Every student is required to submit an essay as an individual project.

The essay should be on the following topic:

Attend a musical concert or any live musical performance, which could be
an SSO concert, a musical or an opera, a pop/rock concert, a jazz concert,
a Chinese orchestra concert or any concert, performance or event in
which the LIVE performance of music is the main focus (this would exclude
plays or ballet), and say in your own words how and why you have
enjoyed (or not enjoyed) the performance. You should include some
comments on how and why science and/or technology may have
had an effect (positive or otherwise) on your musical experience
and why, but the main focus of the essay should be on your
personal views of the concert performance. The essay should be
written from the point of view of a member of the audience, and NOT
as one of the performers.
In addition to concerts which you plan to attend, you may also write about
a concert you have recently attended (within the last 3 months). This will
include concerts during the months of October, November and December
2014. The concert should be a formal performance by live performers for
an audience lasting at least 45 minutes. The concert may be either in an
indoor or outdoor venue, and need not be a ticketed fee-paying
performance.
You need not confine your essay to the content of the lectures. The
essay should express your own opinions, and will be graded on
content and writing ability.
The essay should have not less than 200 words or more than 800
words. It should be written in English, and should not include any
diagrams, photographs or illustrations.
It MUST be entirely your own and unaided work.
The essay should be submitted as a Microsoft Word file with the
name:
exxxxxxxxx.doc
where xxxxxxxxx is your matriculation number. Please put the number
of words and your matric. number at the end of your essay but do
NOT include your name.
The submission deadline is at the end of week 10 of the semester, at
midnight of Saturday 28 March 2015 i.e. the midnight between
Saturday 28 March and Sunday 29 March.
The IVLE workbin for the submission of the Essay project files will be
open a few days before the submission deadline. Please do NOT email
your essay files to me.

Concert review - Resonance of a Thousand Strings

The concert I attended was a guzheng concert by the students and

instructors of a guzheng school. The performers are not professionals and
mostly involved school groups. The age of the performers ranged from
about 6 to 25 years old. Most of the pieces were performed by an
ensemble of only guzheng players, although there were a few exceptions.
The guzheng has a unique sound. It is a plucked instrument with many
strings, each string's pitch is adjustable to fit the requirements of each
piece. The strings are tuned by default to the pentatonic scale, which is
the foundation for most traditional Chinese songs. The guzheng's notes
typically ring for a while before slowly fading away after plucking.
During the concert, I observed the different styles of play by the guzheng
players and learnt about some standard ways to play the instrument. The
right hand of each player is equipped with plastic nails on several fingers
and are used to pluck the strings. They can also rapidly pluck the same
string to produce a sort of sustained note, even though the sounds still
come out as particles. Their left hand is often used to play the bass notes
of the piece and strum the part of the strings on the left of the bridge,
which are untuned, to produce a raw wave of sound to add effect to the
music. The same can be done to the tuned part of the strings to produce a
more beautiful wave of sound. As the number of strings on the guzheng
are limited, some notes require pressing the string on the left hand side of
the bridge to alter the pitch. These pressed notes are often not perfectly
in tune. These techniques were used time and again throughout the
duration of the concert.
A quartet of guzhengs performed their version of the famous Turkish
March by Mozart, which was very interesting as I did not think that the
guzheng would be capable of playing a song which used the western
scale. I realized that the strings were cleverly tuned to be able to play the
chorus or the main melody without having to press down on the string.

Unfortunately, it also dawned on me that it takes at least four guzheng

players to match what one pianist can play.
As the concert went along, many pieces sounded similar to the previous
ones as the guzheng's timbre is rather constant and the dynamic range is
also fairly limited. Also, the composition style of each piece is greatly
conformed to the traditional style and there was not much variation in the
bass accompaniment for each piece. This repetition in musical styles
made me quite bored, although I did manage to stay awake for the whole
2-hour concert.
There was a guzheng solo accompanied by a piano. The piano, being
much more technologically advanced than the guzheng, project its sounds
far better and is able to play a much greater range of music, in terms of
melody, chords, dynamics and pitch range. This combination of
instruments unfortunately showed the inferiority of the guzheng, which
has not evolved much in its long history, apart from an increase in the
number of strings. The piano overpowered the soloist numerous times
during the piece even though the guzheng was the one playing the main
melody. However, the soloist's skills were respectable. He played with a
certain masculinity and decisiveness that was a good fit for the theme of
the song, which depicts the tragic story of loyal general Yue Fei in the
Song dynasty. At one point, one of his strings fell loose and he quickly put
the string back in place and in tune without losing his composure. I think
that was the most impressive thing I saw in this concert.
The music sounded much better when other accompanying instruments
were included, like percussion or the sheng, a traditional Chinese wind
instrument that involves blowing into different pipes, each of a different
pitch. I think this is largely due to the addition of additional tones or colour
to the piece, making the music much fuller than before. Also, the sheng is
capable of playing sustained notes, something that the guzheng is unable
to do. This made the music flow smoother and sound more harmonious.
In conclusion, this concert was an eye opener for me as I have only learnt
the piano and cello before. I have learnt that the guzheng is an excellent
solo instrument which is capable of playing a unique and beautiful sort of
music that no other instrument is able to replicate. Overall, I could see
that the performers were well-practiced and were performing as one in
most occasions.