Not so fast: Speed-related conceptsin Chinese music and beyond

2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Adrian Tien
Keyword(s):  
Musical Performance ◽  
Musical Experience ◽  
Fast Speed ◽  
Chinese Music ◽  
Musical Interpretation ◽  
Musical Traditions ◽  
Major Consideration ◽  
Culture Dependent

AbstractWhile speed as a sonic and musical experience may be a universal phenomenon, concepts referring to kinds of speed are language-specific and culture-dependent. This paper focuses on the notion of speed in Chinese and concepts associated with speed in Chinese, especially in relation to music. Five speed-related concepts in Chinese are subjected to scrutiny:Preliminary findings demonstrate that, unlike in some other musical traditions in which one might expect the capacity to play at markedly contrastive speeds in a musical performance to be aesthetically desirable or even essential, as the meanings of the speed-related concepts in Chinese reveal, the ability to play fast is not necessarily aesthetically praiseworthy in at least traditional Chinese music, nor is speed necessarily a major consideration as one executes speed in a Chinese musical interpretation.

The Musical Experience through the Lens of Embodiment

2008 ◽  
Vol 18 ◽  
pp. 21-24 ◽  
Author(s):  
Greg Corness
Keyword(s):  
Digital Media ◽  
Mirror Neurons ◽  
The Body ◽  
Musical Performance ◽  
Musical Experience ◽  
Listening Experience

The author addresses the impression that digital media is diminishing the engagement of the body in our musical experience. Combining theories from the disciplines of philosophy and psychology, he constructs a framework for examining the experience of listening to music. A link between research in mirror neurons and the act of perception, as described by Merleau-Ponty, is used to demonstrate the role of embodiment in the listening experience. While acknowledging that hearing and viewing a musical performance do not provide the same musical experience, he aims to demonstrate how our embodied existence ensures the body's engagement in any musical experience.

scholarly journals The Integration of Chinese Opera Traditions into New Musical Compositions

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Nalin Shen
Keyword(s):  
Original Compositions ◽  
Paradigm Shifts ◽  
Musical Style ◽  
Global Village ◽  
Chinese Opera ◽  
Chinese Music ◽  
Historical Continuity ◽  
Cultural Roots ◽  
Generic Term ◽  
Musical Traditions

<p>Almost fifty years ago Chinese composer Chou Wen-chung proposed a musical “re-merger” of East and West. For many Chinese composers of today a sense of historical continuity and an awareness of inherited musical traditions are important contributor to cultural identity, and a basis on which to build the future. The generation that emerged after the Cultural Revolution found new freedoms, and has become, at the beginning of the twentyfirst century, a significant presence on the international musical stage, as the paradigm shifts away from being European-centered, to a culture belonging to the “global village”. As with many other Chinese composers of my generation, the creation of new compositions is both a personal expression and a manifestation of cultural roots. Techniques of “integration” and “translation” of musical elements derived from traditional Chinese music and music-theatre are a part of my musical practice. The use of traditional Chinese instruments, often in combination with Western instruments, is a no longer a novelty. The written exegesis examines some of the characteristic elements of xìqǜ (the generic term for all provincial Chinese operas), including dǎ (percussion - an enlarged interpretation of dǎ, as found in chuānjù gāoqiāng Sichuan gāoqiān opera), bǎnqiāng (The musical style that characterizes Chinese xìqǚ), and niànbái  (recitation and dialogue), as well as the kuàibǎnshū (storytelling with percussion) of qǚyì (a term to use to include all folk genres), and shāngē (mountain song). The techniques employed in integrating and translating these elements into original compositions are then analyzed. In the second volume of the thesis the scores of five compositions are presented, four of the five works are set in Chinese, exploring the dramatic aspects of language, and may be considered music-theatre, one being an opera scene intended for stage production.</p>

scholarly journals INTEGRATED APPROACH TO AESTHETIC EDUCATION OF SCHOOLCHILDREN IN THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA

2020 ◽  
pp. 143-154
Author(s):  
Olena Ionova ◽  
Svetlana Luparenko ◽  
Yuliia Lakhmotova
Keyword(s):  
Integrated Approach ◽  
Aesthetic Education ◽  
Educational Process ◽  
People’S Republic Of China ◽  
People's Republic Of China ◽  
Republic Of China ◽  
Chinese Music ◽  
Musical Traditions ◽  
Regional Music ◽  
Characteristic Features

The article is dedicated to revelation of the peculiarities of integrated approach in the process of schoolchildren's aesthetic education in the People's Republic of China. The possibilities of using art while teaching different subjects (Mathematics, different languages, Literature, History etc.) have been outlined. The Chinese pedagogues underline the close connection of Mathematics and Music. It provides opportunities to learn fractional nature of the notes, feel the rhythm of the music, relate harmony, intervals, melody and notes to whole numbers, proportions, arithmetic operations, logarithms, Geometry and Trigonometry. The authors have pointed out that aesthetic subjects (music, art, theatre) are also closely connected in educational process of schools. The characteristic feature of schoolchildren's aesthetic education in the People's Republic of China is taking into account the regionality (differences in development of art depending on the region of the country). It is due to different historical, socio-economic and cultural factors of development of different regions in China. The regionality strengthens the connection of arts with History, Economics and Geography and helps schoolchildren to understand the significance and differences of regional music in China, to learn various Chinese musical instruments, folk lullabies and to investigate the important characteristic features of the Chinese music. So, schoolchildren's aesthetic education in China has a strong national basis: art is connected with national expression, development of musical traditions, nature and mental aesthetic ideas.

