On the up side, I made an avvie! Look! *points* Yes, my mad Photoshop skillz suck. Like hell. (Need more Tokka, need more Tokka now.) Am scrapping A Typical Quest to the backburner because it's taking up too much of my time, despite how kawaii Gayle gets, cause she is just that cool. Need to post drabbles...I got sidetracked by the FF kink memes...there's some prompts there I really, really wanna do...
Argh, there just is no time - and Kor's just been going on at me about FFXII, and how he rented it, and how he's soooo into Larsa/Penelo, or really Anyone/Penelo and despite me not knowing a damn thing about 12, I went and took a look anyway (and the fandom's tiny! Like, even in the Pit there's less than 1500 fics!) abdadjlfkwnj. AND THERE WAS GOOD FIC! I...will attempt to write good fic. Maybe Penelo/Larsa. Based on what Kor's been telling me, he's gonna write it as well... (Ah well, it's not like it's the first time we like the same things, innit?) And I totally reckon he fits Vaan (idiot baka that he is, I/Penelo love him anyway)
Okay, rant's over. I...heck. I need to write, but there just are no bunnies biting! Block, block, block, what'mIgoingtodoohyeahmorecoffewouldbego
Now I"m trying to get to him, I swear he's blocking me off. I'm sorry, okay? Really, really, sorry... *sniffles*
Reason behind not saying yes immediately? A Typical Quest is taking waaaaay longer than I thought it would. This is what I get for not planning out the story first...I sent the first few pages to Kor but he's not replying, I shoulda talked to Nate but now it's too late... *sniffles*
Hey, that rhymed.
Oh, my head hurts. I'm just gonna read a few of flufflybunny's fics and collapse into bed. I'll wake up at noon sometime...maybe...
On the up and up, it means I get more time to write musical! ...Which is all dialogue and no music whatsoever! Yay!
...um, yeah. Otherwise, nothing in my currently boring life. Oh, except for Nate, who is being awesomely cool at ringing me up at strange hours of the night. Since I have nothing else to do - except sleep - I have absolutely no problems with that!
Ooh, lunch. Great.
It's called A Typical Quest and it's, so, so, cool. It's like, uh, take all those 'knight in shining armor' myths and turn them on their head - the princess is the one rescuing the knight instead, and the knight's really naive and not at all knowing what to do, and kinda useless. Which is really the case in most situations, huh? And there's a dragon, and there's a castle, and an evil godfather/fairy/witch/wizard thing that'll cast a curse on the princess' sister and it's gonna be so, so, cool on its own except I'm going to need someone who can write the music and the score for an orchestra cause I can't but it's going to be so dramatic and totally awesome! Yes!
I'm not entirely sure about the dancing part, though - all the musicals I've seen (not the opera, which is totally different) they have lots of dancers and I'm not actually sure which parts to stick them into - help?
Anyway...um, I actually haven't gotten up to much otherwise. I've been in my room practically all week, and I just keep writing and writing, and I hope I'll finish by the time I get back to school! Yay! ...School. Three days. Like, yay.
Well, I've been writing, and playing computer games. I hate you Kor, I really, really do. You got me addicted, damn it. And you're never even on! I fucking hate you. Be happy with that!
- Location:slumped over the keyboard
- Mood:
tired - Music:Copacabana - Barry Manilow
Yay, five more days before the end of the term! *cheers* Holidays - and more FFX time!
Hopefully, more writing time, too. I've been slacking lately, regoing over the fandom. It just....pisses me off that there are so many Zutara shippers! There are, what, not-so-subtle hints in the show that it's Kataang, and they just keep using the minimal justification! ...Well, I suppose it is fanfiction, but then at least there should be more Kataang stuff; and there isn't. It's like TT - there's tons of RobRae, and that's fair enough - there's actually less 'hinting' there than in A:tLA, so RobRae has some justification, but Zutara makes NO SENSE! It's like...like...
Ugh. Never mind.
Anyways, I showed the girls a way through to the boys' school, and they took it.
I don't know what happened. I don't want to know. They'll tell me anyway, I'm sure of it.
I'm getting hungry, I might go eat something. See ya later!
- Mood:
chipper
I forgot to change my computer's innate time setting. It was still set on NZ time. *to self* Baka.
- Mood:
idiotic
...I have found out that I forgot to change my lj time from NZ time to UK time. Go me.
