Writing Music for The Beautiful Foolishness of Things^*

by MARGARET HENDERSON

The spirituality of Sandra’s poems, which were inspired by her interest in Chinese tea culture and its Buddhist roots, resonated with my own time teaching in China in 2010. My experiences there served as an inspiration in my creation of the various musical pieces in this collaborative work, which features authentic Chinese instrumental sounds as well as traditional modes, scales and textures to express the feelings, images, and themes explored in Sandra’s poems.

All of the musical compositions featured here were created directly in response to the sound of the poems as I heard them read aloud, with no visual cues whatsoever. Some were created “in the moment” and others find their origins in a consciously applied musical structure with some “in the moment” effects to express particular words and images.



This excerpt is based on jazz chords and came into being “in the moment” on piano, as the poems were being read. The chords are spacious, in contrast with the solidity of “things” and the melody elevates as it unfolds, in order to highlight the phrase “riding the wind to paradise.”

The improvisation evokes the “gift of the moment,” since things are evanescent, quickly passing out of sight, memory, and existence.



The music in this excerpt offers a gentle exploration, using percussion to help tell the legend of how tea was discovered by the emperor.

The slow 3/4 ostinato on the taiko toms supports the progression of the story and the percussive effects.

Percussion effects such as snaps, Chinese tom toms and tam tams, temple blocks, and cymbals such as wind gong, hi hat and hard gong remind us of some effects used in the Beijing Opera. They gently carry the words and images that flow past as we read about the legend.



The excerpt is based on the major pentatonic (five note) scale, which is used in much Chinese folk music. Each of the notes in the scale are named and signify the five elements. When a five-note scale is based on any one of the five notes (do, re, mi, so or la), it is called a mode.

Do=góng mode=earth
Re=shāng mode=metal
Mi=jué mode=wood
So=zhī mode=fire
La=yū mode=water

This excerpt is written in the yu mode (the mode based on la) to represent the water that is essential for making tea. The yu mode is said to make one mentally balanced as well as gentle and content though not excessively so.

Some programmatic elements are described below:
• The opening sounds are made by a Tibetan singing bowl in order to set a tone of introspection.
• The string so-la ostinato throughout is played by the guzheng zither.
• The flower trill part way through is made by the dizi flute (a bamboo flute played transversely).
• The ruan moon guitar plays the main melody. The yueqin, which is also called a moon lute or moon guitar, is a traditional Chinese stringed instrument. It is a lute with a round, hollow soundboard and a short-fretted neck. Typically, it has four strings.



The music opens with a short dizi flute cadenza followed by some guqin (small zither) harmonics.

The main melody is a simple folk-inspired pentatonic melody in octaves. It uses the yu (la) mode, which represents the water used to make tea. This happy melody is played by the dizi flute and moon lute, an instrument similar to the pipa mentioned in the poem; it becomes progressively simpler as the poem unfolds, is accompanied by a wavering dizi flute ostinato (on la and so), and is completed by more guqin harmonics.



Two descending pentatonic ostinati (repeated patterns) are played on the guzheng zither. The ostinati support a gentle descending theme to represent the cup that overflows.

The guzheng zither also provides some sound effects on phrases such as “scatter leaves” and “shatter pots.”

Also providing scattering, whirling effects is the dizi flute (a bamboo flute played transversely).

For contrast and a break in the reading, the B section in the middle provides a parabola like melody on the erhu, which is a two-stringed violin.

* — This collaborative art work can be viewed here.

Margaret Henderson