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Unlock the Secrets of China's Beloved Instrument Guzheng with this Comprehensive Guide! This ebook will take you on a journey through the history and fundamentals of the Guzheng, a traditional Chinese instrument with a rich cultural legacy. Discover how the Guzheng evolved over time and became a treasured symbol of Chinese music, from its origins in ancient China to its modern applications. You'll also learn about the instrument's structure, how its distinct timbre is generated, the notations, scales, the basic techniques used to play it, and Guzheng music schools. This book will likely increase your understanding and enhance your enjoyment of this amazing instrument, whether you're a beginner or an experienced musician interested in its beautiful sound. Guzheng's wide range and unique timbre make it a perfect instrument not only for solo performance, but also plays an essential role in chamber music, Chinese orchestra, Chinese dance, and opera accompaniments. Many film and game composers nowadays also love to use Guzheng recordings in their soundtracks to enrich the music with ethereal oriental sound. So why wait? Start your journey into the world of the Guzheng today and discover the fascinating history and techniques behind this one of China's most treasured instruments!
This book will teach you how to play guzheng, the Chinese zither, at the beginner level. No prior knowledge in Chinese music is needed. In addition, you will know the guzheng's structure, how to choose a guzheng, as well as the numbered music notation. A number of sheet music are also provided for your own practices. After reading the whole book, you should have a basic understanding of the guzheng and can play some simple songs by yourself.
The lute, ch'in or guqin is one of China's oldest and most revered musical instruments. Records indicate that it has been a favourite of the literary classes for more than 2,500 years; Confucius himself was a great lover of the instrument. Over the centuries, it became representative of the life, taste and pastimes of the Chinese literati. In addition to its contributions to solo and orchestral musical arrangements, a wealth of symbolic meaning accrued to the lute over time. Not only was knowledge of the instrument reserved for the literati; its study was believed to be conducive to meditation and to facilitate intellectual enlightenment. While a significant body of literature has been written on the lute in Chinese, the present monograph is the first to assemble a broad picture of the instrument and its cultural significance in English. The author, a renowned Sinologue and linguist, studied the playing of the instrument under one of the most famous lute masters of his age.
Authors Terry E. Miller and Andrew Shahriari take students around the world to experience the diversity of musical expression. World Music: A Global Journey, now in its third edition, is known for its breadth in surveying the world’s major cultures in a systematic study of world music within a strong pedagogical framework. As one prepares for any travel, each chapter starts with background preparation, reviewing the historical, cultural, and musical overview of the region. Visits to multiple ‘sites’ within a region provide in-depth studies of varied musical traditions. Music analysis begins with an experimental "first impression" of the music, followed by an "aural analysis" of the sound and prominent musical elements. Finally, students are invited to consider the cultural connections that give the music its meaning and life. Features of the Third Edition Over 3 hours of diverse musical examples. with a third audio CD of new musical examples Listening Guides analyze the various pieces of music with some presented in an interactive format online Biographical highlights of performers and ethnomusicologists updated and new ones added Numerous pedagogical aids, including "On Your Own Time" and "Explore More" sidebars, and "Questions to Consider" Popular music incorporated with the traditional Dynamic companion web site hosts new Interactive Listening Guides, plus many resources for student and instructor. Built to serve online courses. The CD set is available separately (ISBN 978-0-415-89402-9) or with its Value Pack and book (ISBN 978 0415- 80823-1). For eBook users, MP3 files for the accompanying audio files are available only with the Value Pack of eBook & MP3 files (ISBN 978-0-203-15298-0). Please find instructions on how to obtain the audio files in the contents section of the eBook.
" ... The most remarkable [discovery] in Chinese musical history to date ..." (rec. i Early music 2001:3).
Some thirty-two experts from fifteen countries join three of the world's leading authorities on the design, manufacture, performance and history of brass musical instruments in this first major encyclopedia on the subject. It includes over one hundred illustrations, and gives attention to every brass instrument which has been regularly used, with information about the way they are played, the uses to which they have been put, and the importance they have had in classical music, sacred rituals, popular music, jazz, brass bands and the bands of the military. There are specialist entries covering every inhabited region of the globe and essays on the methods that experts have used to study and understand brass instruments. The encyclopedia spans the entire period from antiquity to modern times, with new and unfamiliar material that takes advantage of the latest research. From Abblasen to Zorsi Trombetta da Modon, this is the definitive guide for students, academics, musicians and music lovers.