Recent technology and the hybridisation of Western and Chinese musics

2005 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-56 ◽  
Author(s):  
CHRISTOPHER J. KEYES
Keyword(s):  
Essential Elements ◽  
Historical Overview ◽  
Chinese Music ◽  
Technological Advances ◽  
Musical Traditions ◽  
Other World

Although the hybridisation of Western and Chinese musics has been progressing for over a century, many early attempts tended to treat Chinese material in a rather superficial manner. This resulted in mere ‘Orientalist’ Western pieces and rather bland pentatonic/romantic ‘Chinese’ music that simply harmonised the basic outline of popular Chinese melodies with Western chord progressions. The use of recent technologies has greatly accelerated the pace and depth of this hybridisation and solved many of its artistic problems. Technological advances now make it possible and practical to incorporate the subtle but essential elements of traditional Chinese music, and of course other world musics, in works that seem satisfying for Western and non-Western audiences. This paper presents a brief historical overview of the hybridisation of Western and Chinese musical traditions, examines common pitfalls of many early attempts, and reviews how these issues are addressed compositionally and technically in the author's recent electroacoustic pieces, Li Jiang Etudes No. 1, 2 & 3.

scholarly journals Music as a trigger of religious experience: What role does culture play?

2018 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-49 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Demmrich
Keyword(s):  
Religious Experience ◽  
Positive Emotions ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Musical Experience ◽  
Religious Experiences ◽  
Cultural Backgrounds ◽  
Future Studies ◽  
Religious Music ◽  
Neuropsychological Effect ◽  
Culture Dependent

Music and religion are linked in many ways. For example, music can trigger religious experiences, which has been a topic since the beginnings of the study of the psychology of religion. Whether this musical effect is culture-dependent, a pure neuropsychological phenomenon, or a combination of both remains empirically unanswered. This cross-cultural experiment among n = 84 Turks and n = 63 Germans shows that religious music can trigger religious experience but this is, at least partially, a culture-dependent experience. Moreover, certain kinds of religious music can fail to trigger a religious experience independent of culture, which can also underpin a neuropsychological effect of musical features on religious experience. Religious experience during music is strongly predicted by positive emotions that are felt during the musical experience. Future studies should be more interdisciplinary, focusing on the effect of certain musical features on the religious experience of individuals from different cultural backgrounds.

Rekindling Ancient Values: The Influence of Chinese Music and Aesthetics on Harry Partch

2010 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-32 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. ANDREW GRANADE
Keyword(s):  
Spoken Word ◽  
Chinese Music ◽  
Early Experiences ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Li Po ◽  
Cantonese Opera ◽  
Musical Traditions ◽  
Theoretical Thinking ◽  
Unpublished Manuscripts ◽  
Scale Composition

AbstractScholarship on American composer Harry Partch (1901–74) has long focused on the composer's use of Greek musical ideals as the basis of his aesthetic, but little attention has been paid to China, a nation with which Partch had familial ties and with which he claimed an affinity. Using Partch's published writings, along with unpublished manuscripts, letters, and interviews, this article repositions China's role in the development of Harry Partch's music and aesthetic. By surveying his early experiences with Cantonese opera, his early expositions of his theoretical thinking, and his first full-scale composition, a setting of seventeen poems by Li Po, it demonstrates that China symbolized an alternative path. China's musical traditions were tied directly to the spoken word and featured integration of the arts through ritual, and thus for Partch presented a way to renew Western music. Through the Chinese musical quotations that reside in several of his works, the article also shows that, despite his later protests to the contrary, Chinese music both informed and shaped his music. Finally, it suggests that only by exploring the implications of China in his music can we fully understand Partch's compositional aesthetic.

scholarly journals Suspensão narrativa e fluxo temporal. A experiência musical em Tatuagem (2013), de Hilton Lacerda

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amanda Mansur Custódio Nogueira
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Context ◽  
Musical Experience ◽  
Narrative Construction ◽  
Musical Interpretation ◽  
Contemporary Cinema ◽  
The City

