That's great to hear. Thank you for watching! Please do subscribe if you haven't already - we will have another sheng video coming out later in the year.
nope, sheng comes in a whole variety of numbers of pipes, the one that wu wei uses is 37 pipes traditional sheng which is way too many and quite heavy, traditional folk sheng usually come in 17pipes for kids, adults use 21 or 24 pipes, or however many you want because it is handmade. In modern chinese orchestras they use the 36 pipes keyed soprano sheng which rests on the players lap and has metal resonating pipes to amplify the sound, the alto and bass sheng is larger but completes the whole family of orchestral sheng instrument
The most beautiful version of "Follia". The Sheng is so cool and the Bass... well, I ❤ the Bass 🎻 ( and I ❤ his excellent musician: Mr Michael Fuller).
We have to get in the habit of pronouncing it "shung". It's a Mandarin word. Many Chinese loanwords that come from Mandarin end with "-eng", and none of them are pronounced in a way that rhymes with the English word "hang". In fact, the English "ang" sound is not encountered in Mandarain. There is "ing", approximately rhyming with English "sing", "ang", rhyming with English "long", "eng", rhyming with English "lung", and "ong", rhyming with... I don't think we have a word in English that ends this way. It's a long "O", like in the word "home", ending with an "-ng" sound. The examples I gave are based on a Mandarin spelling convention called Pinyin, which uses Latin (English) letters to express the pronunciation of Mandarin words, with a few different diacritics above the vowels to intuitively indicate the tone. It's a remarkably clear and consistent convention. If you see it written in Pinyin, you know exactly how to pronounce it. If you know how to pronounce it, you know exactly how it's written in pinyin (with some exceptions for tone pairings, but I digress). Sometimes, a word that comes from Mandarin might not be spelled with Pinyin. For example, the surnames "Wang" and "Wong" are actually the same original Chinese surname, rhyming with English "song", and some folks adopted different spelling conventions for the English transliteration. Anyway, here's a robot pronouncing the name of the instrument. The Chinese character has "bamboo" on top, and "life" underneath. "Life" by itself has the same pronunciation. "Sheng". There is really no reason to pronounce the name of the instrument in a way that rhymes with English "sang". I mean, even in English, how often do you see a word ending in "eng"? Rarely enough to not make assumptions.
Honestly, man, I'd so love to see these two beautiful souls perform so ming similar to watch I just heard, or anything, really. It's so magnificent, the sound and feel.
I think the orchestra would sound so much fuller and richer by including some traditional chinese instrumentes such as the dizi, the sheng, guzheng, yangqin and the ehru, it would be really interesting to see how they blend togheter and what textures they can create.
Dear Austin, please email us at digital@philharmonia.co.uk and we can give you a contact for buying a 37-pipe sheng. Please mention in the email that we recommended you get in touch directly with us. Best wishes!
@@philharmonia_orchestra Hi. Is this offer still valid? I recently discovered this instrument and have been enamored by it. I've found a few models online but I'm very interested in this particular model. US here.
Very interesting! I love the videos covering “non-western” instruments!!
That's great to hear. Thank you for watching! Please do subscribe if you haven't already - we will have another sheng video coming out later in the year.
The improv was amazing , i was floored
We were, too!
That was so fun! I loved the duality of the instruments during the improv. The Shang sounds so cool, like an organ.
the number of pipes is always a prime number it seems
nope, sheng comes in a whole variety of numbers of pipes, the one that wu wei uses is 37 pipes traditional sheng which is way too many and quite heavy, traditional folk sheng usually come in 17pipes for kids, adults use 21 or 24 pipes, or however many you want because it is handmade. In modern chinese orchestras they use the 36 pipes keyed soprano sheng which rests on the players lap and has metal resonating pipes to amplify the sound, the alto and bass sheng is larger but completes the whole family of orchestral sheng instrument
At 6:45 he says “So What” not “Salt Water”
The most beautiful version of "Follia". The Sheng is so cool and the Bass... well, I ❤ the Bass 🎻 ( and I ❤ his excellent musician: Mr Michael Fuller).
I love these fusions! Please do another one!
Very very humble and passionate guy, really cool video
What a lovely sounding instrument
We think so, too! You can hear Wu Wei in concert in London: www.philharmonia.co.uk/concerts/2160
Fantastic! Bravo both musicians, and great to hear your improvisations.
I had to stop the video and play it through better speakers to listen, especially the low double bass resonances were being lost. Worth doing.
Next week we have an instrument film with Wu Wei coming out. Check out the trailer here! th-cam.com/video/iJVCZajmEL4/w-d-xo.html
excellent work gentlemen.
For those interested on more sheng and other chinese orchestral music, look up for a channel called welchang
We have to get in the habit of pronouncing it "shung". It's a Mandarin word. Many Chinese loanwords that come from Mandarin end with "-eng", and none of them are pronounced in a way that rhymes with the English word "hang". In fact, the English "ang" sound is not encountered in Mandarain. There is "ing", approximately rhyming with English "sing", "ang", rhyming with English "long", "eng", rhyming with English "lung", and "ong", rhyming with... I don't think we have a word in English that ends this way. It's a long "O", like in the word "home", ending with an "-ng" sound.
The examples I gave are based on a Mandarin spelling convention called Pinyin, which uses Latin (English) letters to express the pronunciation of Mandarin words, with a few different diacritics above the vowels to intuitively indicate the tone. It's a remarkably clear and consistent convention. If you see it written in Pinyin, you know exactly how to pronounce it. If you know how to pronounce it, you know exactly how it's written in pinyin (with some exceptions for tone pairings, but I digress). Sometimes, a word that comes from Mandarin might not be spelled with Pinyin. For example, the surnames "Wang" and "Wong" are actually the same original Chinese surname, rhyming with English "song", and some folks adopted different spelling conventions for the English transliteration.
Anyway, here's a robot pronouncing the name of the instrument. The Chinese character has "bamboo" on top, and "life" underneath. "Life" by itself has the same pronunciation. "Sheng".
There is really no reason to pronounce the name of the instrument in a way that rhymes with English "sang". I mean, even in English, how often do you see a word ending in "eng"? Rarely enough to not make assumptions.
I wonder, How would you sight read with the sheng right in front of you?
Abram Patrick Abesamis
I think it’s slightly on a side
Abram Patrick Abesamis With the Sheng, you don’t get to _sight read_ but you get to _sight reed_ 😆 huh? See what I did there? Ok, I’ll leave now
_Oh. My. Goodness. The contrabass & sheng sound SO GOOD together!!_
*I **_so_** ship them.* _
Honestly, man, I'd so love to see these two beautiful souls perform so ming similar to watch I just heard, or anything, really. It's so magnificent, the sound and feel.
I think the orchestra would sound so much fuller and richer by including some traditional chinese instrumentes such as the dizi, the sheng, guzheng, yangqin and the ehru, it would be really interesting to see how they blend togheter and what textures they can create.
It has already been done.
Tariq Khan tell me what video
Cool
Where can one buy a model like the one Wu Wei has? All the traditional Sheng's I see for sale don't have that many pipes.
Dear Austin, please email us at digital@philharmonia.co.uk and we can give you a contact for buying a 37-pipe sheng. Please mention in the email that we recommended you get in touch directly with us. Best wishes!
@@philharmonia_orchestra Hi. Is this offer still valid? I recently discovered this instrument and have been enamored by it. I've found a few models online but I'm very interested in this particular model. US here.
Pure and rich doesn’t usually goes together tho