Zhuang and the big Chinese music debate

[Charlie Huang]

This is part of the big debate of what direction the qin should be aiming for. GY wants it to be on par with the piano or any other Western instrument in terms of musicianship, and that presurposes that Western music is far more superior (technically) than Chinese music. I'm sure some of you have read Stephen's (i.e. UV2's) paper-cum-guidance notes on this subject matter.

I've said this before, GY's book is for those who wish to pursue the Western standard of qin play (whatever that means), and for most of us, unless we are all in a conservatory or are going to be in a conservatory, means nothing as we are incapable or do not want to pursue it to that level. IMO, we are all amateurs (inc. the old masters) and the only way you would term yourself as 'professional' is if you went through the conservatory route and came out like GY or LXT. Professionalism in qin is a modern invention.

It all boils down to what you fundamentally think about music.

[SCWGuqin]

Hezekiah: I like the passionate tone of your posts. I'd love a bit more fire in the world of qin discussion.

I respect GY's commitment to making the qin "like any other instrument"; what I don't respect, at a deep level, is the style of thinking and performing that prevails in the major conservatories. The conservatories are the product of both an inferiority complex vis-a-vis Western music and the ideological guidance of nationalism and socialism. This environment has brought some good things to the qin: I appreciate the increased technical level of players and their willingness to be more daring and experiment with foreign forms. But I think superficiality and misunderstanding lurk at every corner of the process.

I too wish to make the qin "like any other instrument", but for me this doesn't mean westernizing it in GY's explicit manner. Obviously we're flirting with a lot of major issues just by bringing these questions up; I address a number of them at www.scwguqin.com. In particular I continue to argue that qin players will learn more about their own art and how to improve it from Indian and other non-western classical systems than from received western classical music.

[hezekiahpipstraw]

utmostvacuity2 said:

Hezekiah: I like the passionate tone of your posts. I'd love a bit more fire in the world of qin discussion.

I've never thought of myself as a passionate writer, more as one who tries to make a point succinctly, and at school a master said I was too meek and mild for my own good.

I respect GY's commitment to making the qin "like any other instrument"; what I don't respect, at a deep level, is the style of thinking and performing that prevails in the major conservatories. The conservatories are the product of both an inferiority complex vis-a-vis Western music and the ideological guidance of nationalism and socialism. This environment has brought some good things to the qin: I appreciate the increased technical level of players and their willingness to be more daring and experiment with foreign forms. But I think superficiality and misunderstanding lurk at every corner of the process.

I'd agree with all of virtually all of that paragraph, except to ask for examples for your last sentence. What you say is clearly true of the way GY adopts western key theory without trying to say why he prefers it to traditional Chinese theory, but do you hear western influences in his playing?

I too wish to make the qin "like any other instrument", but for me this doesn't mean westernizing it in GY's explicit manner. Obviously we're flirting with a lot of major issues just by bringing these questions up; I address a number of them at www.scwguqin.com. In particular I continue to argue that qin players will learn more about their own art and how to improve it from Indian and other non-western classical systems than from received western classical music.

I can't comment about other non-western and non-Chinese systems because I've never looked into them, but I do have a strong un-thought-out prejudice in favour of taking Chinese music on its own terms. As far as I know there was, perhaps still is, a traditional Chinese way of describing Chinese music but, as you say, the conservatory system in China has abandoned it. One of CCC's YouTube friends is Tan Dun, so perhaps CCC could contact him and ask where to find the traditional concepts?

[Si]

You know,

I have just come from the first night of the 2 day qin concert in Shanghai. Tonight was all Dia Xiao Lins students (actualy most are lecturers already) performing.

About 1/3 of the peices were very modern. I was struck by how good the qin sounds in this very 20th century modernist style. Also how good chinese intruments can sound together in modern emsembles. Bright sheng / tan dun etc should look into this...

Its hard to discribe it but if I was to say "plickerty plonkerty", jabby, aggressive, short snatches of phrases, lots of poh-la, werid yan variations etc etc. You cant hum along to it, naturaly, as its modern avant garde, but if you like that sort of music then i think you will be impressed by what the qin can do in a very natural style

So I think there is an interesting future for the qin.



Also

[SCWGuqin]

H: "I'd agree with all of virtually all of that paragraph, except to ask for examples for your last sentence."

