The Stone Drummers
Posted by Susanne Mentzer on 11/17/2006Friday, 11/17
In the elevator or the way to rehearsal I was with two young guys who seemed very nervous. I thought they were young singers. The conversation went as follows:
“Did you bring your rocks?”
“Yes, did you?”
“No , man, I looked and did not find any. I wonder if I will be fired.”
“Maybe someone brought extras. They cannot fire you just for not bringing rocks. I hope this does not need to be memorized today”.
“Hope not.”
(elevator doors open)
It turns out these were drummers in the first scene, on their way to their first staging rehearsal. The drums are works of art in themselves, painted red, white and, I believe, black, in a yin-yang sort of pattern. They are also huge, maybe the size of timpani, but they look like giant buns.The clay flower pots are exactly that… clay pots on pieces of plywood.
Before today’s rehearsal I made my habitual stop at the basement level ladies’ room. There I found a Chinese woman filling the water phones. What a wild instrument. She said that the best sound comes from swirling the water around in the bowl after striking. It looks like a big metal ewer (for the crossword puzzle fans, you will know this word) with metal spokes extending from bottom to top, sort of making a cage around the ewer. The player bows the spokes and swirls the water.
There were more interesting comments from Tan Dun. One especially stuck with me. He is using the old instruments vs the new in the beginning to show a transition from older Qin dynasty, First Emperor (pronounced “Chin”) to newer China/western music in the form of a conversation between the two types of instruments. Also, he mentioned a moment in Act II Sc. II final scene when there is a very abrupt sort of transition in the music. There are gongs used and apparently will be a big gong onstage symbolizing a change to another dynasty when it is struck.