Expanding the Violin's Possibilities in Chinese Music
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EXPANDING THE VIOLIN’S POSSIBILITIES IN CHINESE MUSIC: A CASE STUDY OF TRANSCRIPTION AND PERFORMANCE ISSUES RELATED TO PIPA MUSIC PLAYED ON THE VIOLIN Chun-Chia Wang, B.M., M.M. Dissertation Prepared for the Degree of DOCTOR OF MUSICAL ARTS UNIVERSITY OF NORTH TEXAS August 2018 APPROVED: Steven Friedson, Major Professor Clay Couturiaux, Committee Member Warren Henry, Committee Member John Holt, Chair of the Division of Instrumental Studies Benjamin Brand, Director of Graduate Studies in the College of Music John W. Richmond, Dean of the College of Music Victor Prybutok, Dean of the Toulouse Graduate School Wang, Chun-Chia. Expanding the Violin’s Possibilities in Chinese Music: A Case Study of Transcription and Performance Issues related to Pipa Music Played on the Violin. Doctor of Musical Arts (Performance), August 2018, 82 pp., 4 figures, 74 musical examples, references, 26 titles. In recent years, a large part of the erhu’s repertoire has been arranged for performance on the violin and vice versa. Given the difficulties involved in transcribing the music of plucked or woodwind instruments for the violin, the erhu has been the most popular choice for transcribing Chinese music for the violin. However, the erhu and violin are radically dissimilar instruments based on different principles. Pipa music is an essential part of traditional Chinese music from as early as 202 BCE, and the instrument’s repertoire represents a large portion of East Asian music aesthetics, and this context should be considered to successfully transcribe pipa music for violin. This dissertation talks briefly about Chinese music history and its categories and also focuses on the history and development of the pipa as well as its repertoire categories to provide context for the following musical examples. I use existing transcription examples from different categories of pipa music as an avenue to discuss how to transcribe pipa music for the violin. Even though the violin has some limitations for use as a plucked instrument, the instrument can still make use of several different kinds of techniques in order to play the music in a way that can represent certain features of the pipa while retaining the violin’s characteristics. Copyright 2018 by Chun-Chia Wang ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my major advisor Dr. Steven Friedson for the support of my dissertation, for his patience, motivation, and immense knowledge. Without his guidance and persistence, this dissertation would not have been possible. I am also indebted to Dr. Gene Cho; his advice and suggestions inspired me to explore this subject. Additionally, I am also truly grateful to Dr. Clay Couturiaux for his advice and help throughout my studies at UNT. A huge thank you goes to my friend and pipa player, Yuxin Mei. She helped steer me with her professional advice for this dissertation and her performances on the pipa. I would also extend my thanks to Holly Cassell for her help editing this dissertation. Without her, this dissertation would not be so academically complete. Finally, I wish to thank my parents and family for their unconditional love, support, and encouragement through my studies and my life journey. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .......................................................................................... iii LIST OF FIGURES ..................................................................................................... v LIST OF MUSICAL EXAMPLES ............................................................................... vi CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION .................................................................................. 1 1.1 The Violin and the Chinese Music ........................................................ 1 1.2 History of Chinese Music ...................................................................... 2 1.3 Chinese Music and Western Music ....................................................... 8 CHAPTER 2. THE PIPA ........................................................................................... 10 2.1 The History of the Pipa ....................................................................... 10 2.2 Categories of Pipa Music .................................................................... 13 2.3 Comparing the Violin and the Pipa ..................................................... 15 2.4 Cipher Notation Reading and the Pipa ............................................... 16 CHAPTER 3. TRANSCRIPTIONS ........................................................................... 26 3.1 Transcription Example in Wen Category............................................. 26 3.2 Transcription in Wu Category ............................................................. 42 3.3 A New Transcription of the Contemporary Pipa Piece, “Swan” ........... 54 CHAPTER 4. CONCLUSION: SUGGESTIONS FOR TRANSCRIBING MUSIC ...... 66 APPENDIX: THE AUTHOR’S TRANSCRIPTION OF “SWAN” BY LIU DE-HAI FOR VIOLIN ..................................................................................................................... 70 REFERENCES ......................................................................................................... 80 iv LIST OF FIGURES Page Figure 1.1: An example of a “Shih Yueh” 詩樂. Melody which is characterized by a very slow tempo, with one Chinese character to a note. ............................................ 6 Figure 2.1: A clay figure playing a Quxiang pipa, from the Sui dynasty. .................. 12 Figure 2.2: A side-by-side comparison of gongchepu and cipher notation. .............. 18 Figure 2.3: The pipa cipher notation symbols for articulation. .................................. 24 v LIST OF MUSICAL EXAMPLES Page Musical Example 2.1: The cipher notation melody and its transcription into Western staff notation. ............................................................................................................ 19 Musical Example 2.2: Transcription of the pipa cipher notation passage in Musical Example 2.1 ............................................................................................................. 20 Musical Example 2.3: The cipher notation of the beginning of the fifth section of “A Moonlit Night on the Spring River.” .......................................................................... 22 Musical Example 2.4: First line of Liu’s “A Moonlit Night on the Spring River.” ........ 23 Musical Example 3.1: Second line of “A Moonlit Night on the Spring River.” ........... 28 Musical Example 3.2: The transcription that I suggest for the ending of m. 1 of “A Moonlit Night on the Spring River.” .......................................................................... 28 Musical Example 3.3: The cipher notation of “A Moonlit Night on the Sping River” for Musical Example 3.01. ............................................................................................. 28 Musical Example 3.4: m. 1 of “A Moonlit Night on the Spring River.” ....................... 29 Musical Example 3.5: Zhang’s transcription of m. 1 in “A Moonlit Night on the Spring River.” ....................................................................................................................... 29 Musical Example 3.6: My transcription of m. 1 from “A Moonlit Night on the Spring River.” ....................................................................................................................... 30 Musical Example 3.7: m. 2 of “A Moonlit Night on the Spring River” in cipher notation. ................................................................................................................................. 31 Musical Example 3.8: Zhang’s transcription of m. 2 in “A Moonlit Night on the Spring River.” ....................................................................................................................... 31 Musical Example 3.9: The introduction passage of Zhang’s transcription. ............... 31 Musical Example 3.10: The trill ( ) should be played based on the note G........... 32 Musical Example 3.11: Transcription for violin of m. 2 of “A Moonlit Night on the Spring River.” ........................................................................................................... 32 Musical Example 3.12: The explanation of the use of the symbol (*). The (*) should be played like this musical example. ........................................................................ 33 Musical Example 3.13: Zhang’s transcription of m. 3 in “A Moonlit Night on the Spring River.” ........................................................................................................... 33 Musical Example 3.14: m. 3 in “A Moonlit Night on the Spring River.” ..................... 33 vi Musical Example 3.15: The suggested violin transcription of m. 3 in “A Moonlit Night on the Spring River.” ................................................................................................ 34 Musical Example 3.16: Zhang’s transcription without trill of m. 3 in “A Moonlit Night on the Spring River.” ................................................................................................ 34 Musical Example 3.17: Zhang’s transcription of m. 6 in “A Moonlit Night on the Spring River.” ........................................................................................................... 36 Musical Example 3.18: Zhang’s transcription of m. 23 in “A Moonlit Night on the Spring River.” ..........................................................................................................