Some of this is going to depend on one's "taste"--i.e. simply whether one enjoys the products of the conservatories. The vast majority of "Chinese/national/ethnic music" existing today derives from that source, and obviously plenty of people find it interesting enough to make careers out of it. I do think that conservatory music is a priori more superficial than traditional qin music, because it TRIES to be. The decisions made in the 1950s and 60s continue to shape professional musicianship in China: an emphasis on Chinese folk music beefed up on Western (mainly Soviet romantic) steroids, harmonized ensemble music over solo, fully-scripted pre-packaged presentations over spontaneity, and technical perfection over individuality and variety. Feel free to take me up on any of these points. For now I'll ignore all conservatory music that doesn't have something to do with qin. The conservatory system has done two main things to qin: (1) modifying how individuals perform it solo, and (2) combining qin with various other instruments and ensembles. It is the opinion of most qin players I've known that (2) is generally a failure, even a grotesquerie. Slapdash harmonization and batteries of erhus imitating violins not only clash with the artistic character of qin music: by themselves they indicate a knee-jerk belief that Western practices are better than Chinese ones, resulting in hasty combinations that mock the artistic achievements of BOTH traditions. Again, take me up on any of these points. I'm keeping remarks brief for now, but I'm prepared to go on at length if there is interest.

H: "do you hear western influences in [Gong Yi's] playing?"

Gong Yi is the most westernized qin player I am aware of; his music is totally incomprehensible without that background. Years ago when I first argued this (and also for LXT), people were perplexed by my position, and they typically replied in terms of "well he plays traditional pieces, so that's traditional playing." Wrong. Playing a traditional piece is one thing; HOW you play it is quite another. Gong Yi plays in a fashion utterly different from those of hist teachers and contemporaries. If you listen long and hard and compare GY with other players, alive and dead, I think his priorities become clear: technical perfection, beautiful sound, and "communicating" to the audience. These priorities are relative, of course--I don't think they're absolutes for him, but his music stresses them more than anyone else's that I've heard. GY's music is PROFOUNDLY pre-packaged, non-spontaneous, and relatively simple in the areas of timbre, dynamics, and phrasing. The tonal beauty is staggering, but he seems to be more painting a picture for the audience than being earnest and exploratory, the way the qin is traditionally supposed to be played. While it's true there is a critical tone in my presentation here, the only point I wish to stress is that the Western influence is there, and it is extremely deep.

H: "As far as I know there was, perhaps still is, a traditional Chinese way of describing Chinese music"

Yes, but I've found it unsystematic and unhelpful. The lack of formal theory in Chinese music, and the preference for more subjective and poetic characterizations of music, is one of the themes on my website.

[hezekiahpipstraw]

utmostvacuity2 said:

H: "I'd agree with all of virtually all of that paragraph, except to ask for examples for your last sentence."

Some of this is going to depend on one's "taste"--i.e. simply whether one enjoys the products of the conservatories. The vast majority of "Chinese/national/ethnic music" existing today derives from that source, and obviously plenty of people find it interesting enough to make careers out of it. I do think that conservatory music is a priori more superficial than traditional qin music, because it TRIES to be. The decisions made in the 1950s and 60s continue to shape professional musicianship in China: an emphasis on Chinese folk music beefed up on Western (mainly Soviet romantic) steroids, harmonized ensemble music over solo, fully-scripted pre-packaged presentations over spontaneity, and technical perfection over individuality and variety. Feel free to take me up on any of these points. For now I'll ignore all conservatory music that doesn't have something to do with qin. The conservatory system has done two main things to qin: (1) modifying how individuals perform it solo, and (2) combining qin with various other instruments and ensembles. It is the opinion of most qin players I've known that (2) is generally a failure, even a grotesquerie. Slapdash harmonization and batteries of erhus imitating violins not only clash with the artistic character of qin music: by themselves they indicate a knee-jerk belief that Western practices are better than Chinese ones, resulting in hasty combinations that mock the artistic achievements of BOTH traditions. Again, take me up on any of these points. I'm keeping remarks brief for now, but I'm prepared to go on at length if there is interest.

I think the situation is more complex than you describe. First, as to the role of the conservatories: yes GY, LXT and others of the 60-ish generation are the products of conservatories, but their teachers were taught by the traditional methods (as indeed was GY before he got to Shanghai) by people who learned to play during the Qing Dynasty. It's quite possible indeed that LXT, etc., knew their musical 'grandparents' and were directly influenced by them, so there's a question as to how far we can attibute all the changes to the influence of conservatories. What effect did attitudes like Kuttner's have (for example on p. 233 of his "The Archaeology of Music in Ancient China", where he refers to a qin player and teacher named, apparently with approval in Lieberman's 'highly scholarly book on the modern history of the ch'in' and then goes on, 'His playing in public and his teaching of students, both on Chinese and Western Instruments, was simply awful and incompetent'.) And then there were the Cultural Revolution and finally commercial pressures. LXT and GY in particular rely on public performance and record sales for a significant parts of their income (though in GY's case less so now than in the past, if the reports of his teaching activities are true). GY was employed for much of his carrer by the Shanghai Traditional Chinese Orchestra and had to do what he was told.

