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Yan Laolie

Late Qing Cantonese yangqin player who devised the right-hand bamboo technique and arranged early pieces such as Dry Thunder.

Also known as Yan Gongshang

Yan Laolie, also called Yan Gongshang, was a Cantonese yangqin player of the late Qing, early in the history of Guangdong music. He devised the right-hand bamboo (youzhu) technique, widening the instrument's range of expression. In reworking traditional tunes he used added ornaments, filler and held notes, set openings and repeated endings, and shifts of register and key: Sanji Lang became Dry Thunder, Guafu Su Yuan became Linked Rings, and Dao Chun Lai became Dao Chun Lei. He is a key figure of the period when Guangdong music took shape.

Life and times

  1. c. 1850BornQingRepublican Era
  2. c. 1930Died

Works

  1. Stage · Pieces2
    1. Thunder in Drought1916 (Qiu Hechou's Xiange Bidu; some say 1917)Yan Laolie's yangqin reworking of Sanji Lang, the second tune of the old suite Sanbao Fo.
    2. Inverted Hanging CurtainRecorded by Luo Qiyun by the late 1920sA yangqin solo that Yan Laolie made from the third section of the old piece Three Precious Buddhas