#1098 — A white prelude 素光帷

Good morning everyone,

This solo guzheng piece was recorded in one take an hour ago. It is an exercise on thumb tremolos.

I have been thinking about how much convenience brought to us by technology nowadays. One realization is that we don’t use our hands to write any more, except to drive cars and type/swipe digital devices etc.. Maybe one day, we will stop learning how to play an instrument because we can create sounds by just blinking our eyeballs. That is a sad and scary picture for me to imagine.

According to American Museum of Natural History:

What makes human hands unique?

“As the grasping hand evolved, claws disappeared. Today, most primates instead have flat fingernails and larger fingertip pads, which help them to hold on. The hands of many higher primates can grasp and manipulate even very small objects.

The human opposable thumb is longer, compared to finger length, than any other primate thumb. This long thumb and its ability to easily touch the other fingers allow humans to firmly grasp and manipulate objects of many different shapes. The human hand can grip with strength and with fine control, so it can throw a baseball or sign a name on the dotted line.”

I would have to add being able to play instruments to this list. Therefore, I highly encourage all my fellow higher primates who can still use our thumbs to go greater things, let’s keep our thumbs active and powerful.

Wu Fei 吴非

You can buy my album Yuan from Tzadik records or from Amazon. My albums A Distant Youth and Pluck are available for purchase on Bandcamp.

Waking up to a winter wonderland this morning in Nashville, Tennessee!