• Home
  • About
    • Michal Shapiro
    • OtherWorldly
  • AJBlogs
  • ArtsJournal

OtherWorldly

World Music by any other name

Wu Hsin-fei: Renegade Nanguan Music from Taiwan

August 18, 2017 by Michal Shapiro Leave a Comment


As I write this, another day of rain in New York is adding to what has been a rather tropical summer.
Am I the only one who thinks rainy days evoke nostalgia? I think not. So I have been digging in my archive of videos and am presenting one today; “Wu Hsin-fei: Renegade Nanguan Music from Taiwan” is one of my first videoblogs from abroad, from over 7 years ago, from my first trip to Taiwan, during the rainy season. It is also the first video I shot upon arrival. I had only a flip camera (remember those?) but I think hand tremors aside, my video captures something special; something that differs from listening to a record, or watching a slick video. This is how it happened, a moment in time caught, and relivable. And in reviewing it I once again marvel at Ms. Wu Hsin-fei’s singing technique, her concentration and the sense of calm that I have always felt at the end of her song. The following text is from that first blog:

Taiwan has a very layered cultural history; when I was growing up the country was called Formosa, a name given to it hundreds of years ago by Portuguese sailors. Taiwan was colonized by the Japanese, who left a profound mark, and most obviously, there is a huge Han Chinese population there that migrated in two major waves, one early, beginning in the 1600s, and another later during the 1940s and 50s under Chiang Kai-shek. There is also an aboriginal population, and although they have been marginalized like many of the aboriginals of the world, their music is increasingly being sold and enjoyed.

In this video I’m going for the throat — with an à cappella performance by a Nanguan singer. (Usually this music is performed with an ensemble of string, wind and percussion.) I had been told that there was a very adventurous Nanguan singer named Wu Hsin-fei who was doing all kinds of collaborations with western and aboriginal musicians. When I set up my appointment to videotape her, she requested that it be in the studio of a master ceramist, so we drove up into the mountains (Taipei is surrounded on three sides by mountains, the fourth side being a harbor) and I found myself in another world. I hope you will see and hear what I mean. So much of how we perceive music is learned, so you may need to “reset your brain” when you listen to this. But I also think that her performance is so riveting, and I was able to get so close up, that you will be drawn into this very special experience.

One of the artists I interviewed said that Taiwanese (or in this case, Chinese in Taiwan) music is about time and space. I tend to agree with that, and will go one step further: it has been so refined over the hundreds (sometimes thousands) of years, that it has retained only the most abstract essence of music. For me, it was akin to listening to a Western minimalist piece. And all you singers out there — check out her tone production!

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Chinese vocal music, Nanguan music, Taiwanese music, Wu Hsin-fei

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Michal Shapiro

Hello. I'm a musician, writer, painter, producer and videographer. I've been been a professional singer since the age of 11. Between 1995 and 2001 I produced award winning world music compilations for the Ellipsis Arts label, and wrote music … [read more]

OtherWorldly

Western popular music is spreading like kudzu all over the world, and like that devastating if attractive vine, it is obscuring –and in some cases destroying—living things struggling to reach the sun.  For the past 7 years I’ve been shooting video of … [read more]

Archives

  • July 2020
  • May 2020
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • March 2018
  • January 2018
  • October 2017
  • August 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • October 2016

Recent Comments

  • Bruce Edward Arnold on Coven sings “Bread and Roses” at the English Folk Expo
  • Michal Shapiro on Maija Kauhanen sings about Child Brides
  • Keren kaplan on Maija Kauhanen sings about Child Brides
  • bruce arnold on Luciana Jury at WOMEX—Now THAT’s interpretation!
  • bruce arnold on More Looping in World Music: Redi Hasa and Maria Mazzotta

Recent Posts

  • Two Silk Strings: Mehrinigor Abdurashidova at the Sharq Taronalari Festival 2019
  • From the Archive: A Rainy Night in Georgia
  • From My Archive- FOR NOW.
  • Duo Ruut plays at the Sharq Taronalari Festival
  • Akbar Khamisu Khan plays at the Sharq Taronalari Festival, Samarkand

Copyright © 2025 · Magazine Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in