“Heart of a Warrior“ - Luohan Style Qi Gong - Shaolin Temple Europe - Composed by Sophia J. Bass

“Heart of a Warrior“ is musical piece composed by Sophia J. Bass and recorded with live Erhu player Sophia Lim. London, 2023. Mixing Engineer: Filip Šijanec. My sincere thanks to Shi Heng Yi and the Shaolin Temple Europe for giving me permission to compose this piece for the following Luohan QiGong Sequence and to share it publicly. I’m also very grateful to Erhu player, Sophia Lim, for recording live Erhu for this piece. Her performance truly brought life to this piece. About the Piece: “Heart of a Warrior“, like a disciple, attempts to mirror the movements of the lead Qi Gong teacher, reflecting each gesture in similar time and character through music. There are thirteen postures in the complete Luohan Qi Gong sequence. For this particular piece, I musically interpreted a three-minute segment of the first two postures: 1. Old Monk Chopping Wood (Lao Seng Pi Chai) and 2. Luohan Draping Coat (Luo Han Pi Yi). I spent hours studying the timing of the movements of headmaster Shi Heng Yi who led the Luohan Style Qi Gong sequence in the accompanying video, and the music I wrote is a reflection of his flow in particular. The greatest challenge I faced in writing this piece was to create as accurate a tempo map as possible based on the timing of each of the movements because, unlike music, the movements in Qi Gong are performed without any strict adherence to time. Therefore, to translate this physical practice musically and to create a sense of musical continuity, of natural ebb and flow in synchronization with the moving image in a way that felt smooth and organic -- not disjunct, artificial, rushed or metronomic in any way -- was my goal. The choreography influenced the phrasing of this piece. Each posture, for example, is performed four times, once on the right and once on the left, amounting to eight complete gestures. The listener will hear this musically translated in the three-note phrases which are performed eight times with slight variations in harmony and orchestration with each recurrence. In this way, the music attempts to reflect the nature of the Luohan Style Qi Gong sequence by sustaining repetition while making each subsequent repetition slightly different from the next. The physical movements, while seeming exact in appearance, are inherently unique in nature and execution and, therefore, different from each other in every way. The sense of forward musical movement diminishes temporarily during the breathing interludes as the music pauses to breathe along with the Luohan practitioner. When the music returns with the Luohan Draping Coat (Luo Han Pi Yi) sequence, it flows with stronger force, empowered by the energy distilled from the breathing interlude which precedes it. The viewer may find that at times the music seems to fall behind a movement or gesture. This is intentional. If this were a dance, I would compose with the knowledge that both music and dancer must be one at all times in time. In Qi Gong, however, I consider the music as the flow of energy that follows the path carved out by the catalyzing gesture, similar to the rippling effect initiated by the fall of a stone in water. Website: Sophia J. Bass Instagram: @sophiajbass Sophia Lim Instagram: @limyiishin Video Credits: Website: Facebook: Instagram: LinkedIn: YouTube: #ShaolinTempleEurope #qigong #shihengyi #composer