As noted in the previous section, my range of influences is wide; here I could include everything from Pygmy xylophones to Dufay to chillout. I’ll restrict myself to musical streams that cry out for recognition not only in my efforts at improvisation and composition, but also in the way I render traditional Chinese music.

1. Carnatic Music. I’ve talked at some length about this system already. I won’t go into particulars here, except to say that I’ve been influenced by two rather different streams of the CM tradition. The first stream is the stream everybody knows and loves: the CM of Semmangudi, Ariyakudi, GNB, et al, and their contemporary inheritors. “Mainstream/canonical” CM, if you will. In loving and emulating this CM I have much in common with many a rasika at traditional kutcheris. But perhaps even stronger in its impression on me is the violin lineage centering on L. Subramaniam and L. Shankar. The “L” school is notable for several formal and aesthetic departures from mainstream CM, and while this has earned them some notoriety among traditional audiences, I consider the results among the most compelling and fascinating music I’ve ever heard. L. Subramaniam by himself may have influenced me more than any qin master. Together, these two streams of CM have impacted everything about the way I play qin, from timbral preferences to pitch combinatorics to rhythmic sensibility. It wouldn’t bear explaining here (just ask!), but in a sense even my most traditional qin playing has been Carnatified. As for my improvisations…they are largely CM in basis, and what I tend to struggle with is making them sufficiently Chinese!

2. Hindustani Music. My knowledge about HM does not begin to approach my knowledge of CM, but aesthetically the impact is there. HM shares much with CM but differs in its approach to the rendering of melodic material, and in its characteristic aesthetic preferences. For fear of exposing myself as an ignoramus, I’ll keep remarks short. Rudravina playing has influenced me greatly, especially jor/jhalla and particularly in the hands of Asad Ali Khan and Z. M. Dagar. (It has been remarked that the rudravina is perhaps the closest non-Chinese analogue to the qin.) The sarod shares heavy use of glissando with the qin, and I’ve assimilated just a wee bit of Amjad Ali Khan, Partho Sarathy, and others. The fact that I’m mentioning instruments here instead of musical “content” attests to the greater role of CM in shaping my abstract tastes, leaving HM to concern itself more with sonority and emotional mood.

There’s no need for a no. 3, since my abstract investment in non-Indian systems is rather slim at this point. Elements of Persian, Central Asian (Uzbek-Tajik), and especially Mashriqi (Egypt through Iraq) music have influenced me on both abstract and concrete levels, but I have not approached them in a systematic way. There is also some lingering resonance of medieval monody and polyphony in my qin playing, distant memories of my high school obsession. Had I written this in previous years, I might have talked more freely about influences x, y, z, ad nauseam. But I’ve passed the “wide listening phase” that every comparative music addict goes through (right after the “organology phase”), and now I tend to regard focus and practice as more important than range per se. The range will accrete over time, slower pace guaranteeing deeper results.

However, if I can’t talk more about specific traditions, I can talk about the ways they’ve changed my playing. As I see it, there are “gross” and “subtle” forms of influence. “Gross” influence involves any large, obvious importation or modification, while “subtle” influences work on a deeper level and my go unnoticed at first. I would argue that on the “subtle” plane, most qin performers today have been considerably impacted by certain Western ideals, including that of the packaged concert presentation, emotional and dynamic variation, and technical professionalism. I suppose I’ve imbibed that too, but in addition there’s a whole slew of Indian elements. I prize a clear, articulate tone color with substantial sustain, and have become somewhat addicted to amplification and electronic modification of my sound. (I’m not the first to do this—most well-produced qin recordings are substantially amplified, and they’ve played their part in setting my sonic ideal.) My preferred sound preserves the timbral distinctness and range of the qin but seeks the presence and duration of Indian plucked instruments, as well as perhaps the Iraqi ‘ud. Beyond tone color, I’ve been influenced by the Indian theoretical preoccupation with pitch sequencing, and lot of my “struggles” with traditional qin music have focused on this point. I could go on, but these examples should be sufficient to capture the kind of “subtle” influence I’m talking about.

As for gross influence…these essays are already so long! I’ll talk a bit about the trio of “[systematic] improvisation, heptatonicity, and lyrical texture” once I get sufficient response from readers. Most of you will probably want to hear some recordings to clarify all these points, and I apologize if they’re not currently as available as they could be.