Instrumental Music in China: Construction of Nation and National Music Week V Construction of National Music ( 國樂, Guoyue) in China 樂團, Yuetuan (Orchestra/Ensemble) • Ensemble Music in Ancient Chinese Courts Han Dynasty (206 BC-220 AD) – Court Ritual Music (Yayue) • Chinese instruments: bronze bells, stone chimes, zithers, and bamboo flutes – Court Entertainment Music (for ceremonies and banquets) • Mixed with those of foreign origins: lutes and dulcimer. – Court Processional Music (for outdoor marches) • Predominantly Guchui : drums, double-reed wind instruments, and various percussion instruments 國樂, Guoyue • first appeared in Music Record of the History of Liao Dynasty (14th century)—Yu Siuwah • Music of the Khitan vs. Han Chinese • During Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), it referred to a kind of court ceremonial music considered as “representation of China.” • From Republican era, it largely and loosely included any music written for Chinese instruments. • Nationalistic Consciousness • Part of Nation-Building Project (Han majority’s music) Ethnic Diversity in China Cultural Diversity among Han Homogeneity (Nation-State) Heterogeneity (Regional + Minority Identities) National Han Language, 國語 Guóyǔ + Unintelligible Dialects & Diverse National Minority Cultural Difference: Performing food, economic or Arts, Guoyue Languages industrial identity, aesthetics , (Orchestra; performance Opera) cultures, History: where Imaginations they came from vs where they are Ensemble Music in China • Sizhu: silk and bamboo • Logu: gongs and drums • Chuida (quida): winds and percussion, mostly processional/outdoor music String and Bamboo Music cultures • Teahouse soundscape • Amateur Musicianship – Egalitarian, casual relationship – Learning and performing as club members – Intellectual, leisure activities • Improvisational Music – Unimportance of notation – Individual rendition • Rhythmic, melodic, and tempo flexibility Jiahua Expansions of Lao Liuban *Chaozhou Xianshi • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjCmXS NFOfE • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQeNTY vZHxY No Wind Instrument *Guangdong Yinyue • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGkhCpa HuVQ Hebei Chuige • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIIvwyw LpwI • Songs for Wind (view from 17:30) Break Map out the list of music ensembles shown on the next slide! Building Guoyuetuan in 20th Century Modern Chinese Orchestra Birth of MCO • Decline of ensemble music • Western music • May 4th Movement (Next Slide) • Building national culture based on “Han” identity – Jiangnan Sizhu May 4th Movement (1917-21) • Youth intellectual movement for social reformation • Criticism on traditional cultures such as the strong practice of Confucianism, traditional Chinese ethics, and exclusion of women • Need of new social and political institutions • Influenced by Western enlightenment spirit: particularly science, democracy, liberalism, pragmatism, nationalism, and socialism. • Against foreign imperial power, particularly that of Japan. • Protest on 4th May, 1919. • Young intelligentia with modern education became influential voices and leaders in China’s subsequent political developments. • As the historian Li Dingyi points out: The tidal wave produced by the May 4th Movement soon passed, but men whose hearts were bent on saving the nation still continued to look for reasons why, ever since the Opium War, successive reforms and revolutions had never been able to bring the nation from weakness to strength and prosperity. They reached the conclusion that it was traditional Chinese culture that was the chief obstacle in the way of China's achievement of strength and prosperity. They therefore put forward the idea that traditional Chinese culture should be overthrown and that if the new culture of the West were received, China would be saved. Out of this came the "New Culture Movement." (Li, D. 1970: 327) From Han Kuo-Huang (1979, 12) Modernization in Chinese Way Chinese Instruments Musical Pieces -Standardization -Fixed compositions -Equal temperament Re-arrangement of old sound -Precise intonation New compositions -Harmony -Grand orchestra + -Ensemble or solo+ensemble (Conductor) Jiangnan Sizhu • Tea house music Teahouse Music Tea house • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbf7DUg dX7k Concert Hall • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TcVJViS ksY Modern Chinese Orchestra (MCO) Minzu Yuetuan or Guoyuetuan Watch, MCO examples “Dance of the Golden Sanake” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1x5TeFkR6qI&list=RD1x5Te FkR6qI&start_radio=1&t=35 (view from 1:50) “梁祝” (Butterfly Lovers) Erhu Concerto 指揮/閻惠昌 二胡/孫凰 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tu5XohUR3Pg (view from 2:05) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFaQiR4vX_M (view from 2:07) MCO (1935) • Jiangnan sizhu + Western symphonic orchestra Old Chinese