Thanks Kaiser for this cross-cultural reflection on music. As a student of both Chinese and Western culture as well as a lifelong patron of Western classical music, jazz, and various popular forms of music, your comparative essay hit on many things I've thought about, wondered about, and have conversations with friends about over the years. Knowing the great sophistication of Chinese culture, I've always been perplexed as to why Chinese music seems so impoverished and limited, as beautiful as some of it is. I find myself considerably more attracted to Indian classical music, Carnatic and Hindustani, than Chinese traditional music.
I'm not familiar with Levenson's work but his notion of the "amateur ideal" makes a lot of sense as it fits into the larger framework of Chinese culture. To me it would be better to call it the "generalist ideal" (but I didn't write the book). I started my Chinese/Western comparison in the 1980s with Joseph Needham's multivolume "Science and Civilization in China" which addressed the basic question: "Why, if China was so sophisticated and ahead of the West for so many centuries, did it fail to create something like modern science?" Answering this was for me a lifelong pursuit which, through various pathways, led me to understand the multitude of ways China and Europe are different. Your essay hit on many of those differences such as the devaluing of professional cultures and specialists in the promotion of the Confucian junzi, "cultivated generalist." Not only was music as a specialty devalued, but so was music itself, thought to be too sensuous and carnal, therefore less moral. Although it didn't start with China's moral distinctions, Europe got around things like this for centuries with the sacred/profane distinction in the arts.
How our musics are different has everything to do with our histories, geographies, our languages and cultures, literally *hundreds* of factors. Comparatively, the West fought and competed for centuries between its very different cultures, cross-fertilizing each other's cultures, arts, literatures, and traditions. And again, there's the whole sacred/profane, high/low, clergy/folk religious dynamic going on in Europe that gave shape to local folk musics and sacred church music. Fine art -v folk art, or sacred -v profane art, gave rise to all kinds of dynamics that didn't exist in China. In Europe there's also the long history of *instrument evolution and development*, of inventing new instruments, of keeping or retiring them, refining them, combining them in ensembles. Just the plethora of Western instruments compared to their Chinese counterparts is testimony to the richness of Western musical art. Each modern instrument has a LONG history of origin, development, and refinement into what it now is. And then compare China's cultural isolation relative to European cultural revolutions (e.g., the Enlightenment) and colonialism that expanded into the world and brought new innovations and culture-music styles into contact with each other. Although both China and the West have evolved, gone through many stages of change and growth, it can be argued that Western cultural evolution is diverse in ways that Chinese civilization is not, giving birth to new forms of art and culture that wouldn't occur to the kinds of evolution that occurred in China.
To me pop music of the 20th century is a different entity and should be a separate conversation of its own, but it does relate in some ways. The phenomenon of East Asian participation and success in classical music (and jazz to some extent, Toshiko Akiyoshi and Hiromi, e.g.) is a study in itself, as is the adoption of Western classical music in East Asian societies, not to mention every other form of Western music. Ahhh, such a RICH topic!
It's too difficult to write out all the ways in which our cultures differ with regard to music, music history, and music expression. But it's a fascinating study into the ways China and the West differ. I happen to think that other aspects of Chinese culture such as philosophy, poetry, and other arts are every bit as diverse and sophisticated as anything in the West and in many ways supersede them. But many thanks again for discussing a topic that many of us music afficionados have wondered about. Cheers!
Are the melodies known for folk-songs, which one assumes are old, or do they vary from age to age and geographical location? World-wide they are pretty much all anonymous, but remembered. (Because of notation in the West?) I guess people learn them from hearing them.
The music for “Feathered Skirts and Flowered Robes” was said to have been written by the Tang emperor [as a good junzi) and it is lost though the composer was said to be known Yang Guifei’s choreography is also lost, so, again I wonder about the lack of a shared and accessible notation is the reason?
What about “Song of the Pipa” by Bai Juyi? And so many Song poems ‘to the tune of …” ? Were the songs, music and composers lost because there was no accepted way of musical notation? Unlike poetry, with a notation understood for centuries.
Again, while the lyrics are known (and survive — my own band has set poems by Su Dongpo, Cao Cao, and Li Bai to music, and there's strong evidence they used to have melodies) the composers are lost. Not sure whether it's due to any lack of notation but that's a possibility — though I do know there were various methods of notation, names for each of the (five) notes!
