Author: Edward Sanderson

Originally published on Edward’s website.

Despite the closure over the last few years of a number of live venues that were homes for experimental music in Beijing, the scene—while small—is generally maintaining a level of activity that gives great cause for optimism. By way of example, I’d here like to focus on the activities of two members of the Beijing improvisation scene, Zhu Wenbo and Sean Lee.

Zhu Wenbo has quite a high profile locally due to his activity performing solo as well as in a number of groups, and as the organiser of experimental music events, particularly the Zoomin’ Nights series. Sean Lee has a quieter presence as a performer focusing on computer music practices. They first met through their work at the social media company, Douban, and since 2015 have performed together under the name of “no performance”. Zhu Wenbo has elsewhere described no performance as, “between composition and improvisation, electronic and acoustic, or computer program and instrument”, and in 2016 they debuted a new piece called “Okra” combining rule-based composition and improvisation, which has since been performed in a number of forms with different sets of people. I met up with them both at Wenbo’s apartment in Beijing to talk about their backgrounds and what Okra means for them.

Sean Lee (SL): I was born and grew up in Xi’an, only moving to Beijing after I graduated. I don’t have a musical background, but I’ve always listened to music. At university I did a computer science major, learning sound design, computer design, computer programming, those kinds of things. Programming in general was part of the course, but many of the other things I self-learnt from the Internet: from Wikipedia, open source software, and other resources, and I really started exploring making sound with software that way. In Xi’an there is an experimental music label called System Error that did workshops on programming sound, and I also learnt a lot from them.

Around 2013, while I was in Xi’an I performed for one or two years in a duo called Kunjinkao with a college friend, where I was on audio and he did the visuals. The performances were half-prepared and half-improvised. My computer-based pieces were also included in two System Error compilation CDs, which was the first time my songs were published.

I came to Beijing in my last year at university for a three-month internship at Douban. While I was there I visited the Zoomin’ Night series of events that Zhu Wenbo was organising at XP club. After the internship finished I went back to college in Xi’an, but after I graduated I came back to work full-time at Douban in Beijing, and sometime in 2014 I got the opportunity to perform at a Zoomin’ Night.

ES: How did you get to know Wenbo?

SL: It was while I was interning at Douban. To begin with I think some friends from System Error introduced us and then he offered me the opportunity to perform. That’s also when I first played together with Wenbo, in 2015.

Zhu Wenbo (ZWB): Originally I come from Qingdao, and came to Beijing to study Biology at university in 2000. I stayed in Beijing for four years, then I went to Hunan for my postgraduate degree for three years, and then I came back to Beijing.

I also have no real music background; most of the instruments I learned to play by myself. When I was at university in Beijing I was a good friend with a guy called Zhang Shouwang [later founder of the bands Carsick Cars and White+]. At that time he was still a high school student, without a band, and we had the same musical tastes. We knew each from about 2003 through Internet forums (like the “Lou Reed/The Velvet Underground” forum on xici.net). We sometimes met together, for dinner, or to go to the record store to buy CDs. When I went to Hunan, Shouwang went to university and there he formed Carsick Cars. Then in 2006 his friend Michael Pettis [Founder of Maybe Mars record label] opened the club D-22 in Beijing, and when I came back to the city he introduced me to Michael.

From 2008 or 9 my first band was a duo with Ma Meng called Fat City and we would play at D-22. Then my wife Zhao Cong and I formed Xiaohong & Xiaoxiaohong. From 2009 I started organising the Zoomin’ Night series of experimental music nights every Tuesday, first at the D-22 club, then when D-22 closed Michael opened XP club, and we carried on there.

Taiwan

ZWB: I think the first chance Sean and I had to play together was due to Douban having their annual staff meeting in Taiwan, so I thought we could meet Taiwan’s experimental musicians. I suggested to Sean that we could play together there – two mainland experimental musicians coming to Taiwan. This was our chance!

ES: Who did you connect up with in Taiwan?

ZWB: Gao Jiafeng, another musician friend of ours, had been to Taiwan for a tour in January 2015, so he introduced us to some people in Kaohsiung City, Taiwan, including the musician Liu Fangyi and the people at Kandala Records.

SL: And there is a small record shop in Taipei called Senko Issha. They started a performance series and we were the first to perform in that series. But before we went to Taiwan we didn’t actually know much about the music scene there.

ZWB: I knew some names, but I didn’t know their music so well.

