Tunes on Tangs and Songs on Sans by Joe Curcio

A Musical Study Guide to the Functions and Ingredients of Selected Chinese Herbal Formulas

with Chinese Introductions by Dr. Xiuling Ma

Reviewed by Douglas Eisenstark, L.Ac.

When I worked in a Chinese herbal Pharmacy, my friend and boss, Yuhong Chen, taught me some of the famous teaching poems for the Chinese formulas. I remember something about a bear climbing a tree but the details have faded away. I don't speak Chinese but with a little explanation at the time it made perfect sense. For English-only speakers who studied Chinese herbs, our problem is all too familiar. Neither Pin Yin nor Latin has much in common with English words. Learning strategies are hard when you try to meaningfully associations out of Moo, Don, Pee, or Gway Jer Foo Ling Tang. Chinese words actually mean something, of course and they often rhyme with another word or are a mnemonic to any number of other words. In English we struggle at a different linguistic level. But chances are if you are reading this, you know this already.

Joe Curcio's music double CD set of 63 of the California State Board Formulas is an attempt to rectify the situation. For Chinese herbal students this is good news along with some bad. The bad is that Joe doesn¹t have a really great voice. The good news for students is that he has made the CD anyway and that by either learning the songs or using them as a guide, students have a better chance of learning the actions and functions of 63 major formulas. Mr. Curcio doesn't especially make songs out of the formulas as much as explain them as if they were notes taken in class. As a memorizing tactic making "stories" out of the formulas is often problematic. Often the stories are as hard to memorize and take as long to write as just going ahead and memorizing the formulas themselves. One could imagine the epic of Ren Shen Bai Du San or the two album "books on tape" set of Xiao Chai Hu Tang. Mr. Cucio has made these songs short if not especially memorable. If you know all the ingredients to Huo Xiang Zheng Qi Tang, read no further. If not then read on:

Huo Xiang Zheng Qi San is for Exterior Wind-cold And Internal Dampness with vomiting and diarrhea is what I'm told Huo Xiang, Zi Su Ye and Bai Zhi dispel the Wing-cold readily Ban Xia, Chen Pi, Da Fu Pi, Hou Po and Jie Geng regulate the Qi Bai Zhu, Fu Ling and the three sweets help the Middle Jiao If you have Yin xu with fire do not use this now.

Ok, so its not Bob Dylan or even Dr. Dre but it's a start. Curcio sings each song and continues the accompaniment (rather well done with guitar, bass and drums) so that you can sing along using the printed booklet of the "lyrics". Done a couple of times, you might get them down pretty well. One wishes that he had spent a little more time with the music but the concept is sound (so to speak). I was hoping that he would have made a brilliant breakthrough in inventing clever rhymes and stories. Unfortunately, Tunes on Tangs isn't brilliant although the CD itself and the accompanying booklet are elegantly and professionally done. Still, I would encourage students to get Tunes on Tangs because Mr. Curcio's idea might just work for some. If not, then someone can always use the words and the concept to invent a more convincing and personal "song-book". No one said that learning Chinese Medicine would be easy.

Tunes On Tangs is available for purchase at:
http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/curcio