Chinese percussionist Wang Wei walks like a serene, laughing Buddha, but at 34, he is changing the face of Chinese percussion in America.
“I would like to educate more people about Chinese percussion,” Wang says, “to take traditional Chinese music technique and push it to its outer limits to meet the Western side.”
Wang has pushed his way out to America, and on July 4 played at the Stern Grove Festival. He will also be performing for the Kronos Quartet at the S.F. World Music Festival in September. He also teaches Chinese percussion at Alice Fong Yu School in San Francisco and at Laney College and West Lake Elementary in Oakland.
Wang’s take on music is a distinctly East-West combination. At the heart of his highly versatile drumming style is his ability to be a self-described “chi catcher.”
“Music is just like our life,” Wang explains. “It’s not straight. It’s movement. It has different chi, different tones, different vibrations.
“You should include your chi with the music and feeling even when you play just one beat. It’s not only about the sound or beat, but also its silence.”
According to Wang, a Western percussionist has to know rhythm first and then combine it with the music. In China, it is the opposite: know the music or feelings first, then put the rhythm in.
“It’s not about complicated rhythms or how intricate and virtuoso you can be. It’s about the chi in how you play,” he says.
Wang began developing this connection between chi and music at the age of 4 when his father handed him his first pair of sticks to play the yang qin, a Chinese instrument derived from the West in the 1800s in which a series of chord strings are struck by bamboo beaters covered with rubber or leather.
Wang trained under the top percussionists of China, but his reputation began taking off after sharing first prize at the 1994 Beijing Jazz Competition with the transcultural group, Crossing. In 2000, he joined the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra as a guest bangu soloist with Maestro Kent Nagano in the “Rhythm and Dance” U.S. concert.
Today, drumming enthusiasts can hear an infinite display of percussive sounds in Wang’s upcoming CD release demonstrating Chinese percussion, from various drums and gongs to woodblocks, clappers, and bells used in regional operas, folk ensembles and minority provinces.
Besides that, Wang’s drumming flair is surpassed only by his mercurial, bantering wit. He says he’s a musical cook, stir-frying together traditional Chinese and Western pop music techniques. “I want to put all the best ingredients I learned into my music.”
He plays with language as much as he plays with music and speaks not only Mandarin Chinese, English and German, but also five other distinct Chinese dialects. “Speaking many languages helps you get the feeling, helps you catch the chi,” reveals the masterful Wang. “You can go in and out of many different worlds.”
Chinese percussionist Wang Wei will release his new CD at the end of August. For more information, call (415) 509-2013 or e-mail drumgu@hotmail.com.