On Saturday 23rd february I had the pleasure of seeing Tan Dun conduct the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, showcasing his compositions for film. My favourite being that of Hero’s main theme and the dramatic percussive effects in Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon.
So much emotion and thought is captured in the Erhu theme as well as in its ebbing accompaniment patterns. 
Interestingly, the Erhu melody in Crouching Tiger is equally emotive and beautiful. I transcribed it and many other patterns from the concert which are available via Evernote here.
What I found especially entrancing was the varied ways Tan Dun created percussive effects with rocks and other combinations of the percussion section. At one moment the percussion team were using river stones to create pulsating rhythms and then they were using their fingers or finger nails on the Timpani to imitate rain.
As a music educator I embrace every opportunity to hear and experience music that inspires me to either compose or teach it. As soon as I was home my mind was racing on how to present this blog post and it has taken me this long to put it together! I went as far as searching online for anyone who had devised composition activities based upon the works of Tan Dun. I found this one example and a famous Chinese folk song used by Puccini in Turandot called Mo Li Hua.
Further Youtube searches brought many other gems of Tan Dun’s work. For example, Tan Dun’s London Symphony Workshop
and, although unrelated to Tan Dun, I found a six part series on composing for Erhu that would be great for any film or world music unit in a music department. Additionally, the Erhu writing of Tan Dun could be linked to that of Australian Composer Christopher Gordon and his beautiful writing in Mao’s Last Dancer (the archer theme in particular).
Writing for Erhu
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four
Part Five
Part Six
You can follow Tan Dun from his website and keep an eye out for future concerts. Alternatively you can listen to can listen to this recent podcast from Naxos on his 2013 Album release entitled, Symphonic Poem on Three Notes.
Cover image courtesy of http://media.au.timeout.com/contentFiles/image/classical/tan-dun.jpg
and http://images.smh.com.au/2013/02/24/4058513/art-tan-20dun-620×349.jpg