SL: I think at that time there was not much connection between the music scenes of Taiwan and Mainland China. Except for Wang Fujui, he’s a professor who had visited Mainland China around then.

ZWB: For our performances in Taiwan, the idea was that Sean should use software and I would play bass clarinet. Then we mix them together, to have some interaction.

SL: I was using the computer to just play sine waves; the sound was very primitive, just simple sounds.

ZWB: We discussed having a physical aspect to the performance, so the sound changes as I move through space.

SL: Our performance in Kaohsiung was very site-specific: Wenbo came from across the road and slowly moved into the venue.

ZWB: The cafe where we played was on the second floor and outside there is a main road. To begin with it’s only Sean sitting in the room playing; I took a cymbal out and over to the other side of the road, and began hitting the cymbal, and then slowly, slowly moved inside.

SL: I was also playing a drum, but just quiet sounds. Liu Fangyi had lots of toy instruments, small drums, plastic flutes, so we used his stuff.

ZWB: Then, when I got inside I played drones on the clarinet. There is also a microphone collecting the sound of the whole space, including the sound of my clarinet and the sounds made by the computer. But it is not pure repetition; the software selects some frequencies, and then replays only those.

no performance

ZWB: After this trip to Taiwan we start to really focus on this use of space, the recording and replaying of the sounds of the space. In Beijing we had another performance at XP that began with Sean and I sitting together in front of the audience. Sean’s computer programme is running and making some simple sounds but because we are not doing anything at that point there is no further input. After ten minutes I move to the neighbouring room and play clarinet into a microphone, with the sounds being sent to his computer.

SL: The computer is analysing the sound of the clarinet and this triggers sine waves, simple sounds, of different durations, different amplitudes, and different frequencies. Because Wenbo is in the other room and I am apparently doing nothing, it’s like there is no real performance.

ZWB: I think it is at that time that we start to use the name “no performance”!

We are also thinking about what is this thing called “computer music”? In the end, we think that computer music is not just about making your computer play something; it is to use the computer’s own unique ways to make music. Such as randomness: the computer can perform randomly really well, which performers cannot. When we play, we play melody, notes, and rhythm, it’s difficult to play randomly, but the computer can.

SL: And also it can do it very precisely, and repeat small things many times – it’s very accurate. For our pieces there are many variables that let the computer incorporate randomness. Randomness has different distributions, different ranges, you must still decide these for the computer.

Okra

ES: So how did these performances lead to Okra?

ZWB: In August of this year the musician Yan Yulong asked me if I want to play a composition at 20% Space in Beijing [a small, private space for commissioned performances established by Michael Pettis and Yan Yulong in 2016]. So I thought about performing using two microphones, two speakers, again using recording and play back. Initially I thought we could both play clarinets, but finally we decided that we should just read out what we were doing, the microphone would record the sound of us reading, and then replay our voices many times.

SL: We were each holding a sheet of paper describing the piece.

ZWB: Every now and again I also hit some metal percussion instruments to make it sound like a little ritual. It sounds a little like the piece “I am sitting in a room”, by Alvin Lucier. With every repetition the speed changes; you can recognise the sound but you can’t confirm that it’s the same one – I wanted that uncertainty.

ES: Wenbo, this reminds me of a piece you performed at the Sally Can’t Dance experimental music festival last year at School Bar in Beijing, and again for Zoomin’ Night in the underpass, where you were playing notes on a clarinet and a penny whistle respectively. You asked the audience to use their mobile phones to make short recordings while you were playing and replay as they wished. This was intended to build up over time as the sounds were recorded and repeated, over and over, layering the sounds into unexpected arrangements. You seem to be interested in this repetition?

ZWB: Yes. But I feel I could only do this! It’s partly about my playing skills: I’m not a very skilful clarinet player, so I am always thinking about how I am playing. For this piece I did a test with a mobile phone, playing something and recording it on the phone, and found that it could work. Then I think about how it will sound if there are also many people recording – I think it could be great! In School Bar I used the clarinet, and its sound is loud enough for the phones to pick up. I also played very high-pitched sounds with the clarinet, so when the phones replay the sound it sounds like a sine wave.

ES: Returning to Okra, why did you give it this name?

ZWB: Because it’s like the cross section of the vegetable: there are usually six spaces where the seeds form. We originally planned the Okra performance to have six repeated elements – two speakers, two microphones, and two people. Okra is a process of playing, and recording, and playing again. Beforehand we specify periods of time during which we will read, during which the computer will record, and during which we will be silent.