Going on a fic binge now, for Avatar: The Last Airbender, and LilyJames/KatieOliver HP fic. Don't ask me why, but I love them; there's some good stuff on FFN.
EDIT:...How do you change the damn time? Permanently, I mean?
*is feeling freaked out by the fact that Angelina Jolie is on that list...*
...Umm, okay? I should be at school now but I 'took the day off sick'. It's only an hour into my rest-time and my parents are gonna have a hissy-fit if they see me up and at the computer. Oh wells. Their bad.
So I posted a blogthing on the first post I make in school in England. Big deal. It's pretty cool being here, actually (pun intended) and I intend to have a really good time when me and a couple of friends 'bust' into the Boys School after hours - by accidnent of course...well, it's what they wanted, and I spent way more time exploring around the place than they did and I'm rambling now! XD
Bury's really awesome - Redvales' waaaay better though. It's quiet and I got a way massiver room than we had in NZ. Prolly cause there's less clutter in it. It's really different at a girl's school though, less chatter, more innuendo, that sorta thing. Never been to an all girl's school before.
Gotta hide. Parents coming.
- Location:hiding
- Mood:
scared
- Location:britain
- Mood:
horny
You promised me the two pages you took of him. You know, him! Gimme! Now!
So does he really have a girlfriend or are you just lying again as usual...
Standard note: If you're reading this note for the first time, YOU'RE IN THE WRONG PLACE. Go to October. Click on the 20 in the little calendar. Read it. click the 23. Read that one, too. Keep reading, until you get to the 24. Finish it. Keep reading, ignoring the conclusion totally. Keep reading. Then, when you have read everything, come back here. Good. Done? Welcome.
----------------------------------------
Let's put it this way.
This has been a long, blabbery ride.
I don't know whether to laugh, cry, or simply thunder 'It is done!' to the universe at large.
I don't have anything else to say. This is a day of ending, after all. Ending everything. -sorry, morose today.-
This is the final note, a final conclusion, a finale to the assignment. Serenity can use the blog after me, this is her account, after all.
Let's just end it. There is no Miscellaneous section. I can't think of anything; everything I want to say has been said already.
Bibliography
Preword
I'm ashamed to say that I do not have a full record of my research. Much of it survives here, in the school library, at home, wherever, but I did not record and do not recall the full details of every site, book, and other sources I may have done. Therefore, much of what is in this assignment may not be listed below. But of that, even - some of them do not have full details, frequently only the title of the book or such. Not the best, therefore. So I can only give you what I have, which is not everything: So for that which I did not record, I acknowledge.
http://english.ccnt.com.cn/?catog=music&f
http://www.chinese-tools.com/chinese/poe
www-camil.music.uiuc.edu/musedex/taiwan/C
Encarta Music
Music Around The World, page 11
Music of the World: A History, but Kurt Pahlen, translated by James Galston -Published 1996, I think, though I am not sure-
Chinese Music, edited by Qiao Jian Zhong, Culture and Art Publishing House in June 1999, pages 1-137, particularly 63-88.
There are a lot more books, websites, encyclopaedias, and human sources that I used, but did not record, do not recall. The list is much longer, of course. If only...
----------------------------------------
There was a comment at the beginning. There often is. An introduction, preface, interword, whatsoever.
Conclusion
Over the previous, oh, many posts, I have related what I have learned of Chinese Folksongs - the tradition, instruments, topics, social period at the time, etc. I have compared Eastern music to Western music, for good or bad. the lack of organisation is truly astounding. But had I to do this again, I would do it just the same.
Adieu.
Ryan See
30th October 2007, 7:04 pm
Ryan See
30th October 2007, 7:04 pm
- - fin - -
Standard note: If you're reading this for the first time, YOU'RE IN THE WRONG PLACE. Start over. Go to the Oct on the calendar. Click 20. Read it. Click the next hyperlinked number. And the next. And the next. And the next. And the next. And the next. And the...um. When you make your way around to here (hopefully avoiding all the insanely bad organisation problems), read it.
This is, incidentally, possibly going to be the last post. I say possibly because my mother insists on me working everyday, but I'm running out of things to say. If this was a poster, I'd be done already. ; ) So...as literally the last of my leading questions - more literally 'the second part of the last leading question' I aim to fill this post with as much information as I haven't covered already. So sections will be East meets West II and Miscellaneous. Tomorrow, probably more Miscellaneous, one last luffly comment, the vrai conclusion (you now know my french is also shockingly bad), then the bibliography, then fine. I mean fin. I mean finito. I mean...oh, never mind.
