waves and oars

some thoughts about « Ao Ai 欸乃 » (Ondas e Remos)

Waves and Oars are the main images behind the « Ao Ai 欸乃 » qin piece. Every touch we play somehow evokes this natural soundscape. But there is something more such as this piece's emotional and challenging quality: calmness and brave respect that it inspires for the sea. The sea is a primal element worth being called the blue soul of mother Earth since it gives a beautiful appearance from space view, inducing something that Freud called an "Oceanic Sentiment", referring to classical music: an overwhelming mixture of feelings which pervades human sensibility triggering different kinds of sensation and promotion union and belongingness between people.

"One of these exceptional men declares himself my friend in letters he wrote to me. I had sent him the trim work in which I treat religion as an illusion, and he replied that he agreed with my judgment on religion but regretted that I had not correctly appreciated the source of religiosity. This would be a peculiar feeling, which he himself never leaves, which he has seen confirmed by many people and can supposed to exist in millions of others. He would like to call it a feeling of "eternity", a feeling of something limitless, without barriers, as if "oceanic". It would be a purely subjective fact, not an article of faith; it does not bring any guarantee of personal survival, but it would be the source of spiritual energy that the different Churches and systems of religion take hold of, lead through specific channels and also dissipate, without a doubt. Based on this oceanic feeling alone, someone could consider himself religious, even if he rejected all faith and all illusion."

"This manifestation of a friend that I revere and who himself poetically appreciated the magic of illusion brought me difficulties of some importance. I cannot discern this "oceanic feeling" in myself. It is not easy to work scientifically on feelings. One can try to describe its physiological signs. When this does not happen — and I fear that the oceanic feeling also escapes such a characterization — there is nothing left but to stick to the ideational content that first associates itself associatively with the sentiment. If I understood my friend correctly, he means the same as an original and somewhat eccentric playwright when offering this consolation to the hero who is going to kill himself: "We cannot fall out of this world" .2 A feeling of indissoluble attachment, of communion with the outside world. I must say that for me, it has instead the character of intellectual perception, certainly with an affective tone, but, like it, it would not be lacking in other acts of thought of similar scope. From my experience, I could not convince myself of the primary nature of such a feeling. But that doesn't allow me to

question its occurrence in others."

It is easy to understand reluctance concerning the meanings of musical emotions, as they are usually very personal and subjective for some explanation of how they could represent a piece of music. However, putting aside any will to objectively communicate our feelings through music, sustaining a simple approach by enhancing music through the impression we get from it is possible to develop a more refined and deeper involvement. And so enhance the human interaction with the intangible phenomenon. It means letting our body correspond with the images a piece of music evokes and somehow set them (the emotions) free.

Regarding « Ao Ai 欸乃 », notably, such a refined and characteristic piece of the repertoire was revived only during the 1956 excellent survey of qin pieces. Since then, most of the performances we found on the web have been pale copies of the one interpreted in 1962 by Guan Pinghu, from the 1876 tablature version recorded in the compendium 天闻阁琴谱 Tiān Wéngé Qínpu.

The Ao Ai version I played during the Chinese New Year (2023), celebrated by New York Qin Society, is one of the abridged versions based on Guan Pinghu's dapu (recreation). It has 9 sections plus a harmonic coda. Somehow it became popular on media sphere (social media and streaming services) through the hands of Dai Xiao Lian 戴晓莲. It seems to evoke some distinctive features of this piece, such as the beautiful harmonic sections, the sliding melodies along the soundboard between 9 and 7 huis, and some hit two-string explosions here and there.

Thoroughly browsing on streaming platforms (YouTube and Bilibili), it seems that almost every young qin player copies the performances from the same video, as the outstanding Dai Xiao Lian playing or Guan Pinghu famous recording made in 1962.

And so they forget that a piece of this scale needs an intimate approach that could reflect the water landscape around the interpreter if there is one. Thus, it needs to survive outside the media sphere; it needs the sea breeze. Through that, I tried to reconstruct this piece based on my hometown scenery, a port city facing the Atlantic; in fact, the first city in Brazil where, in 1502, the first settlers exiled by the Portuguese crown landed. It is famous for its beautiful seafront promenade with a rich garden along the entire front line of the city. Where the garden ends, the retaining walls begin, and the sea gently kisses them. There, many amateur fishermen lean over and cast their fishing rods daily.

As we walk along this final stretch of beach toward the port, the landscape changes; we can see massive vessels entering the canal, guided by small practitioner boats. Also, we found several rustic piers where the small boats are moored (a small rowing boat for two or three people made of a single piece of wood). We call them "Canoas Caiçaras".

my wife, son and his aunt

The so-called sound of the oars in the water for me in Ao Ai, considering my birth town, evokes the rhythmic beats of the “Caiçaras” (family native of fishermen) in my hometown, driving their boats along the canal of the city of Santos to cast the net in the mouth of the port line. They usually wake up at 4 am to untangle their fishing nets and go to sea at 5 am before the pier moves. Because they wake up very early, it is not always easy to see them, although it is possible to hear the sound of the paddle echoing somewhere near the pier. On summer days, there are usually squalls, and the sea becomes violent, shaking and projecting the boats against the railing that flanks the narrow strip of sand near the port. Walking along the beachfront promenade when the storm calms, you can feel the waves hitting the rocks. It is impressive how the sea changes its appearance over the days, from luminous, transparent, and cloudy to ruffled.

These impressive images have been part of my soundscape since childhood. That's why I evoke them in my performance naturally. One thing I've learned in these ten years studying Qin is that there is a level at which we need to let the hand dance by itself while our mind sails by beautiful images. That's what I try to do with Ao Ai.

São Paulo, 21 de janeiro de 2023

barragem de pedras na ponta a praia de Santos

.