Abing [Hua Yanjun]

(b Wuxi, Jiangsu province, 20 Aug 1893 or 3 Nov 1898; d 4 Dec

1950). Chinese folk musician. The illegitimate or adopted son of
Daoist priest and musician Hua Qinghe in the city of Wuxi, Hua
Yanjun also became a Daoist musician, performing in ritual
instrumental ensembles and mastering several instruments,
including pipa four-string lute and erhu two-string fiddle.
With Hua Qinghes death in the mid-1920s, Hua Yanjun inherited a
small amount of property. However, visits to local brothels resulted in
his contraction of gonorrhoea, leading eventually to blindness. At
about this time, Hua appears to have become an opium smoker.
Unable now to take part in Daoist ensembles, Hua, under the name
Abing, became a street musician, specializing in extemporized songs
based on local news. He also performed pipa, erhu and the threestring lute sanxian. Abing has typically been described as the
archetypal Chinese folk musician; following political and social trends
in China, he has been portrayed at various times in articles, books,
film and an eight-part TV series as working-class revolutionary,
romantically inspired composer and Daoist musical craftsman.
Chinese scholars recorded six of Abings solos in 1950, three each
for erhu and pipa. It seems that, rather than being fixed
compositions, these were improvisatory performances wherein Abing
demonstrated his exceptional powers of melodic and rhythmic
creativity. The six solos were issued on record and in transcription
with descriptive titles probably selected at the recording session.
Adopted as part of the standard teaching material for students
of erhu and pipa, they became very widely disseminated. One of the
three erhu solos, Erquan yingyue (The Moon Reflected on the
Second Springs, named after a fountain in Wuxi), has subsequently
been arranged for many different instrumental combinations,
including piano solo, string quartet and string orchestra.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
and other resources

Xiazi Abing quji [Collected pieces of Blind Abing], ed. YYS

(Shanghai, 1954/R)
Abing quji [Collected pieces of Abing], ed. YYS (Beijing, 1983/R)
Abing yishu chengjiu guoji yantaohui, eds.: Abing lun:
minjian yinyuejia Abing yanjiu wenji [On Abing: collected
research papers on the folk musician Abing] (Beijing, 1995)
Commemoration of the Renowned Folk Musician Hua Yan-jun
(Ah Bing), rec. 1950, ROI Productions RC 9610022C (1996)
J.P.J. Stock: Musical Creativity in Twentieth-Century China:
Abing, his Music, and its Changing Meanings (Rochester, 1996)
J.P.J. Stock: Chinese Violin Solos (London, 1998), 2731
JONATHAN P.J. STOCK