----------------------------------------
East meets West II
Yesterday I did a very short comparison section - short because I worked tirelessly (well, not) for an hour and ended up with an eyeache, headache, and a very late sleeping time. So I'm going to finish the entire section, just not the comparisons because I can't think of any more and that entire sub-chapter was pure waffle and very tenuous links. Oh well.
Western Music as compared to Eastern Music - History/Timeline (In some sense, a summary)
In Europe, when western music was at its peak, in all the periods (medieval, romantic, renaissance, baroque etc), Chinese music began advancing through its stages of refinement from the work songs created somewhere around 7000 BC, back when in Europe cavemen still grunted Urgh and hit themselves in the head with broomsticks.
^
|
Ok, so the above sentence isn't exactly true.
The point is, Chinese music - the creation of folksongs began a long time before Western music began. We don't actually know this for sure - what we do know is that the evidence of knowledge of music in China dates back to a longer way - much longer way - than the evidence for Western music (to the dissenters - if most ethnomusicologists are Western, more of them will scour the homeland, and if they can't find anything, it ain't there.)
In China, as the development of instruments (and records of the development of instruments) grew, the only record that Western music gave was manuscripts and descriptions of instruments in old storybooks. Chinese music has one flaw in that respect, however - where we can recreate ancient Western music, as we have the manuscripts and no records of development, from China we have records of development and no manuscripts, so it is difficult to actually listen to, say, ancient court music.
In the West, folksongs, clan songs, and other songs of that nature grew up around the harvest, family, religion, and war. In China, folksongs were created around the rhythms of work.
As the periods of music changed towards the 20th Century, the musical theory also began to change. In the West, this blossomed out into various structures as the government changed and forbade or encouraged certain kinds of music. Monophonic, homophonic, polyphonic, Gregorian chants, and other structures began to form. In the East, or more specifically in China, when the government encouraged one form of music, that form of music grew and became more complex, until heterophonic music became an important playing style.
China used a pentatonic scale and the Oriental style, when the Western explorers arrived, was to have fourths and/or fifths playing at the same time. The West, of course, used many different styles over its history, from modes to sets to hexatonic and heptatonic scales.
Where in the West, vocal and instrumental music were very separate kettles of fish - composers being known for composing in one category but not at all in another or performers being very good at singing or instruments and nothing between - the East had people singing and playing instruments with absolutely no issue.
In the West, where it was very clear who created or invented the modes or sets or scales, the pentatonic scale in China was mythogenised to create Ling Lun, a man who went to find a set of bamboo pipes to tune the Heavenly Bell.
There is also a 12-note scale in China, created at the time of Confucius.
While the West used great, sweeping orchestras and techniques such as pizzicatos to convey emotions or events in the music, China placed greater emphasis on the players themselves interpreting the folksongs they were given.
There was no written notation for Chinese music. What there was was a series of numbers that players could interpret in any way they wished - the basis for heterophonic music. So the conclusion arriving there are that in the West, especially around Bach's time, the performers were considered secondary, a means to hear a composer's mind, while in China, the performers were primary, and the audience concentrated on them and their experience rather than on the music.
Strangely enough, the majority of China's instruments seem to involve strings and percussion. Strings refers to not only bowed instruments but dulcimers, harps, zithers, lutes, and other instruments as such - percussion, self explanatory. Flutes and panpipes also have a place in the repertoire, but a much smaller role than that of the West.
As people became more settled in the different regions of China, their singing styles and their dialects, began to change. Therefore, many different styles of Chinese folksong evolved, including the short-on-variety three-to-five note Hakka folksongs to the four-stanza "spring tune". Work songs, field songs, entertainment songs also fall into this developed category, as well as urban music, the Xiao Di So. This many different styles evolved as part of one country, and heterophonic styles and instruments did not become widely available until after the Han dynasty. In contrast, there was little to no difference between the church music composed by composers of different countries up until the time of the first of the great composers, as it was only about then that the national borders closed and cultural quirks became a separate style compared to other countries.
