Gilbert Tang Jr.

As originally appeared on my other blog, The Wing Chun Diary.

Read this humble blog long enough and you will find that music is one of my other obsessions. Unlike my very specific study of Wing Chun and only Wing Chun, my musical taste knows no bounds and is only limited to what does and does not resonate with me on a certain level while still recognizing that my concept of a level is merely one out of billions.

Like most I tend to gravitate toward certain genres. Aside from dad’s classic rock a la Zeppelin, Clapton, C.C.R. and Floyd, which I adored, I grew up listening to “classic” 90’s alternative from the grungy Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains and Smashing Pumpkins, to the more poppy Cranberries, Gin Blossoms and R.E.M. My tastes today are an extension of the music of my early life, but are nowhere near similar in terms of popularity.

While the average reader will have likely heard of the bands listed above, many find my current set list completely foreign. The Dirty Projectors? Joanna Newsom? Blonde Redhead? Maximo Park? Sigur Ros? Clem Snide? The Jealous Girlfriends? Mando Diao? Neutral Milk Hotel? Wolf Parade? Who the heck are these bands?

I guess if you’re into the Indie Rock scene to any extent, you’ve probably heard of most if not all the acts above because they’re pretty popular as quasi-obscure music goes. But if you’re a casual radio listener, you’re probably lost. This is not to say my taste in music is any better or worse than yours, it’s just slightly different from the norm (though it certainly fits into a mold, to be sure … just ask Pandora). Like wine, the notion of good music is defined by the person doing the listening — though many a sommelier and music critic would vehemently deny this (which is part of the problem).

Take my other musical passion, jazz, as an example of this fallacy of opinion. Once upon a time, I pulled this term “jazz purist” from my rear to explain my rather specific love of the “classic” piano-upright-drums trio. I never really cared for most brass winds, and I rarely if ever appreciated jazz guitar outside of the sheer skill of it (I play the guitar myself). I felt like they dominated the landscape even when they weren’t trying to. Much the same applied to jazz vocals.

As I grew older, however, my tastes matured. While I still deeply preferred the trio, I learned to appreciate what other instruments brought to the table. But there was still a fine line. For example, when the younger saxophone or guitar player insists on stepping above the quiet supplement of the pianist and/or upright during a drum solo, I find it slightly frustrating. (By the way, the fact that he was young is clearly less important; but I reference age here only to loosely demonstrate the wisdom behind the music, where the older person is often wiser than his younger counterpart.)

The same goes for any instrument, I suppose, but the moment there is a saxophone or a guitar on stage the general assumption is that it’s a lead, not an equal. Such was exemplified the other night at the jazz club when during one piece every instrument got the opportunity to trade eights … with the sax, not with one another. And when the sax wasn’t playing his part, he was still overpowering the soloists with his own fills.

Meanwhile, a few nights earlier at the same club I was blown away by the brilliant, patient simplicity of the alto player. The gentleman, no less than 65 years old and a virtuoso by any standard, just seemed to play from within, to play with balance in relation to the others, adding wonderfully to the overall lyric without taking away from any instrument. So this is what it feels like to love a quartet, I thought — classic recordings aside, of course.

To me, the alto player was a true Master of his art. When I approached him to gently shake his playing hand and swoon over his gift he seemed more surprised than I was that anyone could consider him a genius.

The more Wing Chun I do, the more I realize how similar it is to music. There is the obvious connection of music to movement as dance, but what I’m really referring to, however, is the mentality, or what I will loosely refer to as The Lyric of Wing Chun.

The alto player was, according to just about everyone in the room except for himself, a Master. We referred to him that way, he did not. There is Wing Chun there.

His movements, his sound, his patience, his efficiency, his balance, his melody from within … there is Wing Chun there, too.

The way he treated those around him, his humility, his kindness, the way people gravitated toward him … there is Wing Chun there.

Heck, he even held his sax along the center line and literally kept it there, kept his structure, as he moved the rest of his body in time with the music. There is definitely Wing Chun there.

The title of this post might seem a little weird, especially to my Sihing on this blog, who also happens to be a marketing genius. It seems to further no real objective. In light of what I’ve said above, however, consider this.

Ys is an album by the brilliant harpist, lyricist and indie butterfly, Joanna Newsom. Think of it as five 12-minute forays into J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle Earth. Like Frodo’s journey, I find Ys is an adventure for the mind and spirit. Every time I listen to it, I discover something new about it, and, more importantly, myself.

As a new Wing Chun student, I am going through much the same with the Siu Nim Tau (a.k.a. Sil Lim Tau, Sil Lum Tao, etc.). For me it’s a journey. When I started listening to Ys, I don’t believe I understood it fully. Each musical movement within Joanna’s epic songs was new to me. Still, when the entirety of the album had passed from my ears to my mind to my soul, I knew I had encountered something deeply special, a kind of … well, the word I want to use though it is not definitively applicable is solitude.

Siu Nim Tau translates roughly into “small think head,” or small thought. While I’m still trying to wrap my small, think, head around this concept, I find that the more and more I do it, the more I practice and the less I have to think about the actual pattern (the movements themselves are another story) … the more I am able to internalize the Form. Of course, I’m almost completely green when it comes to Kung Fu, but as I listened to Ys this morning, I felt I had a breakthrough.

There is a specific track on the album called Monkey and Bear. It’s this nine-minute, twenty-nine second story about, well, Monkey and Bear, and their journey from the farm to a life together and the difficulties inherent in being so different. It just so happened that as I practiced my Siu Nim Tau this morning I had my headphones on and this song started.

What I found is that the song’s very definitive three-act structure went almost perfectly with the three sections of the Form. The first act is slow and contemplative with alternating currents of contraction and relaxation and dominates most of the song. The second and third acts are more intense with almost precise timing to the more ballistic nature of the strikes in the second and third parts of the Siu Nim Tao. If I really concentrated, I could almost time the entire Form perfectly to the song. What’s more, I found the pace was more applicable to the way I interpret the concept of small thought despite the seeming contradiction that stems from the complexity of Newsom’s sound and lyrics.

While I admit I could be on the wrong track, I feel like I’ve taken a small step, in my way, toward understanding what it feels like to internalize the form, like I lit the very first spark of my Qi.

I do this with a lot of things in my life, set them to music. Like The Lyric of Wing Chun, I feel doing so makes for the lyric of my whole life: specific events and periods set to certain songs, or even verses or movements. It’s an interesting way to think about my existence, let alone my Kung Fu. If you ever have the opportunity, try doing it for yourself. You might discover something new, something different, something meaningful, something beautiful. At the very least, you’ll have a different perspective.

And in many ways, that’s what Wing Chun and music are all about.