Playing the Guitar

Today we went to the Wellington Point, which was the endpoint of a peninsular to the east of Brisbane. The spectacle there was splendid, and the weather was clear and pleasant. When we arrived at a lawn by the shore, admiring the beautiful scenery formed by the sunshine, the calm sea, the blue sky, the white clouds, the green trees, the beach and the flying birds such as seagulls and ibises, I brought my classical guitar out of the bag, sat on the grass under a tree and played the song Romance De Amour. The guitar I played was a new one, which was purchased a week ago online after my old guitar had broken. It has a solid bruce top and nato back and sides, and thus sounded a little better than my old one that was built with a laminated wood top.

Time has flown fast. I have been playing the classical guitar intermittently for 9 years. I am still at the beginner level, as I didn’t have that much determination for learning the classical guitar until very recently. It was during the time that I was devoting too much to research when I purchased my first classical guitar. I did not attempt to learn it seriously and merely used it as a way to spend some boring time or practice the fingers and wrists to avoid getting a disease called “computer mouse hands”. At the time when I started to be able to play some simple melodies, I went back to China to work there for a couple of years. I bought a steel-string acoustic guitar there but practice not that much.

In the year 2019, I returned to Australia to start a new life – setting up a family and starting a new career. I started to learn classical guitar again. I was always a self-taught learner, as studying with a teacher was impractical to me. I remembered that during my wife’s pregnancy, I normally played the guitar for some time almost every day at night. Then I could play some simple melodies such as Moscow Night, Greensleeves, and Minuete in G major more smoothly than I was able to perform before I went to China. This routine activity stopped some time before Ivan was born.

I then hadn’t touched the guitar for a very long time until around May 2021. To celebrate our second marriage anniversary in August, I tried to learn a piece of music played by the guitar so that I could play for my wife on that special day. The song I chose was a simplified version of Romance De Amour. It is simplified as it has been transposed to A minor and E minor so that it could be played in the open position. In addition, it only has the main melody and some low pitched accompaniments. It is said to be at the easiest level. However, it was still not so easy for me. First, I did not know I needed to alternate my right-hand fingers at the start. For a long time practising, I was using the wrong way to pluck the strings, which the ring, middle and index fingers responsible for the E, B and G treble strings respectively, and the thumb for the three base strings. I noticed this was the wrong way after I watched some online tutorials. I then bought a textbook which was Noad’s Solo Guitar Playing for reference. The other problem was I feel it was hard to pluck more than one string at the same time. The finger movements were too rigid and I felt it hard to move my thumb. But after some practice, I started to master this piece of music and played it on a special day as a milestone I set for myself.

When I was about to learn it deeper, my enthusiasm was cooled down again. It was because the textbook said for playing classical guitar, one had to grow some nails, which I did not want to follow. I searched a lot of information online, and eventually found Rob Mackilop’s website https://rmclassicalguitar.com/ for the techniques to use flesh purely for plucking the strings. It was said historically there were many famous guitarists such as Sor used flesh purely to play the classical guitar. I was encouraged as I knew Sor was probably the most famous figure for guitar in history so far. However, as I studied this technique deeper, I found it was more suitable for gut strings rather than the modern nylon strings. Gut strings were expensive, easy to break and the tune was sensitive to environments. They were definitely not what I could afford though I admit the sounds they produced were so attractive. I stopped the playing guitar, and instead, I played the flute and Xiao.

However, my wife and mother both believed the sounds of flute or Xiao I produced were too noisy, too high pitched, and not as pleasant as the guitar sounds that I produced before. This puzzled me and drove me to guitar again. Later, I got some materials online that some top virtuoso players such as Lorenzo Micheli and Virginia Luque used very short nails to play classical guitar. Virginia in fact claimed her technique to be a no nail method though she said she grew very short nails to support the fingertips. This information shed a light on me because I did not really care about whether to use nails or not, and I merely don’t want to have long nails to make many aspects of life not convenient. Very short nails are very acceptable to me. Though they hadn’t published any books or papers on this matter. There were comments given by them on their Youtube uploaded videos, which explained how they did.After some practice, I found I got a sense of using short nails for the playing. Then I started to learn new songs. I found that I could handle the two voices in the music much better than before…