Music Modern Chinese Music Numerous versions of instruments Standardization and New Instruments (for (Chinese) high and low tones) Small ensemble setting Grand orchestra Teahouse music Concert hall Re-interpretations of existing repertoire New compositions, new arrangements Individual characters Uniformity, preciseness as a group Monophony and heterophony Homophony and polyphony Amateurism Professionalism Regional identity National Culture More Guoyue Development of Solo Instrumental Music 1912, Republic of China End of Monarchy 1919, May 4th Movement Anti Imperialism Civil War 1949, PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA SOCIAL REFORMATION (COMMUNIST GOVT.) MUSIC AND ARTS REVISED BASED ON CHAIRMAN MAO’S TALK Mao Zedong, “TALKS AT THE YENAN FORUM ON LITERATURE AND ART” http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected- works/volume-3/mswv3_08.htm • Since the audience for our literature and art consists of workers, peasants and soldiers and of their cadres, the problem arises of understanding them and knowing them well. A great deal of work has to be done in order to understand them and know them well, to understand and know well all the different kinds of people and phenomena in the Party and government organizations, in the villages and factories and in the Eighth Route and New Fourth Armies. Our writers and artists have their literary and art work to do, but their primary task is to understand people and know them well. In this regard, how have matters stood with our writers and artists? I would say they have been lacking in knowledge and understanding; they have been like "a hero with no place to display his prowess". What does lacking in knowledge mean? Not knowing people well. The writers and artists do not have a good knowledge either of those whom they describe or of their audience; indeed they may hardly know them at all. They do not know the workers or peasants or soldiers well, and do not know the cadres well either (May 1942). Social-Cultural Reformation during the Communist Revolution – Who is the Center of Arts? • MASS!: WORKERS , PEASANTS, and Soldiers • Music for Social Mass (Working class) – Folk Tradition (among many “traditions”) – Re-invention of Chinese Traditional Arts (progressiveness) – Dizi was one of the folk instruments promoted at the time: • Regional, ensemble instrument to SOLO instrument (dizi) • Solo music were only for guqin, erhu, and pipa but not yetfor dizi Development of Solo Dizi Music From a Folk Instrument to a National Sound Dizi Dizi – Folk instrument – Institutionalization—Music Conservatory • New Context for its Teaching and Learning – From Teahouse to Concert Hall – Folk Amateur Musician to Virtuoso Instrumentalist • Development of Performance Repertoire – Re-composition by means of Chinese “folk” materials. • Folk Amateur Musician to Virtuoso Instrumentalist (Feng Zicun; Lu Chunling) • Two dizi schools: • North: Errentai—regional music drama • South: Sizhu—regional ensemble music • Northern School (Feng Zicun) – rapid portamento, glissando, flutter tonguing – disjunctive melody with large intervallic leaps – short melodic phrases – “Wubangzi” (Five Clappers) – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QxXn4tj80A • Southern School (Lu Chunling) – trills, appoggiatura, contrasting dynamics – conjunctive melody – melodic augmentation and ornamentation – “Zhegufei” (Flight of the Partridge) – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Xft92cJB6Y – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UG8D1zyqYFU • Dizi Solo • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxsOks4V 35w • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7eA8YCB1 q6I&feature=related Musical Changes and Chinese National Music • New Repertoire for Chinese Instruments (Sound) • Performance Practices (Behavior) – Regional Ensemble to National Solo Music – Conservatory – Concert Hall for Mass Audiences • Ideas about Music (Concept) Status of music and musicians Professionalization Notes on Post-1949 Dizi Music • What we perceive as old and traditional Chinese dizi music are actually new compositions made in the late 20th century. • Many new compositions were made to support for political rhetoric: – Mannianhong (Forever Red); Mumin Xinge (New Songs for the Shepherds); Changzi Shange Gaidangting (Sing a Mountain Song to the Party) – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCv5kUq9rac • Musical transformation from a simple-structured music to highly complex music Tradition is . • ‘Traditions’ which appear or claim to be old are often quite recent in origin and sometimes invented. The term ‘invented tradition’ . includes both ‘traditions’ actually invented, constructed and formally instituted, and those emerging in a less easily traceable manner within a brief and dateable period . and establishing themselves with great rapidity (In The Ivention of Tradition by Eric Hobsbawm). When you read Fred Lau’s article,