Coming back, I think we all feel a pressure to have some sort of solid work to present.  As the Silk Worm, I do not feel that stress but I am waiting anxiously to see where we are headed.  I trust that the members of my group will come through.  From the beginning, I think my group members and I imagined this project to be much more elaborate than it is.  When we (the Silk Worms, Eric, Zhihong, and Tierney) broke it down the other week, we were all able to breathe a little more easily.  It is always best to make things as least complicated as possible.
That said, while awaiting for the research my team gathered, I was quite inspired by the content of this weeks readings.  The readings focused around music along the Silk Road and the convergence of culture.  What struck a chord with me was the clips of Abigail Washburn performing.  Abigail Wahburn is a world renowned singer and banjo player who also has a background in Chinese.  I became aware of her and her work after listening to an ON BEING episode.  ON BEING with Krista Tippett is a wonderful podcast that explores what it means to be human in modern day.  This particular episode starred Abigail Washburn and her husband, Bele Fleck.  Although it was not specifically about Abigail’s travels and music performed in China, it focused in the bridging of past and present and different peoples through music.  I found a really neat video that reflects this:

The video was contributed by Chris Heagle, who is the producer and technical director of “On Being.”  The video captures the magic of what music brings to a moment.  In the video, Abigail Washburn is sitting in a room in Urumqi among a Uygher feast sharing an impromptu jam session with her band and friends.  What strikes me about this clip is the mingling of language and sound.  She is singing an American classic–Wayfaring Stranger–yet is accompanied by traditional Chinese instruments.  WHAT A SOUND!
My group and I have decided to focus on the present–what even is contemporary Chinese music?  What we are discovering is that the “music of the Silk Road” may not take place on the Silk Road at all, but instead is performed in California and New York, etc.  This brings up questions of authenticity in art.  Does mixing sound, culture, and language somehow make an art form disingenuous?  These are the questions that we are playing with.

On a side note, I have a new favorite word that I came across in the this weeks readings.  It is SYMBIOSIS.  I don’t know how it took me so long to learn of it because it is nothing but excellent.

SYMBIOSIS = a mutually beneficial relationship between different people or groups