Music: East Asia

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 presents earlier studies of musical encounters and a survey of the intercultural and cross-cultural theoretical frameworks: exoticism, orientalism, globalization, transculturation, and hybridization.
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. It includes a chapter 'Contested Imaginaries of Collective Harmony: The Poetics and Politics of “Silk Road” Nostalgia". There is an extensive bibliography of secondary sources related to contemporary Chinese culture, and the globalization of culture.

Faces of Tradition in Chinese Performing Arts examines the key role of the individual in the development of traditional Chinese performing arts such as music and dance. These artists and their artistic works-the "faces of tradition"-come to represent and reconfigure broader fields of cultural production in China today. By focusing on the performance, scholarship, collection, and teaching of instrumental music, folksong, and classical dance from a variety of disciplines-these case studies highlight the importance of the individual in determining how traditions have been and are represented, maintained, and cultivated.

Promoting cultural understanding in a globalized world, this text is a key tool for students interested in understanding the fundamentals of Chinese culture. Written by a team of experts in their fields, it offers a comprehensive and detailed introduction to Chinese culture and addresses the fundamentals of Chinese cultural and social development. It notably considers Chinese traditional culture, medicine, arts and crafts, folk customs, rituals and etiquette, and is a key read for scholars and students in Chinese Culture, History and Language.

Unique and complex in style, traditional Chinese music forms a fascinating part of China's cultural heritage. This accessible, illustrated introduction to Chinese music takes the reader through the 8000-year history of China's musical instruments, the diversity of Chinese folk music, the development of China's famous operas and the modern Chinese music industry. From classical to contemporary styles, Jin Jie explores the influence that Chinese music has had around the world.

The author was a physicist and composer who taught cultural acoustics at Northwestern University and Harvard University. He was a music director of the Silk and Bamboo Ensemble and the Chinese Classical Orchestra. Both ensembles toured internationally under the auspices of the Chinese Music Society of North America. He was interested in the cultural moulding of our ears and brain to music. Shen's life work centred on the essence of music

While a significant body of literature has been written on the lute in Chinese, this book is the first to assemble a broad picture of the Qin and its cultural significance in English.

P'ansori is a genre of musical storytelling, a dramatic narrative form for solo voice and drum (puk), which has developed over several centuries. In 2003, p'ansori was added to the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. The author studies the periodical developments and changes in the performance context, vocal developments, singing style, audience involvement, contemporary performance, cinematic history, and private and government sponsorship of p'ansori. She covers the period from the early development of p'ansori, including the origins and early formation of the genre, to contemporary performance, Throughout this survey she considers not only issues of historical context but also questions of cultural identity, past and present.

This book explores Korean court music, which has an understated beauty and calmness, and folk music. It describes the traditional genres of Korean music: Pansori -- Samulnori -- History of Korean music -- Musicians -- National Gugak Center.

This book contains the following chapters 'Music for Silkroad in Korean Music History "Musical Art of Eastern Peoples." ' and "A comparative study of three Korean musical styles with their chinese counterparts". The Matheson Library has books by this author on Korean music in the Korean language section.

A collection of essays by Professor Lee Hye-Ku, a renowned Korean musicologist of international repute. Each essay focuses on the distinctiveness of Korean music.

As Korea has developed and modernized, music has come to play a central role as a symbol of national identity. Nationalism has been stage managed by scholars, journalists and, from the beginning of the 1960s, by the state, as music genres have been documented, preserved and promoted as 'Intangible Cultural Properties'. Practitioners have been appointed 'holders' or, in everyday speech, 'Human Cultural Properties', to maintain, perform and teach exemplary versions of tradition. Over the last few years, the Korean preservation system has become a model for UNESCO's 'Living Human Treasures' and 'Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Mankind'. In this volume, Keith Howard provides the first comprehensive analysis in English of the system. He documents court music and dance, Confucian and shaman ritual music, folksongs, the professional folk-art genres of p'ansori ('epic storytelling through song') and sanjo ('scattered melodies'), and more, as well as instrument making, food preparation and liquor distilling - a good performance, after all, requires wine to flow. The extensive documentation reflects considerable fieldwork, discussion and questioning carried out over a 25-year period, and blends the voices of scholars, government officials, performers, craftsmen and the general public. By interrogating both contemporary and historical data, Howard negotiates the debates and critiques that surround this remarkable attempt to protect local and national music and other performance arts and crafts. An accompanying CD illustrates many of the music genres considered, featuring many master musicians including some who have now died. The preservation of music and other performance arts and crafts is part of the contemporary zeitgeist, yet occupies contested territory. This is particularly true when the concept of 'tradition' is invoked. Within Korea, the recognition of the fragility of indigenous music inherited from earlier times is balanced by an awareness of the need to maintain identity as lifestyles change in response to modernization and globalization. Howard argues that Korea, and the world, is a better place when the richness of indigenous music is preserved and promoted.

