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Post by SCWGuqin on Jul 11, 2007 22:33:18 GMT
As Charlie suggested, Westerners are not the ones concerned that Chinese music Westernize...
I remember one zheng player advertising herself as utilizing the zheng "like a grand piano, from ppp to fff". Again I suspect that this increases respect and wow-factor among Chinese audiences, not Western ones.
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Post by guzhenglover on Jul 12, 2007 3:59:56 GMT
TBH, I don't think Westerners would be concerned about whether the qin is on par or not. Look at the other Chinese instruments. They have been professionalised and yet Westerners hardly bat much of an eyelid so how would converting one notation system to another for the qin fare the instrument any better? "Professionalise"? I like that word! Anyway I agree with you guys. I do. however, think that there's room to improve guqin notation, somehow, though I don't have a solution and I am fond of traditional qin notation. This debate reminds me of the debate over the written Chinese language i.e. whether it should be simplified and, if so, to what extent. Should Pingyin take over, or should traditional characters be retained? Etc. etc. |
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Post by charliecharlieecho on Jul 12, 2007 6:44:48 GMT
I've tried using a pinyin variation of tablature but it takes as much time to memorise as the tablature does. Why? Does t stand for tuo or tiao? is fu a gun-fu fu or the fu where you damp the strings? how do you make a proper distinction?
GY's book aims to use guzheng notation for right-hand technique, but how far does he take it (maybe gzl could tell us)? and there's no guzheng notation for much of the qin's left hand technique.
On the question of adding staff or cipher notation to tablature, I've heard on two occasions that the repertoire of one qin master, now deceased, was to be published in full in tablature with staff notation. Both attempts have foundered on the same problem: everybody agrees the tablature part should be the tablature the master used, but how much detail do you put into the staff notation? One side wants no more than is implied by the tablature; another wants every single detail of the performance, and others are in between.
In the end problems like these make me think, though this may seem defeatist, that tablatures must remain as the primary records, with the staff or other notation as an optional extra. Personally I prefer to have staff notation because I find it extraordinarily difficult to produce a worthwhile rhythm from dapu alone. That's not in any sense a suggestion that everyone should learn staff notation, but to omit staff notation would bring extra difficulty to learners who don't have teachers.
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Post by blueharp on Jul 12, 2007 9:47:27 GMT
An interesting debate. I agree that the tablatures should be the primary record. The other forms of notation can make the transition to reading the tab more accessible however each has limitations.
Jian zi pu was developed for the qin and can cope with notating subtleties of play that are difficult to impossible in other notations.
Haiqiong Deng makes the point in her Master's thesis on Huayin and zheng music that jian pu leaves out much of the expression in huayin.
She states that the biggest danger of the conservatory system is standardizing nuances of play out of existence. These subtleties are generally learned by listening and familiarity with a region's music.
I would imagine that the qin faces a similar dilemma. Imagine learning Liu shui from notation only - never listening to recordings - then turning around and teaching 100 students to play it exactly as you do. It works, but is it a good thing?
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Post by charliecharlieecho on Jul 12, 2007 12:34:23 GMT
Deng Haiqiong makes a good point about conservatories standerdising performances and makes me wonder whether a similar process happened in the West when we first had them.
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Post by Charlie Huang on Jul 12, 2007 18:08:28 GMT
One of the qualities of qin tab is that it is irrational. This leads to a BIG scope in interpretation of the music (no two qin melodies of the same name are the same). Western music is more or less fixed, the only interpretation is in how you play it as well as your ornamentation and not what notes you choose to play it as any deviation would be considered 'wrong'. You can mess personalise and change bits of PSLY to suit your tastes and it will still be PSLY and acceptable to the qin world. If you mess around with Greensleeves, at best it would be called a re-invention, at worse it would be considered plagerism and vandalism of an original piece.
One of the key things here is that qin tab is already adequate for most players needs. It's just the people at the top want and crave it. The only concern is if beginners are put off qin if they have to learn staff. IMO, qin tab is far easier to absorb. Staff requires deep knowledge of theory (especially the bloody keys!) which I, the layman, struggle on yet I sailed through qin tab studies (Ok, knowing Chinese a bit helps, but the first time I saw qin tab, I didn't know what the hell it was on about)!
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Post by SCWGuqin on Jul 12, 2007 19:06:47 GMT
Well that doesn't quite apply to Greensleeves, which was a folk tune and then got elite attention in the 16th century. Improvisation was a standard musical ability in Western circles much later than we might think. I'm sketchy on the details, but it was definitely standard through the 17th century, possibly into the 19th, since I remember some relatively late composer (i.e. later than you would think) being entirely proficient at keyboard improvisation. My understanding is that most of what we regard as standard classical practice is a product of the 19th, or even late 19th century.
