What makes a piece Chinese?

[ed]

What defines the Traditional Chinese musical style, as against the Classical Western style?

So far I have got:

1 Use of certain characteristic phrases (wish I understood this better).

2 Emphasis on Melody (temporal structure) rather than Harmony (vertical structure).

3 Greater emphasis on individual notes, bending etc.

4 Different ornamentation (again, I wish I knew more about this).

5 Different instruments - ErHu etc.

Let us know your thoughts

Ed H

[paulv]

Ed,

You may want to break up the types of music in both styles - e.g., Chinese folk music and Chinese opera (several kinds), etc., with western equivalents. I've seen Chinese orchestras that combine "traditional" instruments with western ones.

Music creation is also interesting, e.g., "Butterfly Lovers" created as a violin concerto (in Shanghai, I think the conservatory) and was adopted for erhu (I learned that song a long time ago when I studied erhu), and was also made into an opera (don't know which kind, but I know it's not Beijing Opera), and many people play this song in a "western" classical music style (western classical orchestra).

Regards,

paul...

[dawei]

There is also the concept of regional characteristics of Chinese music - music from different regions often has different stylistic features.

"1 Use of certain characteristic phrases (wish I understood this better)."
There is also the concept of qupai, standardized melodic patterns that have been used in many pieces of music.


en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qupai

www.amazon.com/Qupai-Chinese-Music-Routledge-Ethnomusicology/dp/1138936243