Towards the middle of the 20th century, scholarly research revealed that the fabled Silk Roads, far from being mere trade routes, were cultural highways that played a pivotal role in linking east and west. The notion of movement is central to an understanding of the relations between peoples; it is also the factor of which specialists have, for various reasons, not taken sufficient account. The Silk Roads Project, initiated by UNESCO, has led to a large variety of projects of which this volume presents a selection. The title of Chapter 14 is "The Exchange of Musical Influences between Korea and Central Asia in Ancient Times".

Still today, in South Korea, many people pay for the services of mudang - the intermediaries of Korea's syncretic folk religion. The majority of mudang are called to the profession by gods; their clients are individuals or small groups and they focus on the use of spirit-power ('possession') for diagnosis and problem-solving. There is, however, a tiny minority of mudang who are born or adopted into the ritual life and who have no spirit-power. These ritualists perform in large family groups, conducting rituals for whole communities. They focus far more on the use of music, dance, and song to provide healing. Simon Mills provides an in-depth analysis of the East Coast hereditary mudang institution and its rhythm-oriented music. It is the first English language book to study this tradition in any depth and describes ritual procedures, musical structures, playing techniques, instruments, and learning methods both of the past and present; as non-ritual musicians become increasingly aware of the powerful ritual rhythms, the music is finding new life in non-ritual settings. A 5-track CD accompanies the book, each track corresponding to the equivalent chapter in the text.

With the rise of nationalism in the Republic of Korea, music has come to play a central role in the discourse of identity. This volume asks what Koreans consider makes music Korean, and how meaning is ascribed to musical creation. Keith Howard explores specific aspects of creativity that are designed to appeal to a new audience that is increasingly westernized yet proud of its indigenous heritage - updates of tradition, compositions, and collaborative fusions. He charts the development of the Korean music scene over the last 25 years and interprets the debates, claims and statistics by incorporating the voices of musicians, composers, scholars and critics. Koreanness is a brand identity with a discourse founded on heritage, hence Howard focuses on music that is claimed to link to tradition, and on music compositions where indigenous identity is consciously incorporated. The volume opens with SamulNori, a percussion quartet known throughout the world that was formed in 1978 but is rooted in local and itinerant bands stretching back many centuries. Parallel developments in vocal genres, folksongs and p'ansori ('epic storytelling through song') are considered, then three chapters explore compositions written both for western instruments and for Korean instruments, and designed both for Korean and international audiences. Over time, Howard shows how the two musical worlds - kugak, traditional music, and yangak, western music - have collided, and how fusions have emerged. This volume documents how identity has been negotiated by musicians, composers and audiences. Until recently, references to tradition were common and, by critics and musicologists, required. Western music increasingly encroached on the market for Korean music and doubts were raised about the future of any music identifiably Korean. Today, Korean musical production exudes a resurgent confidence as it amalgamates Korean and western elements, as it arranges and incorporates the old in the new, and as it creates a music suitable for the contemporary world.

Japan on the Silk Road provides for the first time the historical background indispensable for understanding Japan's current perspectives and policies in the vast area of Eurasia across the Middle East and Central Asia. Japanese diplomats, military officers, archaeologists, and linguists traversed the Silk Road, involving Japan in the Great Game and exploring ancient civilizations.The book exposes the entanglements of pre-war Japanese Pan-Asianism with Pan-Islamism, Turkic nationalism and Mongolian independence as a global history of imperialism. Japanese connections to Ottoman Turkey, India, Egypt, Iran, Afghanistan, and China at the same time reveal a discrete global narrative of cosmopolitanism and transnationality. The global team of scholars brings to light Japan's intellectual and political encounters with the peoples and cultures of Asia, in particular Turks and Persians, Hindus and Muslims of India, Mongolians and the Uyghur of Inner Asia, and Muslims in China.