Last, but not least, as I'm tired now. Up until the People's Republic, folksongs were an accepted part of everyday life in China - accepted, encouraged, and even enthusiastically hyperactively compulsive about the subject - there were compilations of folksongs, and modern historians used them as a way to track down what ancient times used to be. On the other hand, in the West, folksongs were not as widely accepted, frequently being referred to as nonsense, or in some cases, referred to as against God. So...not a good idea.
----------------------------------------
As you can probably tell from the style changes, I wrote this post over a period of three hours. And I'm damn tired, it's 12.00, I want to sleep. Therefore, if I can think of anything else tomorrow, I will post on a Miscellaneous section, a final conclusion comment, and a bibliography (not complete), and that will be that. I'm tired. I want to sleep. Goodnight.
Oh, and after a while, say one week, or less - it won't be me posting. This is Serenity's account, after all.
Ryan See
----------------------------------------
Interword
I know, I know, these posts are jumping around without any sense of organization. The reason behind this is I'm usually compiling all my research on prethought topics, so my order of topics tends to hop around like jackrabbits in a storm. I'm bad with metaphors, too.
But then, if I didn't do this all on the day I post it, who's going to immortalise the improvised humour?
My jokes are bad, too... Anyway, I'm aware of it [the lack of order], and I'm aware it's going to make it hard to mark, especially with no pictures, and a faux conclusion on the 24th of October. I've covered more, since then, and the so-called longwinded section actually ended up being quite short. And I may forget to do a bibliography.
However, I do quite like posting this assignment in a blog. It gives it a certain sense of immortality - they'll be here forever, well, unless Serenity deletes the account - and there's less likelihood of it being torn, worn, and put away to gather dust in a corner, especially since my house is running out of storage space. So - like the blog, gonna keep using it.
Okay, I said on Oct 24 that I was going to post Famous Composers/Performers - and I'm not. Mainly because all the research I have is on composers and performers that are modern day. You see, when I first thought of chinese folksong, I wanted to research all the music in China. Now, having barely two days to finish this assignment, I need to refine my research. Thus, cutting out famous composers/performers, as the majority of them would have been in ancient times - and unrecorded.
I may be able to put Chinese composers now that use Chinese folksong as a basis of composition, but it's a tenuous link and I'm not sure how to justify it.
One thing I mislike about blogging, though - there's no lack of space, which means I blabber, a lot. Quite like this, in fact.
And oh yes, in two days, one way or another, this little assignment is going to finish. Firstly, of course, I run out of time in which to do the research on. And second, I run out of research. It's a little late to be researching leading questions, assuming I have time to think up leading questions in the first place. The only way to insert more would be to create research, and although I do manipulate facts a little, creating whole sections is a little beyond me (for the sake of the rest of the assignment's credibility, if nothing else) <-- heh, just my little joke.
East to West
Preface
When comparing the folksongs of the West to that of the East, it is important to remember that the West is far more than Britain and America, and the East is far more than China. Especially when you get to Australia and New Zealand, where the East from the West [Britain] is the West, and the West [from China] is either the far West or the East. Ehh? <-- Just a side note. Anywho, as this is Chinese folksong I'm presenting, (and I didn't do any research on, say, Tibetan folksong) I'm only going to point out how you could compare Chinese folksongs and the, say, Scottish/Irish folksongs or the black spirituals, as they have such a strong culture of it.
Comparisons
To the black spirituals
Folksongs in China grew up about work, much like the slave ones did. However, where the African slaves went into spirituals from the point of words, i.e. 'Standin' in the Need of Prayer', Chinese people believed, in the time period of Confucianism, that 'spirituals' were created by bringing the notes into heavenly alignment.
Moreover, both categories have easy rhythms, needed in the midst of work.
To the Scots-Irish folksongs
Much like the regions of China, each clan in Scotland/Ireland had a different tradition of folksongs, although it wouldn't go so far as to create complete different dialects of Scottish or Irish. And, in difference, again, religion. 'Tis touchy, this, so I won't go into it (not to mention my research doesn't cover religion, heh).
I'd make more comparisons, but it's getting quite, quite late, and I'm due to be asleep. Thus - count on more tomorrow. More on East and West, as that should be the last of the great leading questions.
*snore*, Ryan See
Ok, sorry.
Standard note: If you're reading this post first, YOU'RE IN THE WRONG PLACE. Go. Find the calendar. click on the 19th of October. Good, now read it. Now read the next one along. And the next one. And onwards...Then come back here. When you have...
