John Thompson's review of Digital Guqin Museum from sl to rl

Master guqin player John Thompson's review of Digital Guqin Museum in sl:


The two main reasons I find the Second Life Virtual Guqin Museum interesting is that it brings the guqin before a new group of people, and it allows the presentation of the music within a context that can in some ways evoke aspects of the guqin tradition better than the standard performance environment can.

Although when well played guqin music is very beautiful, by tradition it is not so much a performance instrument as an instrument for self-cultivation or meditation. In landscape painting it is commonly depicted played in the countryside, and yet from a musical standpoint such an environment is often unsatisfactory (waterfalls are too loud, modern sounds intrude, there may not be an appropriate place to sit or on which to place the instrument, and so forth). However, such an idealized environment can be evoked and perhaps more readily controlled in cyberspace. Another ideal environment is said to the an "elegant gathering" involving other literati arts such as painting, calligraphy and refined conversation.

Again, such an environment can also be created in cyberspace through the addition of appropriate imagery and participation of invited guests. The totality of the guqin makes it very much a multi media instrument by nature. When fully devoloped the Second Life Museum has the potential of bringing this all together.

John