The music CDs

Each book comes with a different music CD, each filled with a generous 73 minutes,
with memorable music from a world spectrum – Western (both group and classical), Chinese folk including Uighur, Chinese popular and classical, Buddhist temple,
as well as Western and Chinese film music.

An added ingredient for two of the tracks in Book One is specially commissioned music by a British composer. Accessible and descriptive of the landscapes, you are sure
to be humming the main melody. This is the music currently playing (if you have a compatible MP3 player installed).

There are also examples of the author’s own live recordings made in China –
the music on one of them sounds like Chinese bluegrass! When you’ve finished listening to the first music, click the icon to hear this.

As in movies or on television, the sounds and music add a substantial dimension
to the book, well worth the arranging of a personal or portable player beside you,
either with headphones or speakers. A main hi-fi system can also be winningly
employed.

A few of the tracks provide additional atmosphere as you continue to read.
Others complement and add to a section of photographs without text, which are
absorbed simultaneously ad lib. For more than a handful it is suggested you cease
reading and instead listen and reflect, perhaps looking back at some of the recent
photographs and text. None of these require any expertise, musical knowledge,
or preparation.

The greatest number are music/photo sequences, with the maximum effect
achieved by listening to a set length of music while perusing one photograph,
before continuing to the next. For these, basic instructions have been given
before and during: most are easy and quick to assimilate. Or you can ignore
them and go by instinct. Either way, the music and the photographs will enhance
each other to a new level never before gained from a book.

 Islands in China
Steps to the Bed of God

The music first heard on this page is by Michael Omer. © Michael Omer
The recording of the pingtan Chinese music accessed by the icon is © Peter Stanger 2001.