Something in Time Out vaguely suggested there might be music in Covent Garden this evening. There was, but nothing new. There was the obligitary energetic, dancing string quintet in the sunken courtyard bit who I think I may have seen before, but I'm not sure...there's a few of them about. I recognised the second violinist. Maybe they interchange like the Romanians on The South Bank. Then, on the road up to the tube, there was the obligitary busking bagpiper, who I don't think I had seen before, but I seem to be getting fussy (which is good) and though, inbetween battling with a gale-force wind, he was striking up some good tunes, I decided I needed to find something a little more diverse.
I was considering going to Isleworth, when the wind blew a different pipe sound in my direction. Round the corner, near the Opera House, was the guy in the above photo. He was playing a traditional Chinese wind instrument, producing a traditional and familiar Chinese sound, called a sheng. In front of him was a suitcase half full of his cds and a notice with information about the instrument. It stated that the sheng is the oldest pipe instrument in the world (3000 years old) and was the precurser to the church organ and the accordian. There can't be many traditional sheng players in the world - if you look it up on Wikipedia the photo is of the same man - Guo Yi.
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