What makes Japanese music sound Japanese? Each genre of Japan's pre-Western music (hogaku) morphed from the preceding one with singing at its foundation. In ancient Shinto prayers, words of power recited in a prescribed cadence communicated veneration and community needs to the divine spirit (kami). From the prayers, Japan's word-based music evolved into increasingly more sophisticated recitations with biwa, shamisen, and koto accompaniment. This examination reveals shortcomings in the typical interpretation of Japanese music from a pitch-based Western perspective and carefully explores how the quintessential musical elements of singing, instrumental accompaniment, scale, and format were transmitted from their Shinto inception through all of Japan's music. Japan's culture, with its unique iemoto system and teaching methods, served to exactly replicate Japan's music for centuries. Considering Japan's music in the context of its own culture, logic, and sources is essential to gaining a clear understanding and appreciation of Japan's music and dissipating the mystery of the music's "Japaneseness."

This is the first book to cover in detail all genres including court music, Buddhist chant, theatre music, chamber ensemble music and folk music, as well as contemporary music and the connections between music and society in various periods. Western music was introduced into the education system in the Meiji period (1868-1911), creating westernized melodies and instrumental instruction for Japanese children from kindergarten upwards and as a result, most Japanese now have a far greater familiarity with Western (or westernized) music than with traditional Japanese music. Traditional or classical Japanese music is often known and practised only by small groups of people in social structures which have survived since the pre-modern era. Such marginalization of Japanese music is one of the less recognized costs of Japan's modernization.

The shamisen is a traditional Japanese musical instrument. It was introduced to Japan in the mid-sixteenth century via China and the Ryûkyû Islands, and was quickly established as a culturally significant musical instrument in its new context. The instrument a three-string lute developed numerous styles of performance and is found as a solo and ensemble instrument in diverse social and cultural contexts. The shamisen is known as an instrument of geisha in the entertainment districts; it is used in kabuki and bunraku theatre; and also has an established place within a wide-range of performance traditions, many of which are depicted in woodblock prints and other art depicting everyday life of the Edo period.This book, which is based on the author s field research in Japan, is a history of the shamisen. It locates the instrument within its various social and cultural contexts, and includes accompanying illustrations (e.g., woodblock prints, photographs and illustrations) to help show visually the place of the instrument in traditional and modern Japan.

First Published in Contemporary Music Review in 1993. In their quest for new sound materials, avant-garde musicians often produce sounds which accidentally bear a strong resemblance to traditional instruments. While conventional Western instruments have taken on a functional role, instruments such as the shakuhachi are still closely associated with their cultural, religious, and historical roots. The colorful and unique shakuhachi has become the most widely known and used Japanese instrument. This collection provides a comprehensive historical overview of the shakuhachi, its technical aspects and its relationship to the flute.

Few other nations have undergone as profound a change in their social, political, and cultural life as Mongolia did in the twentieth century. Beginning the century as a largely rural, nomadic, and tradition-oriented society, the nation was transformed by the end of this century into a largely urban, post-industrial, and cosmopolitan one. This study seeks to understand the effects that Western-inspired modernity has had on the nature of cultural tradition in the country, focusing in particular on development of the morin khuur or "horse-head fiddle," a two-stringed bowed folk lute that features a horse's head carved into its crown. As well as being one of the most popular instruments in the contemporary national musical culture, it has also become an icon of Mongolian national identity and a symbol of the nation's ancient cultural heritage. In its modern form, however, the horse-head fiddle reflects the values of a modern, cosmopolitan society that put it profoundly at odds with those of the traditional society. In so doing, it also reflects the cosmopolitan nature of the nation's contemporary national musical culture.

The title seeks to show how people are embedded culturally, socially and linguistically in a certain peripheral geographical location, yet are also able to roam widely in their use and takeup of a variety of linguistic and cultural resources. Drawing on data examples obtained from ethnographic fieldwork trips in Mongolia, a country located geographically, politically and economically on the Asian periphery, this book presents an example of how peripheral contexts should be seen as crucial sites for understanding the current sociolinguistics of globalization. Dovchin brings together several themes of wide contemporary interest, including sociolinguistic diversity in the context of popular culture and media in a globalized world (with a particular focus on popular music), and transnational flows of linguistic and cultural resources, to argue that the role of English and other languages in the local language practices of young musicians in Mongolia should be understood as "linguascapes." This notion of linguascapes adds new levels of analysis to common approaches to sociolinguistics of globalization, offering researchers new complex perspectives of linguistic diversity in the increasingly globalized world.