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Post by davidmdahl on Jul 12, 2007 20:52:17 GMT
"Western music" covers such a broad variety of styles and traditions, that it is hard to say much of anything that applies to all of it. It is true that within the Western classical tradition that musical works by specific composers are intended to be performed as written within a specific performance tradition.
However, Western traditional music, such as Greensleeves, is almost never a fixed composition. I am sure that there have been hundreds if not thousands of different renderings of Greensleeves, written down or not. I suspect that Western traditional music, in spirit at least, shares quite a bit in common with traditional music everywhere.
Best wishes,
David
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Post by charliecharlieecho on Jul 13, 2007 5:45:41 GMT
I believe some composers still put 'ad lib' sections in compositions to allow players who like to (and can) improvise to do so.
But why does Charlie say that tablature is irrational?
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Post by Si on Jul 13, 2007 8:00:56 GMT
If you change something like PSLY too much or in a way that is not one of the standard scores then I think the conservatory taught qin students might say "wrong!". I have come across such talk before.
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Post by Si on Jul 13, 2007 8:11:42 GMT
How do you all find using the Chinese style Tabs (with the lines and the 123 - was it called cypher by somebody earlier?) I find that a lot less daunting then western tab.
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Post by Charlie Huang on Jul 13, 2007 17:07:41 GMT
Qin tab is 'irrational' because it does not indicate rhythm et al. like staff does. It forces you to think and ponder which results in different results. Staff is rational as it tells you almost everything (note that is not the case for the qin in staff).
PSLY: well, they have their own standards and we (i.e. the rest of the world) have our own. If we were to uncover a new version of PSLY from centuries back that is very different from what we would call PSLY, would you say it was 'wrong'? Wrong implies that there is a right, so could the real PSLY please stand up, please stand up, please stand up?! I find it ludicrous that anyone would think there are 'wrongs' in music, just the same way that it is ludicrous to say there are any 'wrongs' in art and painting!
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Post by SCWGuqin on Jul 13, 2007 17:21:37 GMT
"Everyone is a reactionary about subjects he understands." - one of my favorite quotes
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Post by charliecharlieecho on Jul 13, 2007 17:47:41 GMT
PSLY: well, they have their own standards and we (i.e. the rest of the world) have our own. If we were to uncover a new version of PSLY from centuries back that is very different from what we would call PSLY, would you say it was 'wrong'? Not necessarily wrong, but possibly a different tune. If I remeber rightly, what we now call 'aoai' was originall called 'yu ge'. |
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Post by Charlie Huang on Jul 13, 2007 19:19:18 GMT
The thing I'm getting at is not that the conservatory system isn't necessary 'wrong', but that it places its priorities on an idealism which seems to resent the past qualities. Somehow, the mysticism appeals to me more than the rational in qin. I mean, music should be organic and 'round'.
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Post by SCWGuqin on Jul 13, 2007 19:42:35 GMT
Well there was strict formalism in traditional qin music too. Recall the common account of how a student would have to imitate their master's style in detail until "permitted" to change things. By that reckoning, half the people on this board wouldn't be "permitted" to play the qin at all (as they have no in-the-flesh teacher), and the rest, who probably enjoy customizing their music and departing from their teacher's style, would be in for criticism. There was more than one point of view...
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Post by guzhenglover on Jul 16, 2007 2:28:39 GMT
A very interesting debate, and I am surprised it's generated this much discussion. Fantastic. I think I'd use a different word rather than "irrational"...
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Post by charliecharlieecho on Jul 16, 2007 6:34:46 GMT
I think I'd use a different word rather than "irrational"... I'd go for "incomplete". But isn't the solution to this to for modern publishers to insert staff and cipher notation for those of us to find them useful, but with the tablature as the top line, for people who can manage without? Ideally there'd be three versions: tablature alone, tablature with staff and tablature with cipher, but that just isn't going to happen. |
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Post by Si on Jul 16, 2007 6:59:45 GMT
well the CGL qin pu book has the Cypher (thats the chinese style - please correct me if worng terminology) with jian zi pu under it. and after that totaly seperately he has the original qin pu, so you can follow which ever one you prefer.
That seems good to me.
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Post by charliecharlieecho on Jul 16, 2007 8:27:14 GMT
well the CGL qin pu book has the Cypher (thats the chinese style - please correct me if worng terminology) Right term, variant spelling. |
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Post by Charlie Huang on Jul 16, 2007 17:31:50 GMT
I find staff with jzp more than adequate for my needs. Have staff solely just complicates things. I wanna play a score off the page, not try to work out all the positions in order to play it!
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