Bluegrass, monks and the banjo man

We were scheduled to have the day off Sunday until an evening performance. The plan was to go up Mt. Laoshan and visit with a group of Taoist monk musicians and play music. The rains had closed the mountain road. With great disappointment, we spent the morning hours shopping in the markets. Our lovely translator “Linda” and Julie and Rory helped us with our bargaining and we made some good purchases.

We received news around noon that the mountain road had been opened and so we quickly ate lunch and headed towards the mountain along the coastal road. The drive was not long and the scenery was mystifying.

The Director of the Cultural Bureau had set up the very unique gathering between us and the monks and we will be forever grateful to him and his staff for giving us this amazing, historical moment of cultural music exchange. It is extremely rare to have this kind of contact and interaction with the monks.

Driving into the monastery, we were met by several guards. We had a Cultural Bureau staff person with us, she said something quickly and assertively in Chinese and then the gates opened. There was a second set of guards and then there we were, parked in the middle of the monastery gardens with monks walking towards us.

The first monk was introduced to us as the “leader” of the monk musicians. We were then led into a room with traditional architecture and told to sit and wait. Slowly, monks carrying strange musical instruments started slowly appearing until all five members of their group was sitting across the table from us. The stares of curiosity were equal and respectful.

Introductions were made through “Linda”. They requested that we play first. Later on the road home, we laughed at their typical musician response “let’s see your licks first”.

We played two songs, and you could see the amazement and delight in their stares. We then explained our instruments and told them the history of bluegrass music and a short bit about the first generation bluegrass musicians, Bill Monroe and Earl Scruggs. Quickly, Dierik and his banjo became the stars of the moment.

They then played us two of their songs. The sounds were mystical mixed with part pentatonic and whole tone scales. The ancient songs we were hearing were 2,500 years old. They then showed us a book with collected notes and words written down through time and passed through many generations.

We had an exchange of questions about each other’s music. Their intrigue was with the banjo and Dierik. They told us they rarely leave the monastery and we were very unique visitors to them stating to us they had never seen a musical instrument like this. Dierik proceeded to ask if he could come over to the other side of the table and show them how to play it. One monk was brave enough to try. We have some amazing photos of Dierik teaching a young monk how to play the banjo. We hope to send these to Earl Scruggs. It was an emotional moment for me.

After our incredible session, the leader took us on a personal tour of the gardens and temples.

Our minds and emotions are still processing our magical, mystical vist to Mt. Laoshan.

Jane