Then what is wrong with pursuing technical excellence and why should it be seen as a reaction to western influences? In painting there has been for centuries a tension between gongbi-hua and xieyi-hua, and we have the contrast between the relatively xieyi style of much Ming pottery and the relatively gongbi style of Qing. And John Thompsong has a link to an article by James Watt (http://www.silkqin.com/10ideo/wattart.htm) which implicitly uses the same analogy, but with explicit reference to the qin.

The summary, I suppose, is that I don't dispute at all that players like GY and LXT have a very different style from may others and from each other, but do question how far that is the effect of western influences imposed by conservatories. And I certainly don't oppose technical perfection in itself. Zha Fuxi was famous for his Xiao Xiang, qin players used to call him Zha Xiao Xiang because of it, but would his version of it not have been even better if, other things being equal, his technique had been better? And would Joan Sutherland have been as great a singer as she was, had her technique been poorer?

H: "As far as I know there was, perhaps still is, a traditional Chinese way of describing Chinese music"

Yes, but I've found it unsystematic and unhelpful. The lack of formal theory in Chinese music, and the preference for more subjective and poetic characterizations of music, is one of the themes on my website.

Isn't it possible that this is one of the reasons LXT and GY, etc., have a different style from traditional players?

[Charlie Huang]

Tan Dun is not my 'friend' but an 'internet-friend-who-I-have-never-met-or-spoke-to-or-corresponded-with'. Nuff said.

Back to the topic in question. TBH, I don't think the qin should develop because we want it to fit a certain cake-mould or conform to other expectations; it should develop because we want to discover more of what it can do.

Personally, the sole reason why I like the qin above all others is because it is totally different from other music and not because I want to impress others on a rendition of Toccata and Fugue in D Minor on the qin (you learn pipe organ for that, otherwise you are simply using nail-clippers to mown the lawn). It's the other way round for trying to transcribe Chinese pieces onto Western instruments (trying to paint eyelashes with a 12" paint brush).
The point of it all is that hoop-jumping pleases others and not necessary yourself. Big generalisation, but people should look to new methods rather than simply copying the manifesto of the Western tradition.

[SCWGuqin]

There's an interesting recurrent tension in posts about westernization in qin music. (And probably Chinese music in general.) On the one hand we are all motivated to keep level heads and stick mainly to a descriptive level--on the other, however, it's impossible to proceed without revealing value judgments yea-and-nay for the various developments, because if we didn't have feelings of that kind we probably wouldn't care about the topic in the first place. Value judgments about 20th-century developments in Chinese music will involve our feelings about many kinds of music, some realized and some still hypothetical: (1) "traditional" or "authentic" Chinese music, (2) where that music "could" go under its own artistic guidance, (3) "western" music as a (3a) performing and (3b) theoretical tradition, (4) "real/sophisticated" western music vs. "soviet romantic vomit", etc. I think it's necessary to be upfront with our feelings since that characterizes what's "at stake" in the discussion. I only specify this because the last time this online qin community tried to debate the merits of 20th-century developments, the discussion sank under the weight of "face-saving" and discomfort with criticism.

As far as most Chinese people are concerned, there are two kinds of music: Western and Chinese, where Western includes everything on the classical-pop spectrum. Chinese people, being barely aware of their own indigenous music traditions, certainly don't have time for Indian, or Middle Eastern, or gamelan, or Japanese, or pre-classical Western, or any other sophisticated music tradition originating outside the demesne of European colonial imperialism. Many times I have been asked if I am interested in doing Western music on the qin, or in accepting Western influences. For my questioners this seems equivalent to "are you interested in doing new/non-traditional music". The very first opinion I wish to register is that it is imperative for people around the world (not just in China), to escape the unilateral legacy of the imperialist centuries and to realize the diversity of sophisticated "classical" cultural expressions still existing in the world. Let's face it: to the extent that Western music has done a deep makeover on Chinese music in the past 100 years, that has less to do with any "intrinsic", "absolute" merits of Western music in a comparative setting, and more to do with the dominance of the West in political, economic, and technological terms--which has brought with it the *assumption* of intellectual and cultural superiority. I think it's important to imagine yourself 100 years ago, at the height of European dominance and all its attendant ideas, including the race for progress and racial theories of history. One prominent Chinese music reformer (I forget his name) opined that there is no Western or Chinese music -- only more-developed and less-developed music. The very terms of such discussion are driven by cultural politics and nationalist sentiment rather than by serious dedication to musical and aesthetic study.