Buying a Classical Guitar

 Today I was playing the classical guitar while watching Ivan playing toys in the lounge. Ivan was playing with the toyed fire engine and suddenly he wanted to sit on it. I asked him to not sit on it but as he is merely a toddler less than two years old, I shouldn’t expect him to listen to me. Then I stopped playing, laid the guitar against the wall and the sofa stood up and headed to stop him. But as soon as I stood up, I heard a “bang” sound, and the guitar had just fallen down to the ground. After I stopped Ivan sitting on the toy, I hurried to pick up the guitar and found the bridge of the guitar had been broken.
It is March 27 in 2022, nine years after I purchased the guitar. I could still remember that I bought the guitar in the second half of the year 2013. I was near 29 years old then, as a bachelor living with my grandmother in her house. At that time I was devoted to some tough research topics with very limited financial support. Life was not easy and I wanted to find a way to entertain myself a little bit. I started to think of learning a musical instrument. Previously I had played a type of vertical bamboo flute called Xiao, which was originated from China. As I had lived in Australia for several years, I believed I should learn a western musical instrument, and guitar was my choice due it its popularity and affordable prices.
It was in the afternoon. After shopping, I went to a guitar store near the shopping centre. At that time my parents were in Australia, helping my sister to look after her children. We were together. The staves saw us coming in, and then greeted us nicely. I said I wanted to buy a guitar as a beginner. Then he asked what type of guitars I wanted to learn, “For example, we have acoustic guitars, classical guitars and electric guitars. What do you want? ” This puzzled me as I hadn’t got much knowledge about that, but I first ruled out electric guitar as I felt it was too artificial. I liked the gentle sounds purely produced by the strings vibrating over the guitar body. “What is the difference between classical guitars and acoustic guitars?” I then asked. The staff smiled and said, “The sounds are very different, depending on which one you like. ” He then played some tunes with a classical guitar followed by an acoustic guitar, and said, “The feeling when plucking the strings are different. The acoustic guitars are made with steel strings and the classical guitars are using nylon strings, so the classical guitar is easier to pluck as it is softer. The classical guitar produces a warmer sound while the acoustic guitar’s sound is much louder and more brilliant. ” Only listening to the sounds produced, I thought I liked both of them, though I also agreed they were very different. I then asked the guy which one was more popular. He then said, “The steel strings based acoustic guitar is much much more popular nowadays, as it is used in pop music. The classical guitar is more favourable to playing classical music. ” My father then suggested I buy a more popular one as he thought it was better to follow the mainstream. However, I eventually decided to buy a classical guitar as I liked classical music more, and the price for classical guitar seems more affordable.

Admiring the Moon on the Sea Shore

In the late afternoon, we were arriving at the Shornciffe Pier again. The spectacle was as attractive as usual, despite the winds being much stronger than last time. The sea winds seemed to have blown the seawater into the atmosphere, making the air smell salty. Ivan was very active and exciting as he was merrily running along the pier. Since today was not the weekend, there were only a few people sparsely distributed on the pier, leaving enough space for us to linger around and take photos.


It was a sunny and clear day, though there were clouds with either white or grey colours floating in the blue sky. At the time when we arrived there, the sun was still quite harsh, shining its golden beams on the ground. But after a while, it soon fell to the west. The sunset had made a patch of red clouds to the west of the sky and smeared some pink mist to the east.
We took some photos and then we were thinking about going home as there were mosquitoes at night on the shore. However, a stranger asked me whether we needed his help to take some photos for us. I courteously refused as we wanted to keep a social distance from the others. However, they then asked me to help them to take a photo. Though I was a bit reluctant, I could not find a good excuse to refuse. This was what the life about living under the pandemic.


I checked the information online and knew moonrise time would be around 5:41 pm, which was about 20 minutes later. We then slowly walk to the children’s playground to spend some time before going to the end of the park where there was a narrow and long concrete passage stretching to the middle of the sea. We cautiously stepped to the passage and wandered there for a while before I saw a big and round moon appeared on the horizontal line of the sea. The moon gradually rose to the sky. When the whole world had become darker and darker, the moon itself had become more and more brilliant.