----------------------------------------
Instruments
Why instruments?
Although early Chinese folksongs were purely vocal, as time went on the 'folk music' expanded to include instrumental forms as well. Sometimes, folksongs contained instrumental accompaniment, although the earliest did not. Instrumental accompaniment would be provided by pi pas, or later, by an ensemble.
Types of Instruments
It is tempting to classify everything in the East by Western standards - eg a pipa or ruan being a straight-necked lute - but it is important to remember that these instruments are reminiscent of an earlier time and were probably the primary influence of the Western instrument, for the West's musical history is much more recent than the East's. However, to really create a mental picture, this one finds it necessary to define them by Western terms. *sigh* Kinda goes against my point, really...
In ancient times, Chinese instruments, or rather the ones that were thought of within China's boundaries, were classified under the material that they were made out of, examples being wood, metal, stone, silk, bamboo, gourd, clay, skin, and bone. Of course these were from differing periods of time, silk not being used before being discovered (obviously) and bone not after other, better materials to carve things out of were discovered/invented.
The instruments mostly invented by the Chinese people included long zither-like instruments (qin, zheng, se), straight-necked lutes (ruan, sanxian), flutes (di zi), panpipes (pai xiao), mouth organs (sheng), and percussion instruments such as bells, chimes, clappers, ruddy great drums <-- not a quote, and gongs. After contact with Central Asia and India, the country that many folk instruments were invented in, China gained fiddles, bent-necked lutes, hammered dulcimers, reed pipes, and (suo na)s, which are difficult to describe in Western terms.
Instrumental music ensembles
Melody and timbre are important features of instrumental music traditions, and great emphasis is placed on each tone.
Because of that, and because rhythm is not strictly emphasized in the numeral notation mentioned before, heterophonic music became almost the style of traditional instrumental folksong.
Traditional ensembles consist of three to ten people.
Modern day orchestras
Although not strictly related to the topic, I'd just like to point out that there are 'chinese orchestras' developed in the Western way although only using Chinese instruments.
Emotions
People try to convey emotions during folksong: that is why historians consider Chinese folksong to be such an encyclopedia on life in ancient times. Instrumental music continued that tradition, with some expectation of performers to convey those emotions, so soloists were not only expected to show good inprovisation skills but also be able to convey the emotion of the song, something that many Western artistes cannot do. Ha.
Ok, I'm getting bored, lethargic, and getting a eyeache from looking at the screen, so I'm going to stop now. Til next time,
Ryan See
----------------------------------------
Okay, so very very happy now. I have a huge extension - until next week Friday. Phew! That's good. Oh, by the way, Junior Shakespeare went well... :D My only problem is, on Friday I'm leaving school after lunch, and I'll be bluidy busy Thursday night packing - and on Wednesday night I have duty, which means my huge extension ain't that big after all. Well, freakin dam. I shall endeavor to do the best that I can.
Fundamental Societal Functions
In Ancient China, music was considered one of four fundamental societal functions, along with things such as morals and politics. As such, every governmental organisation throughout the history of China had developed a bureau of music.
This bureau of music, over the years, contributed to the songs of China by spreading regional influences, and worked its way into its folksongs. The Qin and Han dynasties, for instance, spread the zheng, an oblong-shaped zither, all over China, when before it had only been found in the former Qin kingdom. the zheng soon became very popular in the different types of 'folksongs' - actually feudal urban music - that began arising out of the Qin Dynasty's capital city.
As an update to the types of Chinese folksong -
Chinese Folksong Topics
Although the mountain and work songs continued to be sung, during the Song, Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties, the development of the urban commercial economy meant that new forms of folksong arose. One of these was called the Xiao Di So. The most widespread form of folksongs in this sub-genre was the 'spring tune' type, which had four stanzas - movements in a vocal sense. They, respectively, were: the introduction, main theme, development of the main theme, conclusion.
Compilations
During the Ming Dynasty, a scholar named Feng Menglong compiled three collections of folksongs labelled Mountain Song (Shan Ge), Hanging Branch, and Oleander respectively.
In the Qing Dynasty, Wang Tingshao compiled Rainbow Tunes, and Hua Guangsheng compiled three more collections: Lingering Snowy Echoes, Ballads of the Deep South, and Whimsical Collection.