The fact is that, compared against the theoretical and performing edifice of Western classical music, much of the indigenous Chinese tradition does seem rather "shoddy". Surely this comes in part from imposing Western expectations on Chinese practice, but it also depends on the nature and restricted range of classicism in Chinese musical culture. Simply put, when it comes to "serious", "theoretical" music demanding of attention to detail and lofty ideas--there is the qin and nothing else. For Chinese music 100 years ago, I think this is a relatively unproblematic statement. Other classical expressions existed in Chinese music (as for instance in some pipa and zheng playing), but they depended for inspiration on qin music, and were typically considered inferior to it within their own milieux. The profound privacy of the qin tradition meant that there was no tradition of brilliant, gripping concert performance like in the West; its profound differences from Western music, furthermore, would not have encouraged easy understanding and assimilation.

So, if we want to hypostatize, in 1900 Chinese elites would have had two kinds of classicism as options: the qin, and whatever Western music was available to them. Now I am pretty sure that every person who posts on this forum is in love with the first kind of classicism: whatever indigenous Chinese classicism continues to be represented in qin music. The conservatories may have modified this music, but its essential identity remains. As for Western classical music, this term by itself covers a huge range. I have no quarrel with the great works and techniques and potentials of much of the Western classical world. My main concern in the case of Chinese music modernization is that the best of Western classicism was *not absorbed*. This is more a hunch of mine than a considered statement, since while I know more than the person on the street, I consider myself an outsider to Western music. I think it is difficult to deny, however, that the "Westernization" that prevailed at least through the 1970s in China was a very ideologically circumscribed Westernization that was basically equivalent to Sovietification. While I haven't done much reading, I think it would probably be fascinating to compare music policy under the CCP and Soviet regimes, since similar forces must have been at play. (In one area I do know there's overlap: both regimes "defined" cultures for their minorities that those minorities never really had...take note, performers of Chun Feng!) Since qin music was so inaccessible to people in general, Chinese folk music was the music that took center stage here. Generations of reformers (starting no later than Liu Tianhua) worked to invest sophistication and expanded artistic range in a basically folk idiom. The result was the "min yue" that we all have so much of today: harmonized ensemble scoring, equal-tempered instruments, technical professionalization, and other basically Western practices...on top of folk ditties. Or tunes not far removed from folk ditties. As I see it, it would be virtually impossible for most Western classicists to take this music seriously, since the Western music establishment does not see its main goal as doing revamped folk music.

Bear in mind that I recognize some composers are better than others--the students of Chou Wen-chung, for instance, I put at least a cut above anyone producing the kind of music just described. Here I'll confess that I don't have systematic knowledge of what goes on in "min yue" outside of qin, and am relying on (repeated and insistent) impressions more than deep investigation. If what I've said so far holds, however, mainstream Chinese conservatory "min yue" is hardly classical by Western standards, and of course even less classical by Chinese standards. The foisting of labels like "classical", "traditional", and "ancient" on this music has mainly relied on widespread ignorance about Chinese music within China itself, and certainly abroad.

Now that I've painted a picture of the "options" facing Chinese musicians these days, it's time to make clear my own preferences:
(1) "traditional" or "authentic" Chinese classical music, as represented, say, by the old silk-string masters. I think it has some limitations, and I certainly don't want to imitate all the precedents--but generally I love it. No, not just love it: revere it, and look to it for wisdom and wonder.
(2) where that music "could" go under its own artistic guidance: even better. I think the aesthetic, structural, intellectual, etc. principles conveyed in Chinese classical music have enormous potential, and can yield limitless even more interesting music as each musician figures out her own preferences within the field. In (2) would fall the more professionalized qin players alive today, who aren't exactly "authentic" in the 100-years-ago sense, but are in many cases "extending the pattern" set earlier, sometimes at an abstract level.
(3) Western classical music, defined normatively as the highest- of the high-art. I'm unusual in just not being very attracted to this music, but I accord it high respect and intend to come to it "eventually". If there's one concern I have relevant to this area, it's that people educate themselves about other forms of classicism in the world, to avoid reflexively comparing everything to a Western basis.
(4) The parts of the Western music tradition adopted by the Chinese conservatory tradition: perhaps this is best conveyed by my phrase from earlier, "Soviet romantic vomit". Enough said. In the area of qin music--I'm sorry, Gong Yi, most of those ensemble arrangements are simply atrocious. Your Jiu Kuang is fake-fake-fake, your Chun Feng is a mockery of the maqam traditions (go look that word up, people), and Mei Yuan Yin is about the best your preferred compositional idiom will ever do. At least Li Xiangting stopped playing his "Revolutionary" pieces after a certain point.