The idea of a global history of music may be traced back to the Enlightenment, and today, the question of a conceptual framework for a history of music that pays due attention to global relationships in music is often raised. But how might a historical interpretation of those relationships proceed? How should it position, or justify, itself? What would 'Western music' look like in an account of music history that aspires to be truly global?   The studies presented in this volume aim to promote post-European historical thinking. They are based on the idea that a global history of music cannot be one single, hegemonic history. They rather explore the paradigms and terminologies that might describe a history of many different voices. The chapters address historical practices and interpretations of music in different parts of the world, from Japan to Argentina and from Mexico to India. Many of these narratives are about relations between these cultures and the Western tradition; several also consider socio-political and historical circumstances that have affected music in the various regions. The book addresses aspects that Western musical historiography has tended to neglect even when looking at its own culture: performance, dance, nostalgia, topicality, enlightenment, the relationships between traditional, classical, and pop musics, and the regards croisés between European, Asian, or Latin American interpretations of each other's musical traditions.   These studies have been derived from the Balzan Musicology Project Towards a Global History of Music (2013-2016), which was funded by the International Balzan Foundation through the award of the Balzan Prize in Musicology to the editor, and designed by music historians and ethnomusicologists together. A global history of music may never be written in its entirety, but will rather be realised through interaction, practice, and discussion, in all parts of the world.

Streamed video
"This feature-length documentary follows this group of diverse instrumentalists, vocalists, composers, arrangers, visual artists and storytellers as they explore the power of music to preserve tradition, shape cultural evolution and inspire hope." Kanopy.

Streamed Video
Alain Desjacques, a well-known ethnomusicologist, returns to the steppes of Mongolia to record the best traditional musicians and singers. He speaks the language and travels by horseback, truck and foot to track down the most revered diphonic musicians in different regions. The diphonic sound combines a base drone with a melodic upper register. We hear part of an epic song which takes the singer seven days to perform, completely from memory. A drone through the chest in the lower register and a melodic line in the higher register which creates a double sound. The venerable flutist, Narantsogt, performs inside his yurt, producing diphonic sounds that mimic nature. Desjacques visits Biamba, a morin khuur player, whose instruments is made from goat's skin while the strings in the bow are still made from goat's hair. The neck is adorned with the horses head. In Buriat they record lullaby and two of the rare remaining responsorial singers. The last visit is to a shaman who sings during a healing ceremony. Ancient shamanism in this region has evolved absorbing influences of both Hinduism and Buddhism.

The last chapter in this books tells of the collaboration between Azerbaijani musicians and the Silk Road Ensemble to recreate the story of Layla and Majnun and its cultural role in Eastern literature and visual arts. The whole book traces the development of Azerbaijani art music from its origins in the Eastern, modal, improvisational tradition known as mugham through its fusion with Western classical, jazz, and world art music. Aida Huseynova places the fascinating and little-known history of music in Azerbaijan against the vivid backdrop of cultural life under Soviet influence, which paradoxically both encouraged and repressed the evolution of national musics and post-Soviet independence. Inspired by their neighbors to the East and West, Azerbaijani musicians enjoyed a period of remarkable creativity, composing and performing the first opera and the first ballet in the Muslim East, establishing the region's first Opera and Ballet Theater and Conservatory of Music, and discovering ways to merge the modal lyricism of mugham with the rhythmic dynamics of jazz. Drawing on previously unstudied archives, letters, and documents as well as her experience as an Azerbaijani musician and educator, Huseynova shows how Azerbaijani musical development was not a product of Soviet cultural policies but rather grew from and reflected deep and complex cultural processes.

The Music Road contains contributions on musical cultures from the Mediterranean to India which brings together historical research, philology and ethnographic fieldwork to revive the differentiated voices of this world region. It is here referred to as "the Music Road, to emphasize themusical traditions in this western half of the "Silk Road", and the transitional nature of its cultural migrations and coherences.Mobility in space, transmission in time and "the East-West imagination" are demonstrated in the following historical cultures: Ancient Gandhar (N.W. India, first centuries CE) and the tradition of Alexander's conquest; sections on Intercultural Islam" from medieval Persia to modern Turkey; "Indian encounters" with the West - and vice versa - in music and dance (18th-20th centuries); Greek music and theatre as a bridge between East and West; and Gypsy musical styles in European nationalist music.

Drawing on evidence from the many civilizations that shared the Silk Road, this book examines specific cases of the mobility of maps and images through the centuries.