SL: So before the performance we tune the parameters, the different random processes, in order to think through the structure of the whole.

ES: For the performance of Okra at the MIJI concert at Meridian Space in Beijing last month there were a lot of people playing that time. Why did it develop in that way?

ZWB: We wanted to make it into a more constructed piece, with lots of people. The important element is that every musician should select certain periods when they do not play, and they should write these down before the performance. The whole piece was forty minutes long, and there were seven performers in the end – Sean and I, Abing, Ake, Ding Chenchen, Zhao Cong, and Daniel Beban – a musician visiting from New Zealand. I only control the mixing board.

SL: This part is also different from the other performances. The mixing board is also one of the instruments because Wenbo can silence the computer playback, but like everyone else before the performance he also has to choose his silent periods.

ES: What is this piece supposed to do? Is it supposed to confuse the audience’s understanding of the actions of each performer?

ZWB: Maybe at MIJI some of the audience were confused. They just found a number of musicians playing in the room; some people stop, some people start – you don’t know what is happening so you just listen. But for the performance at 20% Space, it was very clear what was happening because we were reading out the text that described the performance.

SL: The experience is that of the original sounds changing into other ways of its being played. Our method means this process is not fixed, so it’s hard to predict beforehand how it will sound.

ES: So you’re setting up Okra as a system with a number of performers making their sounds, and where the computer also acts as a performer. Throughout the piece the sounds from all these performers combine or separate, stop and start, get louder or softer. Is the point of the piece the experience of a number of people performing some sounds that either come directly from their instruments, or via the computer as slightly changed?

ZWB: Yes, that’s the piece! It’s as if you go to a restaurant, order a dish, and the dish comes out – oh, it’s eggs with tomatoes: red and yellow; it tastes a little salty, a little sweet – it tastes good! That’s it! If you want to know more, you can go into the kitchen to see how they make it.

过去几年里北京的实验音乐演出场地关了很多，但是这个场景——尽管很小吧——依然保持活跃，给人的感觉很乐观。在这篇文章里，我希望着重于北京即兴音乐场景中的两位，朱文博和李松。

朱文博在北京本地的实验音乐场景中很活跃。他演独奏，也参与很多组合，组织演出活动，特别是燥眠夜系列。李松则是一个更安静的存在，专注于计算机音乐。他们因为在同一个公司豆瓣网上班而熟识，2015年开始以“不演了”为名一起演出。朱文博曾描述不演了是一个“介于作曲和即兴，电子与原声，程序与乐器之间”的组合，2016年他们带来了一个新作品《秋葵》，混合了限定规则的作曲与即兴，以不同的成员不同的形式演过几次。我和他俩在朱文博的家里见面，聊了聊他们彼此的背景以及关于《秋葵》。

李=李松；朱=朱文博；霭德=李霭德

李：我出生于西安，毕业后才来的北京。我没有什么音乐上的背景，但一直喜欢听音乐。我的大学专业是计算机，学声音设计、计算机设计、编程这样的东西，主要是编程。但我也通过网络自学了很多东西，从维基百科、开源软件，还有别的渠道，我也是因此开始用软件做声音。在西安有一个实验音乐厂牌叫“系统误差”，他们做过声音编程方面的工作坊，我也从中学到很多。

2013年左右，我在西安和一个大学同学组了一个二人组“锟斤拷”，我做声音他做影像，那一两年我们演过几次。演出都是一半事先准备，一半即兴，系统误差的两个合集CD里收录过我们那时候的作品。

我大学最后一年来了北京，去豆瓣实习三个月。那时候我去XP看了朱文博组织的燥眠夜现场。实习结束后我又回了西安，毕业后我就去豆瓣做全职工作了。所以在2014年我有机会开始在燥眠夜演出。

霭德：你是怎么认识朱文博的？

李：是我在豆瓣实习的时候。应该是系统误差的朋友介绍我们认识，然后他邀请我去演出。我和他第一次一起演出是在2015年。

朱：我是青岛人，2000年来北京上大学，学的是生物。在北京四年，然后去湖南读了三年的研究生，然后又回了北京。

我也没有什么正经的音乐背景，大多数乐器都是自学的。我在北京上大学的时候有一个好朋友叫张守望，后来他组建了Carsick Cars与White+乐队，但那时候他还只是个高中生，没有玩乐队。我们都喜欢相同的音乐，我们是2003年在网络论坛认识的（西祠胡同的Lou Reed/地下丝绒版），那时候我们有时会出来碰面，一起吃饭，去唱片店买CD。我去湖南以后，守望去上大学，组了Carsick Cars。然后到2006年，他的朋友Michael Pettis（兵马司唱片的老板）在北京开了D-22，我回来以后他就介绍我认识了Michael。