It's taken me a while to reach the present formulation--I probably wouldn't have reached it without writing this long post! The problem is not "Westernization" or "Western classical music," the problem is "Soviet romantic vomit". Hah, there!

This was all a very long attempt at framing/answering H's most recent post. You ask mainly why certain things like technical perfection should be considered Western in origin. Now that I think about it, they don't need to. I think there are ways you could derive the desirability of technical perfection from a Chinese perspective. However, as history played out, the level of technical perfection represented by the GY/WWG mould developed as an explicit act of Westernization.

I could say more, but I'll await replies. H: You seem to have a special interest and knowledge of GY's career. Have you studied with him (or something) at some point?

[hezekiahpipstraw]

admin said:

Tan Dun is not my 'friend' but an 'internet-friend-who-I-have-never-met-or-spoke-to-or-corresponded-with'. Nuff said.

It was intended as a flippant, throw-away remark. Nothing serious meant.

[hezekiahpipstraw]

utmostvacuity2 said:

There's an interesting recurrent tension in posts about westernization in qin music. (And probably Chinese music in general.) On the one hand we are all motivated to keep level heads and stick mainly to a descriptive level--on the other, however, it's impossible to proceed without revealing value judgments yea-and-nay for the various developments, because if we didn't have feelings of that kind we probably wouldn't care about the topic in the first place. Value judgments about 20th-century developments in Chinese music will involve our feelings about many kinds of music, some realized and some still hypothetical: (1) "traditional" or "authentic" Chinese music, (2) where that music "could" go under its own artistic guidance, (3) "western" music as a (3a) performing and (3b) theoretical tradition, (4) "real/sophisticated" western music vs. "soviet romantic vomit", etc. I think it's necessary to be upfront with our feelings since that characterizes what's "at stake" in the discussion. I only specify this because the last time this online qin community tried to debate the merits of 20th-century developments, the discussion sank under the weight of "face-saving" and discomfort with criticism.

A very good point. To start this off, I see no contradiction in the co-existence of traditional, modern of ‘fusion’ music of any kind. I listen to most kinds of western music (Moondog while I’m writing this, but also Bach and the Beatles, Bob Marley and Charlie Mingus), and a variety of world music other than the qin. Some I find harder than others, but the problem there is me, not the music. An as to how the music should develop, that’s a matter for its practitioners. If they take a wrong turning, and wholesale westernisation is one, they should be able to find their way back. I believe there is evidence of this already in Taiwan and Singapore, where there’s said to have been an upsurge of interest in things Chinese.

As far as most Chinese people are concerned, there are two kinds of music: Western and Chinese, where Western includes everything on the classical-pop spectrum. Chinese people, being barely aware of their own indigenous music traditions, certainly don't have time for Indian, or Middle Eastern, or gamelan, or Japanese, or pre-classical Western, or any other sophisticated music tradition originating outside the demesne of European colonial imperialism. Many times I have been asked if I am interested in doing Western music on the qin, or in accepting Western influences. For my questioners this seems equivalent to "are you interested in doing new/non-traditional music". The very first opinion I wish to register is that it is imperative for people around the world (not just in China), to escape the unilateral legacy of the imperialist centuries and to realize the diversity of sophisticated "classical" cultural expressions still existing in the world. Let's face it: to the extent that Western music has done a deep makeover on Chinese music in the past 100 years, that has less to do with any "intrinsic", "absolute" merits of Western music in a comparative setting, and more to do with the dominance of the West in political, economic, and technological terms--which has brought with it the *assumption* of intellectual and cultural superiority. I think it's important to imagine yourself 100 years ago, at the height of European dominance and all its attendant ideas, including the race for progress and racial theories of history. One prominent Chinese music reformer (I forget his name) opined that there is no Western or Chinese music -- only more-developed and less-developed music. The very terms of such discussion are driven by cultural politics and nationalist sentiment rather than by serious dedication to musical and aesthetic study.

