Hidden in a lush bamboo grove, an ancient Chinese man chanted poems while playing on the seven strings of the zither-like guqin. The beautiful sound became a natural part of nature. The sound trickled with the gentle stream, rustled with the leaves and shone like the cool moonlight.

This is how Tang Dynasty poet Wang Wei (AD 701-761) described the guqin, an instrument more than 3,000 years old and regarded as the most elegant form of ancient Chinese music.

Last June, at the Nameless Highland Bar, a popular rock'n'roll venue in Beijing, a dozen musicians playing traditional instruments, jammed with big-name rock stars, including China's most famous rocker Cui Jian. Other rock stars Dou Wei and Wang Lei joined in too.

The audience was rocketed into a trance by a fusion of music they had never heard before.

Without rehearsals, the musicians expressed their emotions in a free, colourful and harmonious way causing the crowd to shout and dance. "This is what I enjoy the most when I play music with Dou Wei: freedom," exclaimed Wu Na, 28, who has been learning guqin for almost 20 years.

"In a way, this is similar to the kind of free exchange that ancient Chinese dreamed of when playing music among friends."

Working with the rockers

Contrary to the common belief that guqin music has remained the same over the past centuries, it has always been evolving, with new masterpieces and distinctive players appearing in almost each dynasty.

In the 1990s, guqin masters, such as Cheng Gongliang, Li Xiangting and Gong Yi started incorporating modern elements into the ancient music. Among the young players, Wu Na has been very eager to take adventures.

Although she had collaborated with Cui Jian in 2003, Wu thinks what really helped her improve were the regular rehearsals and performances with Dou Wei's band in 2004.

"We put the anticipation of the audience to second place," explained Wu. "What we try to do is enjoy the moment as we play and communicate."

In the first few weeks, she was very nervous, because for thousands of years, guqin has been intended to be a solo instrument. Se, a stringed instrument, xiao, vertical bamboo flute and erhu fiddle were occasionally used to accompany the philosophical guqin.

Whatever she played, Dou and other musicians always happily accepted it. That helped her gain more confidence. The band's name "Buyiding" (Uncertainty) means nobody is sure who will join the playing when and where. Her music has become an important element in her recent CDs with Dou Wei.

"I bought the CD by chance and I found it meditative, with elements of free Jazz," said Clemens Treter, vice-president of the Goethe Institute in Beijing, in fluent Chinese. "It is musical where it is not musical you must open your heart and let the sounds enter and see what they will grow into."

Treter first came to China 12 years ago and he finds there is a trend among Chinese artists to modify the traditional. He said on the other hand, many Western musicians have been influenced by Asian philosophy.

Last year, after a club performance, Wu was surprised when Cui Jian walked out of the audience and invited her to join his solo show at the Capital Stadium.

Cui is seen as the first Chinese rock star and made his first public appearance in 1986. Over the years, he has incorporated many rich elements into his music. The performance on September 24, 2005 was his most important concert in 12 years.

"I Want to Play Wild on the Snow" (Wo Xiang Zai Xuedishang Sadianye) is one of Cui's landmark songs. Wu said when Cui wrote it in the late 1980s, he intended the prelude and middle for guqin, but at that time he couldn't find any ideal guqin player. So he had to redesign it for guzheng, another old Chinese instrument with 21 strings.

Wu proved to be the ideal candidate to realize Cui's dream. Though it was simple for her to follow the music score at the prelude and improvise in the middle, Wu said it was "a thrilling moment" for her as a guqin player.

Playing and exploring

"I always have a sense of crisis and I must find something new each year," said Wu. Although she uses the word "play" (wan) frequently, it's obvious she is very serious in the "playing."

Recently, she has been probing something else. At the Beijing Guqin Culture Week held in mid-October, she presented a recording of her collaboration with Du Wei, a student of composition in Wu's alma mater the Central Conservatory of Music, and Fei Bo, a choreographer with the National Ballet of China.

As she plays guqin in a way totally unrelated with classic music, Du hums or sings excerpts from the Kunqu Opera "Peony Pavilion" (Mudan Ting) and Fei captures the feelings in a modern dance.

When she finished, Wu told the guqin masters and researchers from across the country and the world: "I have to apologize that I have played guqin in a different way." Then she saw guqin masters Wu Wenguang and his wife Wang Yaozhu approaching.

Wu Wenguang is a professor with the China Conservatory and his father Wu Jinglue was one of the leading masters to salvage and revitalize guqin art in the 1950s. The culture week was held to commemorate the 100th birthday of Wu Jinglue (1907-87).

Wu Wenguang studied music in the United States for a decade in the 1980s and he has fused the spirit of modern music into his playing of classic pieces, said Wu Na, who has been studying under Zhao Jiazhen and Li Xiangting, both of whom belong to the Yushan School represented by Wu Jinglue.

Wu Wenguang has been working on a project of the China Conservatory to turn classic guqin music into symphonies, which is "another way of preserving the ancient music," said he. Using Western instruments other than guqin, the new works strive to capture the essence of the ancient Chinese music.

"I thought they would scold me," Wu Na recalled, holding a glass of tea with both hands, looking like a young student waiting for the frowning teachers. "But they warmly congratulated me. Teacher Wang said young people should do what they like to do.

"That was so touching."

(China Daily November 7, 2006)