Chinese, one of the oldest active languages, evolved over 5,000 years. As such, it makes for a fascinating case study in the development of language. This cultural history of Chinese demonstrates that the language grew and responded to its music and visual expression in a manner very similar to contemporary English and other Western languages. Within Chinese cultural history lie the answers to numerous questions that have haunted scholars for decades: How does language relate to worldview? What would happen to law after its language loses absolute binding power? How do music, visual, and theatrical images influence literature? By presenting Chinese not as a system of signs but as the history of a community, this study shows how language has expanded the scope of Chinese imagination and offers a glimpse into the future of younger languages throughout the world.
The zheng zither is one of the most popular instruments in contemporary China. It is commonly regarded as a solo instrument with a continuous tradition dating back to ancient times. But in fact, much of its contemporary solo repertory is derived from several different regional folk ensemble repertories of the mid-twentieth century. Since the setting up of China’s modern conservatories, the zheng has been transformed within these new contexts of professional music-making. Over the course of the twentieth century, these regional folk repertories were brought into the performance traditions of modern regional zheng schools. From this basis, a large new zheng repertory was created by conservatory musicians, combining aspects of Western classical music with folk music materials. With the ’opening up’ of China’s economy since the 1980s, the zheng has been brought into the wider stage of international music-making which includes contemporary art music compositions by overseas based Chinese composers and commercial world music works by Western composers. Through a series of case studies, this book explores how the transformation of the Chinese zheng has constantly responded to its changing social context, critiquing the long-standing arguments concerning ’authenticity’ in the development of tradition. This work arises out of, and reflects on, the research methodologies known as performance as research. As an insider to the tradition, brought up within China’s zheng society, a trained and practising zheng performer, this study is largely drawn from the author's own experiences of practising and performing the music in question; her study also draws on fieldwork, as well as primary and secondary written sources in Chinese and English. This book is accompanied by downloadable resources which contain audio visual materials relating to the author's fieldwork and zheng performances by different zheng musicians.
Few countries have been so transformed in recent decades as China. With a dynamically growing economy and a rapidly changing social structure, China challenges the West to understand the nature of its modernization. Using postmodernism as both a global frame of periodization and a way to break free from the rigid ideology of westernization as modernity, this volume’s diverse group of contributors argues that the Chinese experience is crucial for understanding postmodernism. Collectively, these essays question the implications of specific phenomena, like literature, architecture, rock music, and film, in a postsocialist society. Some essays address China’s complicity in—as well as its resistance to—the culture of global capitalism. Others evaluate the impact of efforts to redefine national culture in terms of enhanced freedoms and expressions of the imagination in everyday life. Still others discuss the general relaxation of political society in post-Mao China, the emergence of the market and its consumer mass culture, and the fashion and discourse of nostalgia. The contributors make a clear case for both the historical uniqueness of Chinese postmodernism and the need to understand its specificity in order to fully grasp the condition of postmodernity worldwide. Although the focus is on mainland China, the volume also includes important observations on social and cultural realities in Hong Kong and Taiwan, whose postmodernity has so far been confined—in both Chinese and English-speaking worlds—to their economic and consumer activities instead of their political and cultural dynamism. First published as a special issue of boundary 2, Postmodernism and China includes seven new essays. By juxtaposing postmodernism with postsocialism and by analyzing China as a producer and not merely a consumer of the culture of the postmodern, it will contribute to critical discourses on globalism, modernity, and political economics, as well as to cultural and Asian studies. Contributors. Evans Chan, Arif Dirlik, Dai Jinhua, Liu Kang, Anthony D. King, Jeroen de Kloet, Abidin Kusno, Wendy Larson, Chaoyang Liao, Ping-hui Liao, Sebastian Hsien-hao Liao, Sheldon Hsiao-peng Lu, Wang Ning, Xiaobing Tang, Xiaoying Wang, Chen Xiaoming, Xiaobin Yang, Zhang Yiwu, Xudong Zhang
Resonances: Engaging Music in Its Cultural Context offers a fresh curriculum for the college-level music appreciation course. The musical examples are drawn from classical, popular, and folk traditions from around the globe. These examples are organized into thematic chapters, each of which explores a particular way in which human beings use music. Topics include storytelling, political expression, spirituality, dance, domestic entertainment, and more. The chapters and examples can be taught in any order, making Resonances a flexible resource that can be adapted to your teaching or learning needs. This textbook is accompanied by a complete set of PowerPoint slides, a test bank, and learning objectives.