And yet China, Korea and Japan suffered very much less foreign imperial power within their own territories and for a much shorter time than India or Africa, but India and Africa seem to have maintained strong indigenous musics which have been relatively little affected by the imperialists’ traditions. It is true that the imperialists assumed their own superiority, but ‘the Raj’ and Africa denied it whereas China and Japan seem to have adopted the imperialists’ assumptions. There’s surely room for sociological research here.

Simply put, when it comes to "serious", "theoretical" music demanding of attention to detail and lofty ideas--there is the qin and nothing else. For Chinese music 100 years ago, I think this is a relatively unproblematic statement. Other classical expressions existed in Chinese music (as for instance in some pipa and zheng playing), but they depended for inspiration on qin music, and were typically considered inferior to it within their own milieux. The profound privacy of the qin tradition meant that there was no tradition of brilliant, gripping concert performance like in the West; its profound differences from Western music, furthermore, would not have encouraged easy understanding and assimilation.

Again I’m not convinced this is a problem that’s related solely to the contrast between the qin (or Chinese music in general) and Western music. Think of Tang Dynasty “Fei Qin” poem (can’t recall off-hand who wrote it). And also the attention paid to detailed accuracy of singing playing in the Shuo-chang genre(s), which were untouched by foreign influences.

So, if we want to hypostatize, in 1900 Chinese elites would have had two kinds of classicism as options: the qin, and whatever Western music was available to them. Now I am pretty sure that every person who posts on this forum is in love with the first kind of classicism: whatever indigenous Chinese classicism continues to be represented in qin music. The conservatories may have modified this music, but its essential identity remains. As for Western classical music, this term by itself covers a huge range. I have no quarrel with the great works and techniques and potentials of much of the Western classical world. My main concern in the case of Chinese music modernization is that the best of Western classicism was *not absorbed*.

I agree, and what was absorbed was applied clumsily. Key-based heptatonic harmony was applied to pentatonic modal music, but the same thing happened in Europe too, among the less well-qualified composers.

This is more a hunch of mine than a considered statement, since while I know more than the person on the street, I consider myself an outsider to Western music. I think it is difficult to deny, however, that the "Westernization" that prevailed at least through the 1970s in China was a very ideologically circumscribed Westernization that was basically equivalent to Sovietification. While I haven't done much reading, I think it would probably be fascinating to compare music policy under the CCP and Soviet regimes, since similar forces must have been at play. (In one area I do know there's overlap: both regimes "defined" cultures for their minorities that those minorities never really had...take note, performers of Chun Feng!) Since qin music was so inaccessible to people in general, Chinese folk music was the music that took center stage here. Generations of reformers (starting no later than Liu Tianhua) worked to invest sophistication and expanded artistic range in a basically folk idiom. The result was the "min yue" that we all have so much of today: harmonized ensemble scoring, equal-tempered instruments, technical professionalization, and other basically Western practices...on top of folk ditties. Or tunes not far removed from folk ditties. As I see it, it would be virtually impossible for most Western classicists to take this music seriously, since the Western music establishment does not see its main goal as doing revamped folk music.

Several points here, not contradictory but supplementary: the definition of the dominant culture was also similar. Under both regimes brutal leaderships used the ‘heroification’ of the ‘masses’ as a way to influence their subjects. The USSR’s stakhanovites were paralleled by China’s Lei Fengs and ‘heroes of the working class’. And I believe the western influence began as long ago as when the Harvard-Yanching University was set up, but this is something I’d have to look into. It may even date back to when the Jesuits gave the emperor a harpsichord and other western instruments.

Bear in mind that I recognize some composers are better than others--the students of Chou Wen-chung, for instance, I put at least a cut above anyone producing the kind of music just described. Here I'll confess that I don't have systematic knowledge of what goes on in "min yue" outside of qin, and am relying on (repeated and insistent) impressions more than deep investigation. If what I've said so far holds, however, mainstream Chinese conservatory "min yue" is hardly classical by Western standards, and of course even less classical by Chinese standards. The foisting of labels like "classical", "traditional", and "ancient" on this music has mainly relied on widespread ignorance about Chinese music within China itself, and certainly abroad.