Effects
As most of these songs were already popular among the people of the time, the notations, using the Gong Pu Chi system, simply provided modern historians with the records of these folksongs. Eight pieces in the last book, Whimsical Collection (published in 1837), were popular folksongs, with titles such as The Embroidered Pouch, Song of the Screen Window, Shoes Embroidered in Red, Green Willows, and Song of the Fresh Flowers.
In short, records of folksongs provide historians with an encyclopedia of Ancient Chinese culture.
- Mood:factual
----------------------------------------
Okay, if you're back from reading the previous posts, this is probably a little warning.
At the time of writing, (10:20:23 pm, 24/10/07), this will be possibly the last post before the due date, as I will be busy tomorrow night at Junior Shakespeare, and the submission date is the next day. This topic will be the third of the many leading questions I asked, and probably the most long-winded. Assuming I have time tomorrow I may post Famous Composers/Performers, but today I will be doing Music Theory. Even after the assignment deadline is over I may still post research as I find Chinese folksong to be truly interesting.
Music Theory
Scales
Compared to the West, music theory in the East is said to have begun under the mystical Ling Lun, who, as mentioned, first strung together a five-note system, the names of each note under a social stratum. The Emperor, Minister, Burgher, Official, and Peasant each are represented. gōng 宮 (do) represents the Emperor, shāng 商 (re) represents the Minister, jué 角 (mi) represents the Burgher, yǔ 羽 (la) represents the Peasant. The ideograms are more clearly seen here:
http://www.math.nus.edu.sg/aslaksen/gem-p
as well as the mathematics behind the scales.
The most simple pentatonic scale to play on the piano or keyboard that sounds like the chinese one is simply to only play on the black keys and never touch a white one.
Group/Solo PerformanceUnlike the West, in the East traditional folk music is not notated. Instead of notes on a piece of paper, there are instead numbers, eg 12356, with dots on top or on the bottom to illustrate which octave the note is on. On this type of notation there is no rhythm, so solos are about improvisation as much as following the music. This tends to make group performance harder, however.
In the West, a structure of music known as homophonic was often used. In the East, they used heterophonic music, where even though there was only one melody, each instrumental line would interpret and ornament it differently. For example, in a piece marked 1 2 3 56532, the qin could interpret it as 1 22 3 565 32 while the pipa could interpret it as 1 2 3 56 53 2, and so on.
Music As Religion
A reason given for the number of notes used in folksongs being so little (five notes, say) compared to the West's almost hundreds of notes is 'heavenly alignment'. It is said that at the time of the Emperors there was a great bell that should have rang in harmony with the heavens, and that Ling Lun was sent to find a set of bamboo pipes that would align the bell to the heavenly tone. Supposedly this tone is F on the Dorian Mode.
When Ling Lun came back with the pipes, the Emperor found that there were too many notes, harmonically, to align to. He was faced with a choice: add more notes, and go out of harmony in the heavens, or stick with less notes, and align more with the heavens.
Obviously, if this half-myth is true, we know which way the West went, and which way the East.
Starting Points
Only having five notes in a pentatonic scale, changing the starting point by a semitone can often radically change the notes and mood of a song.
Conclusion
It's getting late, and I'm not thinking straight. However, over these last three posts, we have covered in some roundabout fashion the myths and religious thinkings around traditional chinese folksongs, and the types of folksongs in China. I hope that this is enough to satisfy curiosity, until or unless I find the time to post again. No, I don't think the assignment is finished. However, I have no choice, and this blog will not allow me to post the pictures - and it is too late to change to another form of presentation. I don't think this will gain me the highest mark that I wanted - however, given more time to present my findings, I feel sure I could do a better job. So, unless I post tomorrow, adieu.
Ryan See, 24/10/07
- Mood: tired
- Music:mimi so do, mimi so do, mi so do ti la la so...
Folksong Topics
A Quick Word - Zi Ju Hua
If you, dear reader, truly wish to learn about Traditional Chinese Music, go find and read 'Chinese Music', compiled by Qiao Jianzhong. Go. Now. Much of what I have learned and will post comes from this book, and many, many of the websites that I have used reference, or in one case, copy word-for-word a paragraph. (You see what I mean by cross-referencing?) Of course, maybe the book copied from the site - it says 'compiled', after all...
How did Ancient Chinese Folksongs start?
