Guqin - Bijuan Liuquan《碧澗流泉》 [Flowing Spring of the Green Brook]

Bijuan Liuquan is a Lingnan School piece that I learnt off Dai Xiaolian in the summer of 2010. It has become one of my favourite pieces.

Pardon video/sound quality as my software is rather inferior.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• guqin
• qin
• bijuan
• liuquan
• dai
• xiaolian
• flowing
• spring
• green
• brook

[dbadagna]

Your qin is quite lovely; it looks a bit wider than normal (is this the Confucian style?), and the color appears to be a mottled "zizhu"-looking brown rather than black. Could you tell a little about this instrument?

[CharlieHuang]

@dbadagna It's a Zeng Chengwei qin in Zhongni. Probably appears wider than usual because of the angle. The colour is natural from what the lacquer in Sichuan produces.

[dbadagna]

I am wondering how this piece would sound if arranged for a Chinese ensemble. As I understand, there is a tradition of playing guqin pieces as ensemble pieces (but maybe only for some pieces).

[CharlieHuang]

@dbadagna I prefer qin pieces to not be ensemblised. If find qin pieces played by ensembles to be at best over-guilding the lily and at worse pretentious...

[dbadagna]

It's nice to learn about a new piece, and you play it very well.

Does this one have lyrics, and do you ever sing with the guqin?

Is your guqin tuned extra low?

[CharlieHuang]

@dbadagna No, it has no lyrics and yes, I sometimes sing to certain melodies but I have a crap voice so that happens rarely.

My qin is tuned to lower than standard pitch at around 5 = G.

[jts1702a]

Bijian Liuchuan is a common piece in books, but NOT THE LINGNAN SCHOOL.

So, care to post a score? :P

[dbadagna]

@CharlieHuang

Well, I think it was done in earlier dynasties (or at least qin-se duos which must have sounded lovely) so maybe the arrangers were more sensitive then.