Now that I've painted a picture of the "options" facing Chinese musicians these days, it's time to make clear my own preferences:
(1) "traditional" or "authentic" Chinese classical music, as represented, say, by the old silk-string masters. I think it has some limitations, and I certainly don't want to imitate all the precedents--but generally I love it. No, not just love it: revere it, and look to it for wisdom and wonder.
(2) where that music "could" go under its own artistic guidance: even better. I think the aesthetic, structural, intellectual, etc. principles conveyed in Chinese classical music have enormous potential, and can yield limitless even more interesting music as each musician figures out her own preferences within the field. In (2) would fall the more professionalized qin players alive today, who aren't exactly "authentic" in the 100-years-ago sense, but are in many cases "extending the pattern" set earlier, sometimes at an abstract level.
(3) Western classical music, defined normatively as the highest- of the high-art. I'm unusual in just not being very attracted to this music, but I accord it high respect and intend to come to it "eventually". If there's one concern I have relevant to this area, it's that people educate themselves about other forms of classicism in the world, to avoid reflexively comparing everything to a Western basis.
(4) The parts of the Western music tradition adopted by the Chinese conservatory tradition: perhaps this is best conveyed by my phrase from earlier, "Soviet romantic vomit". Enough said. In the area of qin music--I'm sorry, Gong Yi, most of those ensemble arrangements are simply atrocious.

Tell it not in Gath, but I couldn’t agree more. On the other hand most of them date from his time at the Shanghai Orchestra, which only ended about 5-6 years ago.

Your Jiu Kuang is fake-fake-fake, your Chun Feng is a mockery of the maqam traditions (go look that word up, people), and Mei Yuan Yin is about the best your preferred compositional idiom will ever do. At least Li Xiangting stopped playing his "Revolutionary" pieces after a certain point.

Another supplement: Jiu Kuang is thought by some to be a sinicised version of a piece brought in under the jiubu or shibu of the Tang dynasty. A bit like some of the ‘minority peoples’ music’ now available.

It's taken me a while to reach the present formulation--I probably wouldn't have reached it without writing this long post! The problem is not "Westernization" or "Western classical music," the problem is "Soviet romantic vomit". Hah, there!

This was all a very long attempt at framing/answering H's most recent post. You ask mainly why certain things like technical perfection should be considered Western in origin. Now that I think about it, they don't need to. I think there are ways you could derive the desirability of technical perfection from a Chinese perspective. However, as history played out, the level of technical perfection represented by the GY/WWG mould developed as an explicit act of Westernization.

I could say more, but I'll await replies. H: You seem to have a special interest and knowledge of GY's career. Have you studied with him (or something) at some point?

I have indeed spent some time with GY and with some of his critics, and have read up about him too. Maybe I’ll add something about him to Charlie’s Wiki magnum opus.

[hezekiahpipstraw]

utmostvacuity2 said:

(In one area I do know there's overlap: both regimes "defined" cultures for their minorities that those minorities never really had...take note, performers of Chun Feng!)

uv2: Just listened to Charlie's Chun Feng again on MyTube. Clearly not at all Han. Sounds Xinjiang to my ear. What's your view about its affiliations/ancestry?

[SCWGuqin]

1. Charlie: Have you heard GY play this piece? He plays it *MUCH* faster, with considerably different rhythms. (Which means I guess the notation wasn't accurate...)

2. It's imitative of Xinjiang Uighur music. Another qin piece that does this is Loulan San. Pieces imitative of minority music are of course a staple in the modern Han musical world. While I'm not sure it's still vibrant--in fact, I'm guessing it's been plowed under--Xinjiang in the past had a classical tradition deriving from Persia and Central Asia. I bring up Chun Feng because I feel that if a Han musician wants to learn about Uighur music, she should actually study it from a Uighur perspective, which would involve learning all the complicated modes and practices associated with the pan-Middle-Eastern classical umbrella. Obviously conservatory musicians don't do this, offering Soviet-style romantic evocations. This is similar to an old Hollywood soundtrack doing "Arabian music" which is really nothing more than a stereotyped scale.

cf: www.silk-road.com/newsletter/vol3num1/3_uyghur.php

[hezekiahpipstraw]

I was in Korla 4/5 years ago and you could certainly buy authentic recordings then. Don't know what the situation is now.

Have you compared GY's playing with the notation (p.284 of the green book)?

[Si]

I qin player recently told me that shen ren chang is also "minority" music (as chinese term it). When i heard a GY plus ensemble recording of it i also though it did sound rather percussive.

[SCWGuqin]

I think the idea that Shen Ren Chang, Gu Feng Cao, and even Jiu Kuang (as somebody mentioned) are "minority music" is ridiculous. What are the reasons given in each case? (1) non-pentatonic notes, and (2) percussiveness or dance-like-ness. Whoever thinks (1) means something is characteristically non-Han obviously hasn't studied the earliest repertoire enough, which is full of non-pentatonic notes. (I mean, consider You Lan!) As for (2), a percussive feeling in earlier music probably derives from the fact that older qin scores emphasize more complex right-hand fingering with relatively simpler left-hand ornaments. This is a well documented historical trend and has nothing to do with specifiable non-Han influences.

