Oscar-winning Chinese musician Tan Dun said at an ongoing arts
festival that he is going to employ "organic music" - produced by
basic natural elements such as water and paper - in his
rock-and-roll production for the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
The music, which is still in the middle of production, will make
use of sounds in the movements of Chinese athletes, such as "sounds
of water splashes by diver Guo Jingjing, ball hits by basketball
player Yao Ming and race-starting of hurdler Liu Xiang", Tan said
at the 9th China Shanghai International Arts Festival that opened
last Thursday.
Tan, winner of the Grammy and Oscar awards for his soundtracks
of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, had participated in
music production for Beijing's 2008 Olympic Bid Film. The native of
central China's Hunan Province is one of the musical planners for
the opening ceremony, award granting ceremonies and a theme song
for the Beijing Olympics.
"I am just one of the Olympic Volunteers who take part in the
Olympic music planning," said Tan.
Tan earlier said his favorite athletes are diver Guo Jingjing,
basketball player Yao Ming and hurdler Liu Xiang, who is world and
Olympic champion in the men's 110m hurdles. Tan said he could
"sense musical tempos in their movements".
"They are natural sounds embodying sports passion, which are
quite touching," said Tan, adding that in his eyes the three are
all musicians because he could "see colors and hear music in their
movement rhythm".
Tan is currently testing his idea of bending these sounds of
movement in rock music. It was said he had put microphones under
the water of Shanghai Swimming Pool to record the sounds created by
divers.
"I often think of the scene around the Liuyang river in my
hometown, people washing clothes in the river and the musicality of
the sounds of water never cease," Tan said, calling water "the
tears of nature".
Tan acknowledged his idea of using water as an instrument
originated from childhood memories. "This is sound from the nature,
which could create different pictures in different hearts," he
said.
At the ongoing arts festival, said to be the largest in China,
Tan staged his "organic concerto of water and paper" created
respectively on commission of the New York Philharmonic and Los
Angeles Philharmonic for the opening of the Walt Disney Concert
Hall.
At the Water Concerto, percussionists drummed the surface of the
water by hand or with glasses in a number of large, clear,
transparent water basins on stage. They also used a range of
instruments such as bowls, tubes, shakers, bottles and bells, which
were immersed in the basins, and rhythmically rocked them to create
"extraordinary sound effects".
Three Japanese percussionists drummed, tore, blew, shook,
crumpled and slapped papers, cardboards, boxes, paper bags and
paper umbrellas on the stage in the Paper Concerto, to show "how
ordinary paper objects from daily life can create sounds of longing
and suffering as well as loving".
Anne-Marie Slaughtee from the United States, who currently
teaches in Shanghai, said after the concert that Tan Dun is able to
introduce oriental culture to the west through a creative
method.
Tan's "organic music" attempt, beginning at the end of the
1980s, incorporates sounds and instruments from the natural world -
water, wind, ceramics and paper - to create a new type of
"experiencing music", which also echoes traditional Chinese culture
of "human life being in a highly harmony with nature".
Hosted by the Ministry of Culture and sponsored by the Shanghai
Municipal Government, the China Shanghai International Arts
Festival, which will run through a month, has become a major
cultural gala and an artistic pageant.
(Xinhua News Agency October 22, 2007)
