Chou Style: More Than A Singer

Isn't that such a lovely collage from one of the fans on Facebook?? And it illustrates what a multi-talented musician Mr Chou is!

I figured that after four posts about his songs, it's about time for me to demonstrate Jay's abilities on instruments apart from the piano. As you can see from the photo above, he is quite at home on the cello, guitar, drums, guzheng and yes, that's an erhu he has in one pic but I'm not sure about that one. ;)
That collection, however, is missing a pic of him playing the Chinese flute (dizi) but no worries, I shall post a vid which shows him performing it very nicely. :)
I remember him in an interview saying that he could learn to play a musical instrument in two days but learning English for The Green Hornet took him a month! ^^


I shall still start with the piano as that, after all is his favourite instrument (and mine!) but I'll show him playing some piano duets, instead.

The first vid features him and good friend, Yuhao (from  Nan Quan Ma Ma) performing on two pianos at the Golden Melody awards....not sure of the year but I think it's circa 2005. Freaking awesome stuff, with a little treat for gamer fans. :))
 

The next clip is from 2007/08 , where he got acclaimed Chinese pianist Li Yundi to be a surprise guest at his concert. It's a nice vid, showing Yundi backstage and talking about this new experience for him. They perform Jay's Time Travel theme from Secret and at the end of the clip, Jay says he was very honoured to be able to play on the same stage as such a world-class pianist and that he also wanted to introduce classical music to his fans. :)

And here we have Jay and Yuhao again, in Japan, on the same piano this time, performing a medley of Chopin, Super Mario, Mozart, Flight of the Bumble Bee and a Chinese tune!

Jay and Yuhao's piano duel during his 2007 concert...from 1:30 to 2:45. Brilliant!!

Whilst in school, Jay minored in cello, which he plays fairly well but of course, not to the same standard as the piano.
This from his talkshow, Mr J Channel:

Jay also picked up guitar skills from his friends whilst in school and he likes to play this during concerts as well:

This is from his HK concert in 2008, singing Rainbow, a very lovely song which I'll feature again in another post:

Here's a really cute version of Nunchucks....very different feel from the usual! Trust Jay to inject some fun into his own song!

And yet another mashup, including another version of Time Machine amongst others...very nice!

Here's a nice vid of him playing guitar and singing Final Battle and a reworked Nunchucks at his LOUD Festival concert in Singapore in Oct 2011. Yes, I was there and he was just awesome!
In this segment, he bantered with the audience, asking them if they'd still support him if he were to get married...lol!

And Jay being Jay...he obviously cannot resist playing the guitar in some *other* way (which he uses in Free Instructional Video):

Jay also plays the guzheng, a traditional Chinese instrument.
Here's a link to a JCS archive article about him learning to play the guzheng:

http://www.jaychoustudio.com/archives/jay-chou-learns-guzheng-finishes-in-20-minutes/625

And here is his rendition of Hair Like Snow at his concert in Beijing in 2008....just listen to the crowd singing with him!

And his rendition of Chrysanthemum Flower Bed on the guzheng as well. :)

And an epic performance of Ju Hua Tai on guzheng then voice at Song Zuying's concert in  the Bird's Nest Stadium in Beijing:

He also played the Chinese flute during his Incomparable concert circa 2004, for the song Terraced Field, which also features rap, aboriginal vocals and he weaves in part of another song, Father I Have Come Back....beautiful! His flute part starts from 3:50 and goes on to the end. I love this!!

Now for some drumming!!

First up, here's his rocking performance also from the 2007 concert, where he duels with his band's drummer, Q Mo! The drum set is at the beginning of the clip after which he sings Sunshine Homeboy, a fun upbeat number. He looks so self-satisfied here and omg...I love seeing his adorable left-cheek dimple at the end of the set when he smiles so cheekily!

And don't forget....he plays Chinese drums too!! This is a fantastic performance of Herbalist's Manual and he plays the drums from about 1:40 to 2:10...wow!!
Oh...and both Song Zuying and the kid are amazing too!!!

Here is yet another vid of him on the Chinese drums, starting from about 5:37 to 6:12. He also sings Rosemary at the start and ends with Herbalist's Manual (yes, again but who's counting?? Can never have too much of a good thing!).

From his concert in Japan comes these two songs, Faraway (where he does his briliiant piano improvs) and Fearless (Chinese drums):

So there you have it!
Isn't he just the most awesome ever???

Hope everyone enjoyed those vids....I know I had a wonderful time watching him showing off on all those instruments! ;)

Jay ROCKS!!!