Year of the Snake: A Lunar New Year

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7:01

#1098 — A white prelude 素光帷

Wu Fei"s Music Daily ·

2025/01/13

Good morning everyone, This solo guzheng piece was recorded in one take an hour ago. It is an exercise on thumb tremolos. I have been thinking about how much convenience brought to us by technology nowadays. One realization is that we don’t use our hands to write any more, except to drive cars and type/swipe digital devices etc.. Maybe one day, we will stop learning how to play an instrument because we can create sounds by just blinking our eyeballs. That is a sad and scary picture for me to

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5:43

#1097 — Big flower feet 大花脚

Wu Fei"s Music Daily ·

2025/01/11

Hi everyone,I recorded this three-track guzheng composition after hiking in the snow today. I saw many animals’ footprints during the hike including the bobcat’s footprints (photo below). I believe it is a female cat. She has been living in the forest for at least three years. This is my third year in a row seeing this bobcat’s footprints in the snow. Two years ago, I spotted a bobcat kitten in the forest. That is why I believe this big bobcat is a female. I hope she took some food home today’s

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5:56

#1094 — Eighth of La 臘八

Wu Fei"s Music Daily ·

2025/01/07

Happy Laba Festival to you all! Today is Laba Festival (臘八節). It is a traditional Chinese holiday celebrated on the eighth day of the month of La (or Layue 臘月), the twelfth month of the Chinese calendar. It is the beginning of the Chinese New Year period. The traditional food people eat on this day is Laba congee (臘八粥). The Laba Festival's name represents its date on the Chinese calendar. La is the name of the twelfth and final month, and ba means "eight". In ancient China, the "eight" referred to

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9:57

#1093 — Winter spice 冬香听雪斋

Wu Fei"s Music Daily ·

2025/01/06

Happy Monday everyone, I recorded this solo guzheng piece today when the snow was coming down. What a fun experience it was for me to accompany the dancing snow flakes! I’d like to quote the poet Zhāng Xiàn’s (1341 A.D.) poem for this moment: 听雪斋 The House of Listening to the Snow 张宪 [元代] 万籁入沈冥，坐深窗户明。微于疏竹上，时作碎琼声。Translation:All sounds are in the deep darkness, I sit deep in the window and see the light. The sound is faint on the sparse bamboos, sometimes making soft cracking sounds.Wu Fei 吴非You can

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6:27

#1092 — A thousand toes 千趾锣

Wu Fei"s Music Daily ·

2025/01/03

Happy Friday everyone, I recorded this multi-track guzheng piece this morning. I used mostly harmonics on the open strings until the very last tremolo that ended the piece. While my right hand plucked the strings, my left hand lightly touched the half-point on the strings, which created the overtone that was an octave higher than the opening strings. An overtone is any resonant frequency above the fundamental frequency of a sound. They are also called harmonics. Overtones are all pitches higher than

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8:04

#1090 — If you’re not going forward…不进则退

Wu Fei"s Music Daily ·

2025/01/01

Happy first day of 2025 everyone! You may have already entered 2025 by now. But it’s always good to keep the celebration going for a bit longer. I woke up this morning feeling excited because I had no agenda. The world is paused from expectations. To be able to recharge myself feels great. I am using this time to connect to friends, and to reflect on the past for the future. However, the only reality I have is now. If every moment of now is moving forward with something new, then life will not be

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6:10

#1088 — Children of the forest 山神之子

Wu Fei"s Music Daily ·

2024/12/28

Hi everyone,Hope you are having a peaceful holiday break whether it’s a winter break or a summer break. I took a few days off from posting on Substack to recharge myself. Thank you for being patient with me!Just now, I felt a strong urge to create this piece. Practicing music has become addictive to me. It feels weird not to practice. Even if I was on break from here the last a few days, I have been practicing a guzheng concerto composed by Tan Dun. It is a very cool piece though it’s nearly twenty

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4:54

#1087 — Guzheng night song 92 古筝夜曲第九十二号

Wu Fei"s Music Daily ·

2024/12/23

Hi everyone,Happy many holidays! Two days ago, on Winter Solstice, my parents made dumplings as the northern Chinese tradition to celebrate this festival. (Over feeding the children is another Chinese tradition 😄). I thought about The Seventeen-Arch Bridge in the Summer Palace in Beijing. The bridge becomes symmetrical around the winter solstice. As the sun’s altitude angle decreases, a “golden light through the holes” will appear before sunset while the Kunming Lake turns to ice - the most