STEREOTYPE

Today both the rain and the heatwave have been gone for a couple of days, leaving a clear sky with plenty of cotton-like fluffy white clouds that occlude the sun. My wife suggested going out to the shore as she said we hadn’t been there after the Lunar New Year, and then we headed to the Shorncliffe Pier. The spectacle was beautiful, with a calm sea in front of us. Standing on the pier, we could admire the blue sky, the dark green sea, and the horizontal line at the far end where they met. Ashore there laid some quiet villages reflecting the golden sunshine. Far away were mountains that were blurred in vision. White seagulls were flying on top of our heads. Many fishing rods were laid on the fence of the pier, with some people sitting leisurely while waiting for the fish. My wife rejoiced with the beautiful scenery and urged me to take photos for her. When I had taken many photos for her and Ivan, she said she wanted to take some for me. I was not keen on photos and unconsciously accepted the idea. I didn’t know what postures and expressions should I make for the photos. So I was just standing naturally while she was taking photos for me. Then she looked at the photos on the mobile phone and exclaimed, “Oh, you look too feminine in the photos. ” I groaned, “What postures are considered to be masculine? ” Then I said, “There is some type of beauty for the feminine postures as well.” Then in the next photo, I made a posture by holding two fists in my hand, assuming that was meant to be manly.
In our society, there are always some behaviours and appearances considered to be masculine and some others to be feminine. It is expected that a man should be masculine and a woman should be feminine in terms of this. Otherwise, they will be considered abnormal or disgusting, and are teased. However, I believe these are merely stereotypes, and should not be viewed as wrong and teased. Could we consider them as a special form of beauty other than a type of guilty? I reckon at least we should view them as a form of nature, which should not be condemned or required to rectify.




I suddenly recalled in the old days when I was a child, I had a doll as my favourite toy. My father was not happy about that and he said as a boy I should prefer to play with toys such as a robot or a superman model to be masculine. However, in my mind, manliness was not meant to be playing what types of toys, it means braveness and determination though I admit that I am not a brave or determined man either.

Stereotypes do not only relate to gender characteristics. Sometimes it will be applied to other aspects. For instance, there is a type of stereotype for adults.

I would like to tell a true story of mine during the final year of secondary school. It happened just two months before the national college entrance examinations. One day the headmaster of my class asked me to her office to have a chat with me. It was said she wanted to understand all students’ requirements and provided helps if needed. As the headmaster had seldom chatted with me. I was very nervous. I admitted that I was weak in social interactions and communications, and my academic performance was poor in my class during the senior high school period. I was also under enormous stress for the coming examinations. For almost every mock exam I had diarrhea and needed to go to the toilet for some time, and then often had not enough time to answer all questions.

I was afraid to talk to teachers and worried about why she asked me to her office. It was during the evening classes. When I entered her office, I trembled a bit. “Miss Yang! What is the matter that you asked me to be here?” I said to her. I have forgotten much about the conversation. I just remembered that she said she wanted to see whether I needed some help. However, I clearly remembered that after I went back to the classroom for some time, she furiously went to the classroom, and blamed my rash gestures and rude behaviours during the conversation. She said, even other teachers had noticed that my facial expressions and gestures were unusual, which had made her rather embarrassed in the office. “You have been over eighteen years old,” She said in front of all students in the class, “and you shouldn’t behave like that, which was aggressive and rude.” Then she condemned me in front of all students in the class for about half an hour.

I admitted that my behaviours had never been elegant, and sometimes they were a bit uncourteous, but I had never intended to offend anyone. I was not sure why she was so angry with me for such a trivial matter. Ridiculously, the conversation, which was said to be used to understand whether I needed help, in fact, had hurt me greatly, especially just two months before the college entrance examinations. It is true that I had been over eighteen years old and had been a young adult. But why can’t an adult be shy and nervous? Why can’t an adult behave a bit unusual when overwhelmed by the coming exams?

Then later I went to Xi’an for university, and I told some of my roommates this story. They were shocked by how narrow-minded the teacher was to bother with a student for only the gestures and facial expressions matter. For many years, I thought I also had some faults to be not courteous enough, but now I think it is not a fault as an adult, especially when being overwhelmed by preparing for the world’s most competitive examinations.

A Visit to Upper Kedron Recreation Reserve

On the morning of yesterday, we were engaging in cleaning and moving furniture for the renovated space that was stretched from our house. In the afternoon, we uninstalled the Christmas tree in the living room and stored it for use in the future years. That corner now has become a space for Ivan to play. It was such a busy day that it was too busy to have time to cook and as a result, we ordered pizzas from Domino’s. Ivan was so happy to have a new play space, that he didn’t go to sleep until late at night, and woke up early in the morning.