[Si]

LXT was easily the best performer in tonights concert. A strong energetic performance of Flowing Water.

I can see now what UMV2 says about GY. His mist and clouds over XX was quite flat tonight (not hate mail - just what I saw).

[SCWGuqin]

Sometimes I wonder about the "next generation" of qin talent. GY and LXT still command the headlines. But they have students who are in their forties and fifties now, with quite a bit of accomplishment behind them--and of their names we scarcely ever hear. Is this about reverence for the oldest, or is it prestige of position, or is the next generation just not that remarkable?

[Charlie Huang]

It seems tonight is a full moon or something cos I am in danger of being thrown out of the so-called qin community (not the first time, mind you) again! Oh well, I give not a toss anymore.

Chun Feng: I did see GY play it, but I chose to play it slower and in my own interpratation of it rather than follow the score like a robot. I've given up on it already coz people seem to have an expectation that it MUST sound exactly like GY's playing/tempo/etc in order for it to be good and that alone made me rather livid just thinking about it. I don't play it anymore and have given up trying to learn modern pieces because I feel they are some technical excecise in faffery rather than a good ol' piece of qin music that I have grown to love and cherish like one's own pillow. Same thing that I said here, hoop-jumping makes me cringe.

I know I sound like a pro-traditionalist but I am waiting, still waiting, for something modern in qin that will pop up and pleasantly surprise me. Hell, if I could accept rap, hip-hop and whatever disgruntled teenage arse-wipe music that has graced my ears, then it means I could also subcum to new qin music. And since I am a seasoned listerner to good and bad music, my expectations a very high.

Also, don't touch my article. Believe me, you don't want to. I wish I hadn't touched it in the first place... However, feel free to write in the GY article on wiki as that article has nothing to do with me whatsoever.

I agree with Stephen on GFC, SRC, etc. Not minority music at all. And I find the label 'minority' misleading to say the least. And I really deteasted the stereo-typical 'Chinese music' used in some films/animations/etc that sounds like a child being let loose on some pots and pans. WTF? Even the CJK triangle is guilty of this! But I'll forgive them for reasons of ignorance...

I think being old is enough to demand reverence. I'm sure some of us heard about that incident a few months back on this forum (sorry for dragging old issues back up; please do not talk about it expect by PM) but that old player is untouchable. Hell, we come back to the big hypocrisy of old vs modern practice.

IMO, we should screw everything and concern more about ourselves and our music than try to enter the intrigues!

[Charlie Huang]

Pardon the tone of my last post. It has been building up that I have to vent my spleen. That and the fact that I missed Doctor Who this evening because of the hoo-harr...

[Si]

Oh no, I watched the first few episodes on the first new season and found it reminded me of all the annoying things I remember as a Child.

Why is Dro Who nearly always just so happening to land on planet earth when there are so many other worlds out there not to mention the whole of TIME its self. Haahaha

[Si]

Sometimes I wonder about the "next generation" of qin talent. GY and LXT still command the headlines. But they have students who are in their forties and fifties now, with quite a bit of accomplishment behind them--and of their names we scarcely ever hear.

I will scan the concert programme, then anyone that can read chinese might be able to see who will be big in the future. (Thats only the Shanghai school though)

I suppose its only after you have a chunk of years behind you that you will get the highest respect in China . I suppose even 1000 years ago only the older players would be treated with high respect too - seems to fit the guqin world somehow. Having a brash daring group of rebels does not seems appropriate yet.

[hezekiahpipstraw]

syburn said:

Sometimes I wonder about the "next generation" of qin talent. GY and LXT still command the headlines. But they have students who are in their forties and fifties now, with quite a bit of accomplishment behind them--and of their names we scarcely ever hear.

I suppose its only after you have a chunk of years behind you that you will get the highest respect in China . I suppose even 1000 years ago only the older players would be treated with high respect too - seems to fit the guqin world somehow. Having a brash daring group of rebels does not seems appropriate yet.

Still true as recently as the 1950's. Mt father in law NEVER called his own father 'ba' or 'die' or any of the other terms that modern children use. It was always 'stand to attention, with a slight bow' and the form of address was 'fuqin'.

[Charlie Huang]

Syburn: Hardly. Xi Kang was a rebel IMO, yet he is so exalted.

Have you watched Torchwood yet (i.e. Doctor Who spin-off for mature audiences)? Tis very good.