Can a Shen Yun Dancer Become a Musician?

Hey, welcome back, we're the Three Musketeers! And today, we're doing something very different. We're going to challenge ourselves to try to learn an instrument. Guys, guys, I heard at the end of this video, we have a performance. I'm kind of scared, dude. I'm kind of scared. Don't worry about it! You're going to be fine, dude. We're going to show you the ropes. We're three musicians from Shanyuan Orchestra. Are you guys ready to learn? No! I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not! Today, the Three Musketeers are facing a brand new challenge. Learning to play an instrument in one hour. Why only one hour? Because we're busy preparing for our post-tour dance assessment. And that's all the time we could squeeze out of our day. Luckily, we were able to invite the three musicians from Shanyuan Orchestra. Eric Robbins, who plays the trumpet. Steven Lui, who plays the bassoon. And Zeyu Zhang, who plays the violin. Wish us luck, because this is the first time we've ever picked up these instruments. Alright, today I'm going to teach William, who volunteered to do violin. Which in my opinion, he chose the hardest instrument. But I think we can do it in one hour to learn something like... Before we start, Steven, I actually wrote a poem for this occasion. Oh, thank you. And the poem is entitled... Oh, I'm so sweet. Okay, here, are you ready for this? Okay, so let me start. Today, Steven is teaching me bassoon. And our performance is coming up soon. I'm really afraid to be out of tune. Hopefully, I'll be able to do it. And our performance is coming up soon. I'm really afraid to be out of tune. Hopefully, I don't look like a ruffian. That's very good. I just thought of it this morning. So, we're the SS team. Steven and Sam. Before we start, I have to give you a disclaimer. I took one month of guitar just to get out of Chinese class in high school. So, I am not musical at all. So, hopefully, you'll work with me. That's okay. We'll see what we can do. Hopefully, it'll be better than the other two. Okay. I know how hard the trumpet is. But, let's see. Well, I think it's better to start by thinking how easy the trumpet can be. Oh, right. Okay, sure. Because we only have one hour. If it's really hard, I don't know. If it's really easy, no problem. Got it. Let's check the position of the violin. First, take a break. We're going to have a nice rest. First of all, you want your violin on your shoulder. And then, you can hold it like this for now. Oh, actually, you look naturally good with the violin. Yes. Let's follow this. Don't feel intimidated. Put that here. Let's see if it's... I think it's your... The beach. You've been to Hawaii, right? Beaches in Hawaii are very nice. Soft sand, blue water. Keep breathing. Thumb on, middle finger meets the thumb on the other side. After you put them on, it's kind of like a rabbit. Naturally put down your index finger. And then, looking good. That's it. This is a double reed instrument. There are two reeds, top and the bottom. Okay. As opposed to clarinet, which is a single reed. Double reeds have two reeds. Just blow into the reed and see if you can make a sound. There you go. That's it. As long as you make a sound, you can make a sound on the instrument. A good analogy is when you drink milkshakes and the milkshake is too thick and you're slurping it. Milkshakes or bubble tea? Yeah, or bubble tea. It's good. It's good enough. I think you're ready to make some sound on the instrument. Just go for it. Just blow. I made a sound. We're kidding. Not below. Not above. Bubble tea. Holding up your elbow doesn't necessarily mean your shoulders go up. It's natural to think everything goes up. You want to keep that. You cannot maintain this form for a long time while you play. I think dancing actually helps with that. We have the same requirements for dancing. We're not supposed to raise our shoulders up either. Depending on how I blow, it's not going to change the sound. It's more about the fingers. You have to have air control. If you have no air control, that is. Also, the amount of reed that you're taking in is not enough. You need to be a little bit further out to have a little bit more control on the reed. I was in Korea. Do you know Korean? I can speak a little Korean. What are your favorite foods in Korea? Try not to bring it too high because for you, you're going to get lost. Where's my finger? If you bring it up too high, you're not going to know where to put it back down. That's an E flat. This is pretty wide. Here we go. It's really tiring to do this way. Why? How? Can you feel that? Why? It's only two seconds, but it's a lot more tiring than I do it normally. This is also training. It's not playing, actually. But in a fun way. When you're at the beach, you better believe you're training. How about you start by playing each string twice? Up. Three. Four. Pretty good. You're paying attention at being parallel. It's really straight. That's really good. G is much harder because once you go from E, you have to go to G, which is two, three. Then you have to half-fold this finger. Steve, I'm sweating. That's okay. I hear that you're a watermelon guy. Have you eaten watermelon with seeds? Yes. Really? I'm not going to teach you how to spit a watermelon seed, but we need to spit watermelon seeds. Don't swallow the seed. There you go. We're not going to worry about aiming. Remember, you're just letting go the rabbit. There you go. Remember, now that you have that, you can actually play a song. Okay, let's start from A, A, F, E, E. Finally! When you do this, the idea is to say M and F. Remember, breath, but when we get this mouthpiece here, the lips need to be as close together as possible. Don't hold back. That's why we're wearing Hawaiian shirts. We're the kind of guys that just don't hold back. You eat a burger, you eat a burger. You eat watermelon, you eat it all. Here's another rule of trumpet playing. Always bring the trumpet to you. Now I go find the trumpet. The trumpet helps me. Like when you're dancing, you bring the stage to you. So you bring the trumpet to you. There we go. In two counts, and then go for it. One, two. I missed out! A tennis ball, you want to keep it flexible. So you're not really holding it. You're not really grabbing it. If this is the neck of the violin, you don't want to choke it. This is not a tennis ball. A tennis ball. This is actually a lot because usually beginners take weeks to get to the stage. Because