大约08、09年的时候，我开始组第一个乐队，是和马萌的二人组Fat City，我们开始在D-22演出；2010年我和赵丛组了小红与小小红，后来我们结婚了。2009年我开始做每周二的燥眠夜演出，开始是在D-22，D-22关门后Michael开了XP，我们就去那里。

台湾

朱：我觉得我和小松一起演出的一个契机是，豆瓣要去台湾开年会，所以我就想的可以见见台湾的实验乐手。我就建议小松和我一起去台湾演出，两个大陆的实验乐手去台湾，像是个事儿！

霭德：你们在台湾是跟谁联系的？

朱：高嘉丰，我们的另一个朋友，他之前2015年一月的时候去台湾巡演过，所以他给我们介绍了一些高雄和台北的朋友，包括刘芳一，还有旃陀罗公社的人。

李：还有台北的的一个小唱片店“先行一车”，他们在唱片店里做了一个系列演出，我们的演出是那个系列的第一场。不过在去台湾之前我对那边的音乐场景基本没什么了解

朱：我知道一些名字，但他们的音乐我其实不太了解。

李：我觉得那时候台湾大陆之间的实验音乐场景联系也不多。我之前就是看过王福瑞在北京的演出。

朱：在台湾的演出，我们的想法是。小松用软件，我吹低音单簧管，然后二者有一些交互。

李：我用电脑放一些正弦波，都是很原始很简单的声音。

朱：我们也讨论演出时候的空间位置。当我移动位置的时候，声音会有改变。

李：我们在高雄的演出就根据场地设计了很多。朱文博从马路的另一边开始，慢慢走到场地里面。

朱：那个咖啡馆是在一个二楼，外面是一条大马路。开始的时候只有小松坐在屋里演，我拿着一面镲片出去在马路的另一边，一边敲这个镲片，一边慢慢地走进来。

李：我也用了鼓，但是演奏很安静的声音。刘芳一有很多的玩具乐器，小鼓，塑料笛子这样的，我们就用他的东西。

朱：我进来以后，开始用单簧管吹一些长音。小松用一个麦克风收整个空间里的声音，包括我的单簧管以及他的电脑，但不是单纯的回放，而是通过软件选取了其中的一些频段，然后他只是回放那些频段的正弦波。

不演了

朱：台湾回来之后，我们开始对空间的利用、录音/回放这些考虑更多。我们后来在XP又演了一次，是这样的：我和小松坐在那里，面朝观众；另有一个麦克风，在另一个屋子里，麦克风拾到的声音会影响电脑。开始的时候我和小松都坐着不动，但程序已经在运行了，可以听到一些简单的正弦波，几乎没有变化，因为麦克风那边没有声音。坐了十分钟以后，我走到隔壁那个房间里，对着麦克风吹单簧管，然后声音输入到了电脑，让声音变的更多。

李：我通过让电脑拾取单簧管的声音，然后触发正弦波。它们都是很简单的声音，但是有着不同的持续时间，不同的音量，不同的频率，这些都是经过算法设计的。因为朱文博是在另一个屋子，而我做在那里什么都没做，就好像是没有在演出似的。

朱：我记得那次应该是我们第一次用“不演了”这个名字。

我们那时也在讨论“电脑音乐”到底应该是怎样，最后我们认为，电脑音乐不应只是你在演出中用电脑，而是用电脑自己的特性来做音乐。比如随机：电脑可以弄的特别随机，而乐手是没办法这样。我们可以演奏旋律，音符，节奏，但我们没法弄的很随机。电脑却可以。

李：电脑也可以做的很精确，重复一个小段落很多次，它可以做到非常精确。在我们的作品里，很多变量是由电脑随机决定的。“随机”其实也是有它自己的范围，自己的分布比例，你需要为计算机写好这些东西。

