Features
Tuning into tradition
Updated: Nov 30, 2022
By Chen Nan
China Daily
Print
Share - WeChat
All of the team members are in their late 20s and early 30s, Li adds.
"The musicians just tried to play the music and explain how versatile and fun traditional Chinese music can be," Li says. "We are happy that many people have enjoyed the videos and have become interested in traditional music."
Li works with a professional video production team headquartered in Chengdu. She lives in the city and enjoys the lifestyle, food, culture and history. Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, which has disrupted regular daily life, Li and her team started to think about making entertaining and creative videos about the city.
"Traditional Chinese music is very expressive. Besides the music, those instruments are also visually appealing to the audience," says Li.
The process of making a video involves selecting a song, a shooting location and costumes for the musicians, who either dress like people from ancient China or put on contemporary clothes.
Besides popular songs, the team also produced works for special occasions, such as traditional festivals and the 24 solar terms on the Chinese calendar.
Li adds that more young people are showing an interest and passion for traditional culture, which inspires her team to come up with more video ideas, such as telling historical stories, introducing museums and cultural relics by fusing them with the latest technology, like artificial intelligence.
"People in the traditional music world are constantly trying to come up with new ways to promote the genre. The idea of the Crazy Folk videos is to help open people's minds to traditional music. With each new video, you never know which song will be performed, by which musical instruments or in which city," says pipa player Li Yang, one of the musicians who participated in the Crazy Folk videos.
One of her favorites features the song Faraway, adapted from the pop song by Jay Chou. The video was released on Sept 10, marking the Mid-Autumn Festival, the 15th day of the eighth lunar month, a traditional Chinese festival.
