Music Clips

These songs are all from AMS's latest CD, Songs Beyond Words. You can buy the cd here.

Silk Road   (Play)

Mia's meditations on the silk road, "My thoughts travel backwards at high speed to the first century B.C. The Silk Road connects Chin Dynasty (central China) to Rome. It's not just for the trading of precious silk, it's also what comes after, the exchanging of thoughts, culture and religion. Exotic music from central and south Asia is delivered to the Chinese palace. Monks make the long and difficult journey to west to get the sacred books of Buddhism. The Silk Road, a geographic miracle was a main route for trade for one thousand and five hundred years. It is a road of deserts leading to snow covered mountains and a home for nomads and robbers. It is very dangerous. Zhang Cian was sent on a diplomatic mission on the silk road to the west. This trip took him thirteen years. He left with one hundred people and came back with only two. There was such a veil of romance and mystery that China and the west could barely believe that each other were real countries, and the stories that were told continued the fascination. The Silk Road has attracted an uncountable number of adventurers to come and explore her mysteries, and we are in this parade.

Ku Chin   (Play)

Nan-guan is one of the oldest Chinese music styles. The singing is delicate and flowing. The emotion is very graceful, soft and restrained. Ku-ching was a musical string instrument that ancient scholars used to express feelings or meditate in spiritual practice. The tradition of nan- guan singing and ku-chin have been preserved well in Taiwan. Our group has carefully created new interpretations of this music. In this song a sliding technique and harmonics are used on a modern bass guitar to imitate the color of ku-ching. Mia uses the words of Sung Dynasty poet, Su Shi (1036-1101) to compose an original song in nan-guan tone.

Wedding Celebration    (Play)

Rituals such as weddings crystallize energy from the personal and collective unconscious and make it clear for us to see. Our wedding song symbolizes the creative journey of two people coming together sharing in celebration with others. A Moving Sound loves to dip into the deep pool of ethnic music and instruments from our part of the world to express simple and mythic aspects of life.

Dombra    (Play)

This song was inspired by a two-stringed guitar-like instrument of the same name which comes from Kazakhstan, a country on the western border of China. The picking style and musical quality of the dombra made Scott think of minimalist composers. The melody made Mia think of angels. We added some gongs and the excitement of it all led the rest of the guys to come up with instrumental parts and solos that take flight!

Ghost Lake    (Play)

Mia adapted this Taiwanese aboriginal folk song about a young woman’s decision to fulfill her love with the spirit of the lake by walking into it, never to return. Mia often experiments with looping and multi layered voices to create vocal tapestries such as the one found in this piece.

Sleepless Night    (Play)

A Moving Sound stretches its farthest in this piece which starts with a melody adapted from a Mongolian folk song. Vocals and erhu are used in uncommon ways to take us on an “Alice-in-Wonderland” journey through our subconscious and back out into the light of day, leaving us all the wiser for the experience. A Moving Sound’s adventurous musicians, trained in Taiwan’s traditional music college are bravely exploring new worlds of expression for traditional Chinese instruments.