[PDF] Lives In Chinese Music eBook

Author : Helen Rees
Publisher : University of Illinois Press
Page : 235 pages
File Size : 18,86 MB
Release : 2010-10-01
Category : Music
ISBN : 0252092252

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Until recently, most scholarly work on Chinese music in both Chinese and Western languages has focused on genres, musical structure, and general history and concepts, rather than on the musicians themselves. This volume breaks new ground by focusing on individual musicians active in different amateur and professional music scenes in mainland China, Hong Kong, and Chinese communities in Europe. Using biography to deepen understanding of Chinese music, contributors present richly contextualized portraits of rural folk singers, urban opera singers, literati, and musicians on both geographic and cultural frontiers. The topics investigated by these authors provide fresh insights into issues such as the urban-rural divide, the position of ethnic minorities within the People's Republic of China, the adaptation of performing arts to modernizing trends of the twentieth century, and the use of the arts for propaganda and commercial purposes. The social and political history of China serves as a backdrop to these discussions of music and culture, as the lives chronicled here illuminate experiences from the pre-Communist period through the Cultural Revolution to the present. Showcasing multiple facets of Chinese musical life, this collection is especially effective in taking advantage of the liberalization of mainland China that has permitted researchers to work closely with artists and to discuss the interactions of life and local and national histories in musicians' experiences. Contributors are Nimrod Baranovitch, Rachel Harris, Frank Kouwenhoven, Tong Soon Lee, Peter Micic, Helen Rees, Antoinet Schimmelpenninck, Shao Binsun, Jonathan P. J. Stock, and Bell Yung.

Author : Michael Saffle
Publisher : University of Michigan Press
Page : 345 pages
File Size : 35,8 MB
Release : 2017-03-01
Category : Music
ISBN : 0472122711

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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.

Author : Dennis Rea
Publisher : iUniverse
Page : 208 pages
File Size : 37,26 MB
Release : 2006
Category : Guitarists
ISBN : 059539048X

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Live at the forbidden City offers a singular look at the rapidly evolving Chinese popular music scene, as seen through the eyes of one of the first progressive Western musicians to perform extensively in both China and Taiwan. In the 1980s and 90s, American author and musician Dennis Rea played concerts in venues ranging from sports arenas to underground nightclubs to TV broadcasts - frequently under bizarre circumstances and the constant threat of harassment by Communist Party authorities. Spiced with informative reflections on Chinese music and culture, Rea interweaves depictions of his musical adventures with an insider's look at China's emergent rock music phenomenon and an eyewitness account of the violent civil uprising in Chengdu at the same time as the events at Tiananmen Square.

Author : Jie Jin
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 157 pages
File Size : 18,11 MB
Release : 2011-03-03
Category : History
ISBN : 0521186919

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This accessible, illustrated introduction explores the history of Chinese music, an ancient, diverse and fascinating part of China's cultural heritage.

Author : Richard Curt Kraus
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 317 pages
File Size : 16,41 MB
Release : 1989-07-13
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 0195363264

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In China, a nation where the worlds of politics and art are closely linked, Western classical music was considered during the cultural revolution to be an imperialist intrusion, in direct conflict with the native aesthetic. In this revealing chronicle of the relationship between music and politics in twentieth-century China, Richard Kraus examines the evolution of China's ever-changing disposition towards European music and demonstrates the steady westernization of Chinese music. Placing China's cultural conflicts in global perspective, he traces the lives of four Chinese musicians and reflects on how their experiences are indicative of China's place at the furthest edge of an expanding Western international order.

Author : David Mingyue Liang
Publisher : Conran Octopus
Page : 346 pages
File Size : 21,64 MB
Release : 1985
Category : Music
ISBN :

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Music in Chinese culture is not an isolated phenomenon, but is rather a contextual phenomenon broadly related to all aspects of life. In historical China, music was integrally related to banquets, archery events, dances, etc. The word for "music" in Chinese is yue. In its inclusive meaning, yue refers to the "arts" and to music, and, together with morals, law, and politics, was traditionally considered to be one of the four fundamental societal functions. Primarily because of this emphasis, every feudal state, dynasty and republic throughout history had established an official music organization or bureau of music indicating the import of music within the society. The book is organized into two parts: one, a diachronic orientation of major musical events throughout history, and two, a synchronic focus on musical content and context. In the historical section, the patterns and themes are emphasized, so that a sense of continuation, interrelationships and changes can be observed. In part two, six topical subjects have been selected, based on what the author believes represent a sense of balance of major subjects and styles in Chinese music, that is topics on aesthetics, notation-transmission, instrumental music (high art and regional styles), theatrical music, and major musical instruments. -- Back cover.

Author : Lim SK
Publisher : Asiapac Books Pte Ltd
Page : 157 pages
File Size : 43,47 MB
Release : 2018-09-21
Category : Comics & Graphic Novels
ISBN : 9812299866

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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. In addition, the origins and characteristics of specific musical instruments are explored, giving insight in one's understanding of these instruments. Legendary accounts related to historical personalities are also featured, including: * How two phoenixes helped Fuxi, the earliest ancestor of the Chinese, add music to the lives of the people. * How the musical talents of some individuals were so high they could sense evil elements in a piece of music. * How Wangzi Qiao became an immortal from playing the sheng. 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 his collection.

Author : Denis Noble
Publisher : OUP Oxford
Page : 169 pages
File Size : 36,23 MB
Release : 2008-02-14
Category : Science
ISBN : 0191578800

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What is Life? Decades of research have resulted in the full mapping of the human genome - three billion pairs of code whose functions are only now being understood. The gene's eye view of life, advocated by evolutionary biology, sees living bodies as mere vehicles for the replication of the genetic codes. But for a physiologist, working with the living organism, the view is a very different one. Denis Noble is a world renowned physiologist, and sets out an alternative view to the question - one that becomes deeply significant in terms of the living, breathing organism. The genome is not life itself. Noble argues that far from genes building organisms, they should be seen as prisoners of the organism. The view of life presented in this little, modern, post-genome project reflection on the nature of life, is that of the systems biologist: to understand what life is, we must view it at a variety of different levels, all interacting with each other in a complex web. It is that emergent web, full of feedback between levels, from the gene to the wider environment, that is life. It is a kind of music. Including stories from Noble's own research experience, his work on the heartbeat, musical metaphors, and elements of linguistics and Chinese culture, this very personal and at times deeply lyrical book sets out the systems biology view of life.

Author : Andrew F. Jones
Publisher : Cornell East Asia Series
Page : 216 pages
File Size : 49,16 MB
Release : 1992
Category : Literary Collections
ISBN :

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The first comprehensive study of Chinese popular music in a Western language. Drawing on extensive interviews with singers, songwriters and critics, as well as cultural, sociological, musical, and textual analysis, the book portrays the disparate ways in which China's state-run popular music industry and burgeoning underground rock music subculture represented by Cui Jian have been instrumental to the cultural and political struggles that culminated in the Tienanmen democracy movement of 1989. It also examines the links between popular music and contemporary debates about cultural identity and modernization, as well as the close connections between rock music, youth culture, and student protest.