Thanks Kaiser for this cross-cultural reflection on music. As a student of both Chinese and Western culture as well as a lifelong patron of Western classical music, jazz, and various popular forms of music, your comparative essay hit on many things I've thought about, wondered about, and have conversations with friends about over the years. Knowing the great sophistication of Chinese culture, I've always been perplexed as to why Chinese music seems so impoverished and limited, as beautiful as some of it is. I find myself considerably more attracted to Indian classical music, Carnatic and Hindustani, than Chinese traditional music.
I'm not familiar with Levenson's work but his notion of the "amateur ideal" makes a lot of sense as it fits into the larger framework of Chinese culture. To me it would be better to call it the "generalist ideal" (but I didn't write the book). I started my Chinese/Western comparison in the 1980s with Joseph Needham's multivolume "Science and Civilization in China" which addressed the basic question: "Why, if China was so sophisticated and ahead of the West for so many centuries, did it fail to create something like modern science?" Answering this was for me a lifelong pursuit which, through various pathways, led me to understand the multitude of ways China and Europe are different. Your essay hit on many of those differences such as the devaluing of professional cultures and specialists in the promotion of the Confucian junzi, "cultivated generalist." Not only was music as a specialty devalued, but so was music itself, thought to be too sensuous and carnal, therefore less moral. Although it didn't start with China's moral distinctions, Europe got around things like this for centuries with the sacred/profane distinction in the arts.
How our musics are different has everything to do with our histories, geographies, our languages and cultures, literally *hundreds* of factors. Comparatively, the West fought and competed for centuries between its very different cultures, cross-fertilizing each other's cultures, arts, literatures, and traditions. And again, there's the whole sacred/profane, high/low, clergy/folk religious dynamic going on in Europe that gave shape to local folk musics and sacred church music. Fine art -v folk art, or sacred -v profane art, gave rise to all kinds of dynamics that didn't exist in China. In Europe there's also the long history of *instrument evolution and development*, of inventing new instruments, of keeping or retiring them, refining them, combining them in ensembles. Just the plethora of Western instruments compared to their Chinese counterparts is testimony to the richness of Western musical art. Each modern instrument has a LONG history of origin, development, and refinement into what it now is. And then compare China's cultural isolation relative to European cultural revolutions (e.g., the Enlightenment) and colonialism that expanded into the world and brought new innovations and culture-music styles into contact with each other. Although both China and the West have evolved, gone through many stages of change and growth, it can be argued that Western cultural evolution is diverse in ways that Chinese civilization is not, giving birth to new forms of art and culture that wouldn't occur to the kinds of evolution that occurred in China.
To me pop music of the 20th century is a different entity and should be a separate conversation of its own, but it does relate in some ways. The phenomenon of East Asian participation and success in classical music (and jazz to some extent, Toshiko Akiyoshi and Hiromi, e.g.) is a study in itself, as is the adoption of Western classical music in East Asian societies, not to mention every other form of Western music. Ahhh, such a RICH topic!
It's too difficult to write out all the ways in which our cultures differ with regard to music, music history, and music expression. But it's a fascinating study into the ways China and the West differ. I happen to think that other aspects of Chinese culture such as philosophy, poetry, and other arts are every bit as diverse and sophisticated as anything in the West and in many ways supersede them. But many thanks again for discussing a topic that many of us music afficionados have wondered about. Cheers!
Are the melodies known for folk-songs, which one assumes are old, or do they vary from age to age and geographical location? World-wide they are pretty much all anonymous, but remembered. (Because of notation in the West?) I guess people learn them from hearing them.
The music for “Feathered Skirts and Flowered Robes” was said to have been written by the Tang emperor [as a good junzi) and it is lost though the composer was said to be known Yang Guifei’s choreography is also lost, so, again I wonder about the lack of a shared and accessible notation is the reason?
What about “Song of the Pipa” by Bai Juyi? And so many Song poems ‘to the tune of …” ? Were the songs, music and composers lost because there was no accepted way of musical notation? Unlike poetry, with a notation understood for centuries.
Again, while the lyrics are known (and survive — my own band has set poems by Su Dongpo, Cao Cao, and Li Bai to music, and there's strong evidence they used to have melodies) the composers are lost. Not sure whether it's due to any lack of notation but that's a possibility — though I do know there were various methods of notation, names for each of the (five) notes!