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14:27

#1084 — An evening with Zakir

Wu Fei"s Music Daily ·

2024/12/17

Yesterday, I received a very sad news that Indian tabla master, composer, producer Zakir Hussain passed away. He was 73 years old. Zakir was known for bringing classical Indian music to a global audience. He was the eldest son of tabla player Alla Rakha, and won four Grammy Awards. Last year, my whole family was invited to see a house concert of the quartet of Zakir Hussain (tabla), Bela Fleck (banjo), Edgar Meyer (double bass) and Rakesh Chaurasia (Indian flute). It was one of the most memorable

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8:05

#1083 — Louisville night song 路易维尔的夜曲

Wu Fei"s Music Daily ·

2024/12/16

Hi everyone, Hope you had a restful weekend. This night three-track night song was composed and recorded two days ago. A month ago, I gave concerts and workshops in Louisville, Kentucky (U.S.) as part of the Festival of Faiths. Dear friend Sara Callaway, director of Louisville Academy of Music (LAM) curated the music artists for the festival. We met at Big Ears Festival in Knoxville Tennessee many years ago when I debuted my solo performance at the festival. Since then, Sara has invited me to

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2:53

Wu Fei and Shanir Blumenkranz rehearsing Mountain Ivy...

Wu Fei"s Music Daily ·

2024/12/13

Happy Friday everyone, This video is from April 2024 filmed in New York City. I invited my long time collaborator double bassist Shanir Ezra Blumenkranz as my guest musician to perform at the Lincoln Center. The full concert on April 11, 2024 video is below on Lincoln Center’s YouTube channel. I always have a lot of fun playing with Shanir who is also an oud master. The oud is a Middle Eastern short-neck lute-type, pear-shaped, fretless stringed instrument. It has more than 3000 years of history

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7:16

#1079 — Jade tree 玉树

Wu Fei"s Music Daily ·

2024/12/09

Hi everyone, This solo guzheng piece was recorded yesterday, inspired by a 1425 year-old poem from China by Chen Shubao 陳叔寶 (553-604), who was an emperor of the short-lived Chen Dynasty (557-589). The poem is called 玉树后庭花, which has been translated as “A Jade Tree Blossoms in the Back Garden,” but just I call it “Jade Tree.” It’s about a beautiful woman—the “back garden”—or more accurately, back courtyard—was where Emperor Chen’s concubines lived, and the poem describes a woman of “bewitching beauty

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4:54

#1078 — Smooth and green 青丝蛇 | Welcome the Year of...

Wu Fei"s Music Daily ·

2024/12/06

Hi everyone, This three-voice guzheng piece was composed and recorded yesterday. I used all opening string harmonics in this song. On Monday, I saw a small smooth green snake in the forest (photo below). I nearly stepped on it when I jumped over a tree trunk. The snake was angry and turned its head to be ready to defend itself, which you can see in the photo. That night, a little snow fell on Nashville, and it’s been cold since then. I hope this snake has found a safe place to hibernate for the

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5:56

#1074 — The great lady’s zither 果园女神之筝

Wu Fei"s Music Daily ·

2024/12/02

Happy Monday everyone, I hope you all had a restful weekend. This four-voice counterpoint guzheng piece was composed and recorded yesterday, inspired by the ancient Hurrian Hymn No. 6, from the area that is now Syria and Turkey (where there is currently a terrible war happening). The final notes of the piece are from a chirping bird outside my window. It is the earliest known song to be recorded in writing, dating to around 1400 BCE. The Hurrians built cities and kingdoms from the Mediterranean Sea

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8:27

#1071 — High moon 月儿高

Wu Fei"s Music Daily ·

2024/11/25

Good morning everyone, Yesterday, I woke up to a bright pink sky. The sky was lit up. I rushed out to the balcony and stood in the chilly air not wanting to miss any second of this moment. As I looked up higher, the moon was shining quietly above the forest (photo below). Hope this piece brings you peace into your Monday. Wu Fei 吴非You can buy my album Yuan from Tzadik records or from Amazon. My albums A Distant Youth and Pluck are available for purchase on Bandcamp.Wufeimusic.com |

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