My wife then suggested going to a park for recreation, but I thought we should make a haircut for Ivan first as his hair has been quite long given that it hadn’t been cut for a very long time. It was not as easy as before to trim his hair, and as one could imagine, he was crying and struggling to leave the chair during the procedure. However, it was also fortunate that we hadn’t gone out in the morning as there were a few showers, some of which were quite heavy.


After a few showers, the sky turned out to be blue with some clouds that were as white as snow in the afternoon. We then rethought the idea of going out. My wife said she planned to go to a place in Upper Kedron. I naively thought it was a place nearby as Kedron was just a neighbourhood suburb from here. However, it was in fact quite far away. The park was large and quiet. There were few people when we arrived. Later some people came to the park but it had never been as crowded as some other popular parks with big playgrounds.

There was a big round wheel that was facing the sky and with four seats at the corners. The wheel could be spinning when one push from either in a clockwise or anticlockwise direction. We called the wheel a boat. My wife held the baby, stepped into the wheel and then sat on one chair. I slowly turned the wheel moving around, and then sang the nursery rhyme “Row, Row, Row your boat. Gently down the stream. Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily. Life is but a dream!” However, we soon found there was some noise when the wheel was in motion. I then said to my wife, “You may be too heavy to sit on it as it was designed for children.” However, the noise did not diminish when my wife went off from it.

There was a corridor, with pictures painted on the walls. Ivan was so excited to see them. He especially liked the butterflies. I thought it was a great sign as I hoped he could learn to admire the arts.

There were two big slides and a few swings in the playground. Ivan spent some time playing the swings. Then we fetched the pram from the car, put the baby in it and then walked through a path to a mountain. From a higher place to look back at the park, the view was splendid.

Cantonese Music YANG Cui Xi

The composer for the famous Cantonese music YANG CUI XI is anonymous. No one nowadays knows who has composed it or what the music wants to express. However, from its title, which was a historical person’s name, the history of the music should not be too long. YANG CUI XI was a famous prostitute, actress and singer whose activities were active in the late Qing Dynasty and the early years in the Republic of China. She was perhaps the most famous prostitute in Qing Dynasty. There were references online that said she had once tried to protect the reformers who advocated constitutional Monarchy in Qing Dynasty.

The music has been widely used in Cantonese opera for many years. I know it was used in some operas in the 1950s and the music sheet was once published in the 1930s. From this point of view, it is at least not a piece of contemporary music and has many characteristics of traditional Cantonese music. I am not sure the mood of the music, but I feel it at least not a sad song.

Many years ago when I was a middle school student, I played this music with a bamboo flute in a musical lesson.

Autumn Yearning By The Dresser

The repertoire Autumn Yearning By The Dresser is dated from ancient China. No one knows who or when this piece of music was composed. The earliest known printed music sheet for this repertoire was published in Qing Dynasty, the last dynasty in China’s feudal society. However, it might have been composed even before Qing Dynasty. This repertoire is associated with the story of Wang Zhaojun, a women from Chinese Han Dynasty and married to the head of XiongNu to stop the war between the two countries. This piece of music expresses Zhaojun’s homesick when she was by the dresser in XiongNu on an Autumn day. This melody is generally well-known in the Cantonese speaking area due to it was adopted as the music in the last chapter, Fragnance Sacrifice, in the Cantonese opera Di Nu Hua, which tells a tragedy of a Princess in Ming Dynasty who suffered a lot and later commitede suicide for the collapse of the country. The version of this Xiao solo in the post is from this Cantonese opera, and it was arranged by the musician Wang YueSheng.

This is one of my most favourable pieces of music. At the time when I was studying in Xi’an, I often played it at my casual time. I was attracted to this tune not only because the characteristics of music, but also because of the history and historical stories associated with it. Playing this type of music is as if travelling to the past and talking to people from the ancient time, especially when using an intrument with several thousands years of history such as the Xiao. This is the greatest beauty that I admire. This is also the reason why Xiao is my favourate musical instrument despite I also sometimes play with concert flute and classical guitar. This is also the reason why Xi’an is my favourable city in China.