they don't want to build up bad habits. So they gotta go slow. After years, you're gonna regret it. You're like, okay, my first teacher was so bad that now I have to fix all that. Right on the bridge, it's gonna have a scratchy sound. If I play really close to the fingerboard, it creates a weaker but a warmer, more gentle sound. Oh, you can hear it. That sounds good. Sounds good, yeah. Pretty much sounds like me. You stand against the wave before? Yeah. You just gotta stand against it and let the water go past. Don't worry about how it feels. Don't worry about anything. Just down. Here we go. Ready? One, two... Good! Alright! Close enough. Really good. Okay, violin intonation is really sensitive. Let me play something for you. You see, my finger is only moving a little bit. This is what you hear. Yay! Give yourself a round of applause. Yay! Alright, so this is what you hear. Yay! I need a little break for my shoulders. I'm gonna cut my pinky really quick so it's easier to hold the bow. It's not even that long, but oh my goodness. This is tough. Maybe I'll play the G for you. Okay, sounds a lot better. Violin is a really sensitive instrument. Very sensitive. We have rosin on this. We want some grip. We want some friction on the strings. So naturally, with this hair, this is horse hair. Naturally, they don't have any powder on it. There's no grip. So when you play on the string, there's no sound. So basically, it's kind of like you put your hair onto this. It's not gonna make any sound. But if your hair is extremely greasy and dirty and sticky, you put it on, you'll probably hear something. But I mean, I've never tried that. Don't try that. To be able to compete with the bassoon and the trumpet, you need a really blasting sound. Only using this much of the bow So you want to use as much as you can. Lower. Even lower. Yeah. Too high. Good. A lot better. Oh my goodness. Yeah. Oh my goodness. Sorry. I'm so sorry. Thank you. Stephen, I'm really sorry about this. I think I broke the reed. I'm so disappointed. Wait, how does this happen? I thought it was unbreakable. You can keep this one as a souvenir. Keep it close to your heart. To my heart? We are currently getting ready to go on stage. I'm the conductor. I don't even look like... To be honest, I'm super not ready. I'm not ready at all. I think I look completely different with you guys. Well, I'm just reviewing. I actually want to play violin, but then Will chose it first. I was like, dang it, he got the violin. After I saw his lesson, I was like, violin is not easy. I didn't see your lesson. I didn't see both of their lessons. I'm really looking forward to seeing how they sound. I gotta tell you, I do not sound great. It's really hard. How do you guys feel about your students? Do you think they're ready for this? I think violin is a really hard instrument. My students will get at least a 5. At least a 5? 5 is a high score. Okay, a lot of confidence in the teacher. Well, I think Sam has learned a lot, but he still has a long way to go. I hope that he doesn't fail me today. I hope he does well. I'm really scared for him. My student did wonderful. We had one hour and he spent 30 minutes getting the basics of how the body needs to operate and work. By that point, within 15 minutes, he had learned his piece. So we're talking notes, everything. How to start it, tones, musical ideas. I have full confidence. Whatever happens, Jisung is a winner. He's got it. A trumpet player. Ladies and gentlemen, please put your hands together for the Three Musketeers! Okay, so I'm the first one to start, okay? Good luck! Good luck. Remember the training. I'm so proud of you. One try. Oh my goodness. One try. That was really good. Really? Yeah. I'm really impressed. I didn't think you were going to do it. I didn't know I was going to do it either. It's a big five for me. Oh my goodness. Four? Four also. Alright, I had a good teacher, but sorry I'm a disappointing student. Oh! Disappointed in myself, I couldn't. No, no, no, it was really good. Okay, you're in the red right now. I feel so embarrassed. I will have to give you a four just because you stopped. Otherwise, it would have been a five. I appreciate the four. That's actually a really high score. Yes, I enjoyed the performance. A four is well earned. I'm so grateful. Thank you so much. Thank you. I was going to give you a four because you forgot the music, but for the look and stuff, 4.5. Thank you. Thank you so much. You started? You can do it. Deep breath. We have all night. Oh! Oh, I did it. Very good. I have to say we say it's out of five, but I have to say that's a six. Oh! Great sound. Great rhythm. Thank you. My teacher, I give you a five. Well done. A five also for me for your steady tempo. Wow, that was impressive. Thank you. Thank you for the teacher. Thank you. It was really fun to learn that. I knew that the instrument is not easy, but after actually trying, I knew even more that the orchestra is not easy. After doing it for one hour, my legs start hurting and I feel a little bit dizzy. It's a different thing, but it's not easy for them too. I really appreciate it. I want to announce a public apology to all musicians that ever lived. No, I'm just kidding. Before, when I used to dance on stage, because we always tour with musicians, I would have a thought, I feel kind of guilty now, that I wish I was a musician because it's so easy. They just sit there for hours while we're sweating and stuff. Oh! After this experience, I am very sorry for those thoughts because it is actually really hard. I practiced for 20 minutes and I was out of breath, I was sweating, and I was about to pass out and my lips hurt. It's definitely not easy. I also want to thank Steven, my brother, my teacher. He made me this little cheat sheet. It has all the notes and a couple of things. Good job, good job. My biggest takeaway from this is my appreciation for when we perform on stage for two and a half hours, how much effort it takes for the orchestra, how much practice they put into every single year. It's all new music, so how much practice they have to do to make good music for us, for us to perform on stage. I don't usually think about it because I'm just focusing on dancing, but now we see the other side Thank you so much for all the hard work you guys put in for us. Thank you! No problem. We really had a great time. And don't forget to like, comment, and subscribe! Don't forget to smash that like button! And we'll see you guys next time!