The cinematographic production in the city of Recife, in the northeast of Brazil, outlines a dramaturgy that coexists with the musical and cultural scene effervescence that emerged in the city, since its revival in the 90’s. Contemporary cinema deliberately explores the mimicry of music in its narrative films when appropriating certain songs, materializing them in sequences of musical interpretation, whose function is the suspension of the narrative. Based on the premise that cinema is organized as a system of languages, inserted within a socio-cultural context, our aim is to investigate the articulating role of music in the local cinema from the analysis of sound/visual procedures in the narrative construction of the film Tattoo (2013), by Hilton Lacerda, in which the manipulation of cinematic texture intensifies the sensitive musical experience.

scholarly journals The Integration of Chinese Opera Traditions into New Musical Compositions

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Nalin Shen
Keyword(s):  
Original Compositions ◽  
Paradigm Shifts ◽  
Musical Style ◽  
Global Village ◽  
Chinese Opera ◽  
Chinese Music ◽  
Historical Continuity ◽  
Cultural Roots ◽  
Generic Term ◽  
Musical Traditions

<p>Almost fifty years ago Chinese composer Chou Wen-chung proposed a musical “re-merger” of East and West. For many Chinese composers of today a sense of historical continuity and an awareness of inherited musical traditions are important contributor to cultural identity, and a basis on which to build the future. The generation that emerged after the Cultural Revolution found new freedoms, and has become, at the beginning of the twentyfirst century, a significant presence on the international musical stage, as the paradigm shifts away from being European-centered, to a culture belonging to the “global village”. As with many other Chinese composers of my generation, the creation of new compositions is both a personal expression and a manifestation of cultural roots. Techniques of “integration” and “translation” of musical elements derived from traditional Chinese music and music-theatre are a part of my musical practice. The use of traditional Chinese instruments, often in combination with Western instruments, is a no longer a novelty. The written exegesis examines some of the characteristic elements of xìqǜ (the generic term for all provincial Chinese operas), including dǎ (percussion - an enlarged interpretation of dǎ, as found in chuānjù gāoqiāng Sichuan gāoqiān opera), bǎnqiāng (The musical style that characterizes Chinese xìqǚ), and niànbái  (recitation and dialogue), as well as the kuàibǎnshū (storytelling with percussion) of qǚyì (a term to use to include all folk genres), and shāngē (mountain song). The techniques employed in integrating and translating these elements into original compositions are then analyzed. In the second volume of the thesis the scores of five compositions are presented, four of the five works are set in Chinese, exploring the dramatic aspects of language, and may be considered music-theatre, one being an opera scene intended for stage production.</p>

scholarly journals Getting to the Heart of the Music: Idealizing Musical Community and Irish Traditional Music Sessions

2007 ◽  
pp. 1-18 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helen O’Shea
Keyword(s):  
Group Performance ◽  
Traditional Music ◽  
Musical Performance ◽  
Musical Experience ◽  
Ideal Society ◽  
The Social ◽  
Transcendent Experience ◽  
Irish Traditional Music ◽  
Nuanced Understanding ◽  
As If

The power of shared musical experience has inspired scholars to theorize collective musical performance as capable of producing an embodied, transcendent experience of an ideal society. Scholars who have written about the group performance of Irish traditional music demonstrate a similar understanding. Such models tend to idealize musical performance (as if it always produced a transcendent experience) and to elide the experiences of participants, representing them as harmonious (at one) and homogeneous (as one). Drawing on fieldwork conducted among musicians playing Irish traditional music in East Clare, this article considers the social and musical consequences of idealizing group performance and proposes a more nuanced understanding of musical community as a process of dialogue.

scholarly journals Music Confucius Institute: Evaluating Its Approach as an Agent for International Chinese Music Dissemination

2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 182
Author(s):  
Wei Guo ◽  
Sheng Bing Li
Keyword(s):  
Host Country ◽  
Chinese Culture ◽  
Cultural Communication ◽  
Confucius Institute ◽  
Chinese Music ◽  
The World ◽  
Research Findings ◽  
Cultural Dissemination ◽  
Musical Traditions ◽  
Positive Results

<p>The paper identifies the educational and presentational functions of the Confucius Institute (MCI) at the Royal Danish Academy of Music (RDAM) as its core approaches which mostly influence Chinese cultural dissemination in its host country. The MCI’s utilization of the two dissemination approaches aligns with the “receiver-centered” framework introduced by Jiang and Zhang (2009), providing three concurrent strategies—Localization, “Entertainalization” and Regulation (LER)—in order to enhance the dissemination of Chinese culture to the general public. Through detailed analysis of somewhat limited pre-existing research findings and literature, this article makes the claim that the MCI has achieved positive results in its two functional domains, meeting its overseas audience’s needs at various levels whilst supporting Chinese cultural dissemination internationally. This article concludes on the prospect that more MCIs are expected to be established around the world in order to satisfy the growing needs of authentic studies in Chinese musical traditions without travelling to China, as well as to support Chinese cultural communication with the rest of the world.</p>

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