Chinese Folksongs, the vocal kind (what other kind could there be? Heh.) started as early as 3000 BC, if not before then. It began, or so the Annals of the States of Wu and Yue say, in activities such as hunting, mating, herding, and ritual activities. The Annals, as well as certainly other ancient compilations, such as the Book of Songs, show a picture of Zhou Dynasty times in colloquial language, or at least the colloquial language of those times.
What types of Folksongs were there in Ancient China and who were they sung by?
The first type of folksongs that I mention are called hao zi or shao zi, and they are basically work songs, with high emphasis on rhythm, much like the work songs sung by black slaves, in the mines. Hm, a comparison between sung folksong and gumboot dancing, anyone? These work songs were related to lines of work that involved much repetition and synchronization of rhythm, for example quarrying stones or moving logs by hand and shoulder and back. Perhaps a comparison could also be made to the army songs sung today - or the Molenberg ad, because I can't be bothered explaining.
Y'know, the 'We all want our molenberg' thing.
The second type of folksongs was closely related to the shao zi in the sense that they were created while doing work - that of farming in this case. However, as farming did not require people to work in collective rhythmic unison, the structure of the folksong differed also. Instead of a rhythmic chant there were groups of singers and workers formed choruses, singing sometimes in normal voices and sometimes in falsetto. The point of these folksongs was to regulate the farmers' moods, relieve their fatigue, and break the monotony of silence.
The third type of folksongs is a very broad category, otherwise known as mountain songs. As Mountain songs are simply folksongs from the mountainous areas of China, each dialect has different folksongs and different ways of singing it - for example Hakka people have folksongs consisting of four musical phrases, and only five notes; the majority of their songs contain only three. Compared to that, the Chang Diao of the Inner Mongolian Plateau is characterized by lengthy vocalization and free rhythm, containing significantly more than four musical phrases!
The fourth type of folksongs is called xiao diao, and it is more closely related to the music of today, that of performances conducted professionally, and mostly passed around in cities. It is not music for labour, but rather simply for entertainment and enjoyment.
And that, since I'm bored of talking, is that.
Ryan See
- Mood:
talkative - Music:The Moon Is Very Beautiful Tonight - Qin Jun Yan
This is cut-and-paste:
Chinese Folksongs
Preface
"Chinese Folksongs" as a title is somewhat of a misnomer, as 'Chinese' folksongs of every dialect spring up at wildly different times. For example, to classify a folksong as Hokkien when it is from the city of Fujian is difficult as the dialect is different, so even if the tune is the same, is it the same song? Thus what I am studying is 'Traditional Chinese Music'. (Qiao Jianzhong, 1999)
To accurately study 'Chinese Folksongs' requires a large cultural knowledge of mainland China, contacts of every possible dialect who know every possible song, a truckload of books, magazines, newspaper articles, and about ten years, all of which I do not have. Thus, a study of Traditional Chinese Music and the musical theory behind it, all of which can be simplified to a certain extent.
As I do more research on this topic, it goes from merely interesting to grippingly so; even if much of the material repeats itself and even references each other, *gark*, it is interesting and lends itself to the history of my ancestors, whom I respect and wish to learn about.
Over the next week or so, as I update this blog, if I remember, I will be posting the aspects of Chinese Music that I learn. If I have not learned the ways of this 'blog' correctly I will post any updates in further posts. And say so. And now, I bid zai jian, or au revoir. For now.
-I'm getting pretentious...-
Ancient Music and Related Mythology
In Chinese mythology, much of the earliest music is attributed to the Yellow Emperor, although scientific archaeological findings have proved this otherwise. There have been bone flutes found at Jiahu village in Henan Province that scientists are convinced are 8000-9000 years old. These bone flutes have holes that have traces of notations beside them, and a mark at the bottom of the flute showing the length of the flute, showing that the creators had at least a rudimentary understanding of the relationship between the length of the flute and the pitch.
The notations on the flute created a pentatonic scale, which is attributed to a man named Ling Lun, who 'went up north to listen to the sounds of nature, hearing five tones in the wind, the gurgling of the stream, the calls of birds and falling leaves, and copied them as best he could, creating music.' The pentatonic scale formed by this is mentioned in more detail later.
That's all that I remember today, and all that I researched so far, so, au revoir.
Til next time,
Ryan See
- Music:lalala,soso, mimi, so
Profile
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif)
serynity_korel- serynity_korel
Syndicate
