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With dozens of color photographs and insightful text, Chinese Music and Musical Instruments describes in detail the musical instruments with which a Chinese folk orchestra is equipped and their working and sounding principles. There are as many as a thousand different kinds of musical instruments in China. Only a tiny portion of them are used in an orchestra. The selection of musical instruments for an orchestra depends on how well they complement one another. A Chinese folk orchestra is composed of four sections: wind, plucked, percussion and bowed. This book is also devoted to the description of the development of classical Chinese music and the introduction of some music-related tales of profound significance. Chinese music is a big family composed of various distinctive types of music: Chinese folk music played at weddings, funerals or in festivals an fairs. The religious music played in religious services conducted in Buddhist and Taoist temples. Court music, which reached its zenith during the Tang Dynasty. The scholars' music based on Confucian thinking was the embodiment of the musical life of academia and refined music of this kind is still prevalent in today's society.
From the early days, musical instruments in China were made from everyday items: hunting tools, trees, bamboo and even bones. During the Zhou dynasty, there were about 70 instruments. Today, there are hundreds. But have you ever wondered how these musical instruments in China came about? Well, in this book, the evolution of Chinese music over the centuries is examined, from prehistoric times, through the Qin, Han, Sui, and Tang dynasties, all the way to our modern times. Indeed, this book holds a treasury of fascinating information and stories pertaining to Chinese musical instruments. This is definitely something any music lover should have in their collection.
This accessible, illustrated introduction explores the history of Chinese music, an ancient, diverse and fascinating part of China's cultural heritage.
First published in 1998. As a cultural entity of over five thousand years of history, Chinese music is a multi-faced phenomenon consisting of diverse regional and transregional traditions. Two large categories of Chinese music can be distinguished: music(s) of the Han nationality and music(s) of the ethnic nationalities. The present volume brings together ten articles written largely by native scholars, with the general aim of presenting a dialogue about Chinese music from 'insider's' view-points.
This is a very interesting popular account of the theory of Chinese music, with numerous wood-cuts illustrating the principal instruments and the mode of musical notation used by Chinese musicians. The author states his aim to have been 'to point out the contrasts or similarity between Western and Chinese music, to present abstruse theories in the least tiresome way, to add details never before published and to give a. short yet concise account of Chinese music.' After an introductory chapter on ancient music in general or rather on the history of European music, which our author believes to have 'gradually risen and progressed with Christianity, ' follows a chapter entitled, 'on Chinese music.' Here we are told that of the ancient music of China nothing remains now but a few abstruse theories, and that, at the rise of the Han dynasty the great music master Chi, whose ancestors had for generations held the same dignity, scarcely remembered anything about (ancient) music but the noise of tickling bells and dancers' drums.' We venture to say, that the author Would have modified his opinions regarding ancient Chinese music very considerably, if he had read Faber's essays on the subject. In the same chapter it is asserted, that ever since the Han dynasty nothing has been done of any value in the sphere of music, either practically or theoretically, that the attempt of Kanghi and Kienlung to revive the study of music in China failed, and that the Chinese people, erroneously supposed to be quite unchangeable in their predilections, have so radically changed in the course of ages, that the musical art, which anciently always occupied the place of honour, is now deemed the lowest calling a man can profess. Serious music, according to Mr. Van Aalst, has been totally abandoned, and the kind of music in which the populace of China. now-a-days delights in, consisting of the deafening noise of gong or drum accompanied by the shrieking tones of the clarinet, requires no scientific study. But as Mr. van Aalst informs his readers at the same time, that ' Chinese music must be divided into two different kinds, ritual 0r sacred music, which is passably sweet and generally of a minor character, and the theatrical or popular music, ' and as he subsequently describes the ritual music now used at Court and at religious ceremonies in the temples of Confucius and elsewhere, we are constrained to assume, either that ritual music is not serious because it is passably sweet, or that his previous allegation, that ' serious music is totally abandoned in China, ' goes for nothing. The next chapter treats the twelve Lii of ancient Chinese music, and we are told that they form ' a kind of semi-diatomic scale of 12 degrees, nearly identical with our chromatic gamut, the only difference being that our scale is tempered, while that of the Chinese is untouched.' Then follow five brief sentences on the pitch of Chinese music, and we learn that 'the present pitch approaches our D (601.5 vibrations per second) as nearly as possible.' Next we have a chapter on the Chinese system of notation, illustrated by diagrams, a few words on the stave, the value of notes, the rests, the time, the signs of alteration of notes, the diatonic gamut, etc
A History of Ancient Chinese Music and Dance describes the history of music and dance in ancient China in the past five thousand years in the forms of poems, music and dance. It includes court music and dance, music and dance in drama and folk music and dance. It covers historical and professional knowledge such as music, dance, poetry and drama. The book consists of eleven chapters, from ancient times to the Ming Dynasty and the Qing Dynasty. In each chapter, there are historical background, music and dance works, people, events, and related poetry and images. The Yellow Emperor created tonality for wind instruments. Emperor Yao and Emperor Shun invented musical instruments qin and se. Duke of Zhou made system of rites and music. Apart from these, music, dance and acrobatics in the Qin Dynasty and the Han Dynasty, grand compositions in the Tang Dynasty and the Song Dynasty and music and dance in drama in the Ming Dynasty and the Qing Dynasty can all lead us to the long developing process of ancient music and dance. The book was the Project of 2003 National Tenth Five-Year Plan for Art Science in China. It was co-funded by the National Publishing Fund and “China Classics International” of the General Administration of Press and Publication.
Barbara Mittler's book is the first comprehensive monographic study of China's New Music written in a Western language. It deals with two key points of contention: the effects of politics on the development of Chinese New Music, and the importance of China's indigenous musical traditions for the development of her New Music. In many ways, it is a handbook to New Chinese Music as it provides biographical and musicological sketches of the greater number of China's composers. As a reference work it will thus be of interest to libraries as well as to musicologists and music impressarios. The book is unique as a comparative study of New Chinese Music under three different political systems. Its conclusions, the discovery of (and explanations for) inherent similarities in those three New Musics will be of interest to sinologists in the field of politics and cultural studies.
Western music reached China nearly four centuries ago, with the arrival of Christian missionaries, yet only within the last century has Chinese music absorbed its influence. As China and the West demonstrates, the emergence of “Westernized” music from China—concurrent with the technological advances that have made global culture widely accessible—has not established a prominent presence in the West. China and the West brings together essays on centuries of Sino-Western musical exchange by musicologists, ethnomusicologists, and music theorists from around the world. It opens with a look at theoretical approaches of prior studies of musical encounters and a comprehensive survey of the intercultural and cross-cultural theoretical frameworks—exoticism, orientalism, globalization, transculturation, and hybridization—that inform these essays. Part I focuses on the actual encounters between Chinese and European musicians, their instruments and institutions, and the compositions inspired by these encounters, while Part II examines theatricalized and mediated East-West cultural exchanges, which often drew on stereotypical tropes, resulting in performances more inventive than accurate. Part III looks at the musical language, sonority, and subject matters of “intercultural” compositions by Eastern and Western composers. Essays in Part IV address reception studies and consider the ways in which differences are articulated in musical discourse by actors serving different purposes, whether self-promotion, commercial marketing, or modes of nationalistic—even propagandistic—expression. The volume’s extensive bibliography of secondary sources will be invaluable to scholars of music, contemporary Chinese culture, and the globalization of culture.