《秋葵》

霭德：所以这些演出是怎么转变成《秋葵》的？

朱：8月的时候，闫玉龙邀请我在20% 空间（Michael Pettis 的一个私人表演空间，2016年开始由闫玉龙组织活动）演一个作曲的东西。于是我就想出了这个方案：两支麦克风，两个音箱，麦克风把拾到的声音回放出来，两个音箱先后各一次。

每一次录音的时长、录音之间的间隔、回放之间的间隔，这些时间因素我们都让电脑来决定，我们只是设定其中的选择区间。电脑具体选择了哪个时间点我们是不知道的，但是在演出开始之前，电脑已经自己确定好了，在演出过程中它不会有变化。

最开始我想的是，我们都演奏单簧管，不过最终我们决定，只是朗读文本，内容就是关于我们这个作品的工作方式。麦克风把我们郎读文本的声音录了下来，然后回放了很多次。

李：我们把这个作品的描述打印在纸上，然后照着读。

朱：在整个表演的最开始和邻近结束的时候，我们敲了一些金属打击乐器，让这个表演有一些仪式感。演出听起来有点像Alvin Lucier的《I am sitting in a room》。每一次的回放速度都比录音的时候要慢一点点，你能感觉的到，但又不太确定。我喜欢这种感觉。

霭德：这种方式让我想起文博在School的Sally Can’t Dance音乐节上的表演，以及地下通道的燥眠夜的演出。那两次你分别用了单簧管和一个哨子，你请观众用手机把你的演奏录成小段，然后回放，一直持续，最后这些声音成为一种不确定的组成。你对这种回放很感兴趣吗？

朱：是的，但其实也是因为，我能做的就是这些。这和我的演奏技巧有关——我不是一个会很多技巧的单簧管乐手，所以我总是会想我应该怎样演奏。想到这个方式以后我就做了测试，吹一些东西然后用手机录下来回放，发现它可以实现；然后我就想象如果是有很多人录/放的话会是什么样，我猜应该不错。在School我吹的单簧管，声音足够大，手机录音可以拾到。而且我吹的是一些特别高的音，手机回放出来听起来就像是正弦波。

霭德：回到《秋葵》，为什么起了这个名字？

朱：因为它看上去像是秋葵的六边形横截面——最初我们想的是有六个点：两支麦克风，两个音箱，两个表演者。

在录音与回放之外，我们还会确认很多别的时间点，比如我们会读多久，程序从什么时候开始录，什么时候安静。

李：就是在演出之前，我们需要构思整个的结构；然后通过设置这些参数以及不同的随机方式，让这个作品每一次是有不同的样子。

霭德：上个月在密集演的《秋葵》是一个很多人的版本，为什么会发展成了这样？

朱：我们想的是，它其实也可以变成另一种方式，比如有很多的表演者，不一定限定为两个。这一次的一个重要元素是，每一个乐手都要选择一些特定的片段，在此期间他们静音，或者什么都不做，而且这些段落是需要他们在演出前就写下来的，而不是现场随性决定的。那次表演有40分钟，最后是有七个乐手：小松和我，阿炳，阿科，丁晨晨，赵丛，还有新西兰的Daniel Beban。我只控制调音台。

李：在这次演出里，调音台也是乐器的一部分，这是和别的演出不一样的地方。朱文博可以从调音台关掉电脑的回放，电脑也有自己的无声段落。像其他人一样，这些段落也都是事先写好的。

霭德：这样做目的何在呢？是想让观众对于理解表演者在做什么产生困惑吗？

朱：或许密集那次，观众确实会有些困惑。他们就是看到屋里有很多乐手，有人停下来了，有人开始了——你并不知道它背后到底是怎么回事，就是听到的这些。但是在20%的那次就非常清楚了，因为我们把文本读了出来，它描述了这个演出的方式。

李：我们想做的是，声音因为录音/播放这个过程而发生了变化；同时我们的方式让这个过程不太确定，它真正听起来会是什么样子又很难预测。

霭德：所以你们给《秋葵》设定了一个系统，其中有一些表演者，电脑也算是一个表演者。整个过程里各个表演者的声音或分或合，或停或起，或大或小。所以对于观众的体验来说，这个作品的要点就是，有很多表演者发出了声音，有的是通过自己的乐器，有的通过计算机的轻微调变？

朱：就是这样的啊。就像是你去餐馆点菜，然后上菜了，你一看是：西红柿炒鸡蛋。红色，黄色，尝起来有点甜，有点咸，挺好吃的。这就可以了。但如果你还想了解更多，你可以去后厨看看厨师是怎么做的。