My instruments - the Guzheng painted by Floaty Keith

My beautiful guzheng pixie

Everyone always asks me how I make my music, so this week each day I'm going to upload a photo of my favorite music instruments.

Today it's my guzheng 古筝!

I found this guzheng on the street. Its true, I actually found it on the ground, lying in the garbage in Hong Kong.

Believe it or not, I found this beautiful guzheng lying in the gutter.

At the time, I was living in Taiwan and on a weekend trip to Hong Kong. I couldn't believe someone would throw it out!

Picked it up, wiped it down clean and took it to the airport to catch my flight. Wow, now that I think about it, that was the old Hong Kong airport. I didn't have a case or anything to carry it in, so the airline told me just carry it on to the airplane. Many heads were turned.

Actually, that was even before it was painted the way it is now. I've carried my guzheng all around the world since then.

Guzheng pegs that hold up the strings, beautiful shadows.

Well, a few years ago I had a cool side project with a great guitarist named Floaty Keith, who is now resident DJ at the Underworld in Taipei every Friday night. We used to jam out, me playing on guzheng, scratching and dropping beats. Floaty Keith would play some great guitar progressions. 

Well, in his spare time, Floaty Keith just happens to be one of the most incredible artists I've ever met. If you've ever been to the Underworld, you might recognize his painting style. Floaty Keith spent like three years painting the whole bar - THE ENTIRE BAR! until it was completely finished. Here's a link to Floaty Keith's Myspace.

This crazy looking guy is chillin with long arms.

I think back then, that time around the guzheng rubbed off on him. And the first piece he finished painting the Underworld just happened to be my guzheng!

Floaty Keith painted a bunch of robotic-looking monster-ish characters that kind of reflect the Dirt Star world of space-like out-of-this-world ambiance. Yet at the same time, full of color and emotion. I love the devilish star pig, the chill out long-armed guy, the robotic shopping cart pusher, and the cute blue pixie. Once the strings are on the guzheng, there's a beautiful line of shadows across the body.

As you can imagine, I couldn't play the guzheng at first. But I've spent a lot of time trying to hone my guzheng skills, and today I must say I've found a lot of inspiration from this gift of a musical instrument. 

Its definitely got a lot of soul. I love jamming out new sounds and rifs on the guzheng - I find I come up with a lot of new musical ideas using it instead of a guitar, or a piano. I like dropping it into a Kaoss Pad or Ableton effects chain, and playing around.

I've recorded a lot of guzheng music, but haven't released most of it. I have a few tracks on my upcoming album with guzheng. And on my last album I had one song. Click here to download an instrumental track I released on my last album called "The things you do"

Here's a close-up of the robotic man with a shopping cart, stuck in the shopping mall he can never escape from. 

This guzheng is definitely one of my most prized possessions. Why didn't that person that threw it away in the first place at least think to recycle it? Bet it didn't occur to them that someone would find their garbage, and record an album's worth of songs with it.