Originally written by Shi Hong. Translated and published with respect for the original author.
There is a saying in the guqin world: "Half a piece of Pingsha is enough to travel the world." Master Mei loved to repeat it, using it to make a point he held dear: in learning pieces, what matters is not quantity, but depth.
Hundreds upon hundreds of qin pieces have come down to us through the ages. One could just as easily say "half a piece of Flowing Water" or "half a piece of Guangling" — yet it is Pingsha Luoyan that gets singled out. Why? Pingsha is not technically demanding. A student of less than a year, if they set their mind to it, can learn to play it. And every school has its own version — scholars have counted over a hundred different notated versions of Pingsha surviving in qin manuscripts at home and abroad, which tells you something about how widely it has spread. To dare to travel the world on the strength of such an ordinary piece — and only half of it at that — carries a certain spirit of challenge: since everyone knows Pingsha, let us use it to measure ourselves against one another. The truly accomplished player has the nerve to silence a room with half a piece.
Master Mei once told a story about exactly this kind of musical contest. A visiting player from out of town arrived at a certain qin society. As was natural among qin friends, they sat down to play and exchange music. But every time one of the society's members played a piece, the visitor responded with the very same piece — and it quickly became clear that this was no ordinary guest. This went on for an entire day. The society's members took turns, one after another, playing dozens of pieces between them — and there was not a single one the visitor did not know. Setting aside the question of artistry, the sheer breadth of his repertoire was enough to astonish everyone. An entire qin society, and not one of them could stump him. The embarrassment was considerable.
Finally, one member recalled a small piece he had learned many years before — Kaiguyun, a minor work. He played it. The visitor did not know it. He rose, clasped his hands in a bow, said "I am impressed," and took his leave. The society had been rescued at last.
After telling the story, Master Mei offered us a piece of advice: at gatherings and recitals, it is best not to play a piece that someone has just finished playing — lest people think you have come to issue a challenge.
But to return to the point: precisely because Pingsha is so ordinary, daring to travel the world on its strength is no easy thing. It is like the cook who dares to show his skill with cabbage and tofu — only a master chef would dare to travel the world on such simplicity. To reveal the extraordinary within the ordinary: that is what it means to be truly accomplished.
My painter friend Lao Fan had known me for many years, and had heard me play the qin before — without showing the slightest interest. Then one day he happened to be at my home when Master Mei was visiting. He heard the old master play one piece of Pingsha, and from that moment on, he was captivated by the guqin. He was already past forty at the time, with no musical background whatsoever — yet he made up his mind to learn. In those days I was living alone, and he would come over every few days, often playing until well past midnight before going home.
In the spring of 2002, Lao Fan and I traveled together to Yangzhou for the New Year. When we arrived, Master Mei's home was full of life — students had been coming all day to pay their respects. Master Mei had grown a new white goatee, and one of his two long eyebrows had taken to curling stubbornly upward on the left side. We laughed and teased him: "The old master is about to raise his brow to the world!" One month later, it was with that upturned eyebrow that Master Mei set off for Beijing, to begin the final and most important chapter of his musical life — and to live out the last year and a half of his time on earth.
That evening, the old master seemed genuinely happy. By ten o'clock at night, only four of us remained in the old house on Jiandao Lane: Master Mei, Lao Fan, my fellow student Yuxin, and me. His spirits were still high. As we prepared to take our leave, Lao Fan said: "It has been so long since I heard Master Mei play." And so Master Mei, with evident pleasure, played Pingsha once more — for our ears alone.
What kind of Pingsha was it?
Looking back on that moment, the only words I can find are: we did not dare to breathe. I felt something invisible unfold before me — what it was, I could not say. I had been studying the qin for more than ten years by then, and had heard Master Mei play many times over the years. Yet this kind of wordless communion — this had never happened to me before.
It seemed that evening Master Mei did not play with his usual expansive ease. He simply let his fingertips rise and fall, lightly, almost weightlessly, the sound of the qin hovering between presence and absence. When the final note faded and his hand came to rest on the strings, the three of us remained as if still inside a dream. For a long while, no one spoke.
To listen to Master Mei Yueqiang's recording of Wild Geese Descending on the Sandbar, visit our Recordings page.
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