China Books

Chinese archaeologists digging in central China in 1977 unexpectedly uncovered two of the earliest and most extensive surviving groups of musical instruments in the entire ancient world, dating from nearly 2,500 years ago. Since these percussion, string, and wind instruments were in near-pristine condition - some still playable, others inscribed with musicological information - they provided hitherto unimagined possibilities for the study of music and the history of musical instruments in ancient China. Presented here are the insights of six specialists who describe these instruments' sophisticated tuning systems, techniques of manufacture, and inscriptions revealing their musical and non-musical significance in ancient Chinese society. It has become apparent that different types of music coexisted in Bronze Age China (2000-500 B.C.) for state rituals as well as for private entertainment. The authors place this evidence in the context of recent archaeological discoveries and reassess it in light of classical history and the literature on Chinese music. The three main families of instruments are also examined in detail in individual chapters. Lovers of art and music, as well as enthusiasts of archaeology, musicology, and cultural history, will find this a compelling and readable presentation of the latest research and ideas on one of the world's oldest and most profound artistic expressions. (For this item please quote stock ID 12818) ISBN: 9780295979533

Yellow Music is the first history of the emergence of Chinese popular music and the larger urban media culture with which it was closely associated in early twentieth-century China. Centering his study around an account of the affinities between the genre derisively referred to by critics of the time as 'yellow' or 'pornographic' music ? a 'decadent' fusion of American jazz, Hollywood film music, and Chinese folk forms ? and the anti-colonial mass music that challenged yellow music's commercial and ideological dominance, Andrew F. Jones radically revises previous understandings of race, politics, popular culture, and technology in the making of modern Chinese culture. The personal and professional histories of three musicians in particular are the focus of Jones's discussions of shifting gender roles, class inequality, the politics of national salvation, and emerging media technologies: the American jazz musician Buck Clayton; Li Jinhui, the creator of 'yellow music'; and leftist Nie Er, a former student of Li's whose musical idiom grew out of virulent opposition to this sinified jazz. In contemplating the emergence of global media cultures in the postcolonial world, Jones aims to undermine the parochialism of media studies in the West. He teaches us to hear not only the American influence in Chinese popular music but also the Chinese influence on American music and, in so doing, illuminates the ways in which both cultures were implicated in the unfolding of colonial modernity in the twentieth century. Students and scholars of modern China, twentieth-century history, media studies, and jazz history will be informed and engaged by Yellow Music. (For this item please quote stock ID 16068) ISBN: 9780822326946

~This is a standard reference on Sonq dynasty music, and a model of meticulous scholarship. In it Professor Pian surveys the theoretical and practical treatises on music, the historical and encyclopedic compilations, the song collections, and various other related materials. She comments on available editions of the musical works themselves, the origin of each piece, and its value for scholarly research. She also explains in detail the intricacies of the Sonq dynasty modal system and forms of notation, an understanding of which is essential for reading Sonq music.

~Originally published in 1967, this title has been reissued with a new foreword and an introductory essay.

~'Researchers in oriental music have waited many years for a study such as this one produced by a scholar such as Dr. Pian ... For the general researcher in oriental music the organisation and detail of Dr. Pian's first chapter are of the greatest value ... [and] will be a standard reference for years to come ... All in all here is an impressive example of thorough scholarship ...' - Professor William Malm, The University of Michigan, Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, Vol. 28 (1968)

~'...It is the first work to deal in detail and reliably with the sources, modes and forms of notation of Chinese music and the first to transcribe together all existing Sung music into staff notation ... Nowhere have Chinese forms of notation been so thoroughly examined in a Western language...' - Professor Colin Mackerras, The Australian National University, Canberra, Monumenta Serica (or Journal of Oriental Studies), Vol. 27 (1968)

~Although born in Cambridge and eventually educated at Radcliffe College the author, Professor Rulan Chao Pian, spent much of her childhood and part of her high school years in China. This enabled her, with some training, to undertake a Chinese language teaching position, while studying Musicology in the Music Department at Harvard-Radcliffe. Her interest in the musical culture of China had thus led to the exploration of Chinese musical sources, hence her study of the Sonq dynasty musical sources as her doctoral dissertation. Next she went further into the investigation of broader musical fields such as the Chinese dramatic and narrative music, for which she did much field work and published numerous articles. In 1974 she was appointed Professor of East Asian Languages and Civilisations and of Music at Harvard until her retirement in 1992. In 1990 she was elected a member of the Academia Sinica, Taiwan. (For this item please quote stock ID 20062) ISBN: 9789629960629

This is the most comprehensive study to date of the rich popular music scene in contemporary China. Focusing on the city of Beijing and drawing upon extensive fieldwork, China's New Voices shows that during the 1980s and 1990s, rock and pop music, combined with new technologies and the new market economy, have enabled marginalised groups to achieve a new public voice that is often independent of the state. Nimrod Baranovitch analyses this phenomenon by focusing on three important contexts: ethnicity, gender, and state politics. His study is a fascinating look at the relationship between popular music in China and broad cultural, social, and political changes that are taking place there. Baranovitch's sources include formal interviews and conversations conducted with some of China's most prominent rock and pop musicians and music critics, with ordinary people who provide lay perspectives on popular music culture, and with others involved in the music industry and in academia. Baranovitch also observed recording sessions, concerts, and dance parties, and draws upon TV broadcasts and many publications in Chinese about popular music. Nimrod Baranovitch is Lecturer in Chinese Culture and Society in the Department of East Asian Studies at Haifa University and Research Fellow at the Harry S. Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. (For this item please quote stock ID 21764) ISBN: 9780520234505

How does a piece of music embody the sound of a different culture? The traditional music of China, Japan and Korea have been an important source of inspiration form many Western composers. Some, like Chou Wen-chung and John Cage, have moved beyond superficial borrowing of 'Eastern' musical elements in earnest attempts to understand non-Western principles of compostiion. At the same time, many Asian composers, often trained in the West or in Western music traditions, have been using Asian elements to create works of unique musical synthesis. As a relust of such cultural interpenetrations, the landscape of Western art music has been irreversably altered. Locating East Asia in Western Art Music is a comparative study of Asian-influeneced Western composers and Western-influenced Asian composers, and the first sustained exploration of this cross cultural exchange. Bringing together work by music theorists musicologists and ethnomusicologists, this book explores how musical notions of East and West are constructed and utilised by composers and re-evaluates the many ways East Asian composers have contributed to developemnts in 20th-century music. 'This excellent and very useful book will have a considerable impact on our understanding of the history of Western and world music in the 20th century' - Bruno Nettl, Professor of Music & Anthropology, University of Illinois. (For this item please quote stock ID 21141) ISBN: 9780819566621

The series Music from the Tang Court considers a repertory of music at least 1400 years old. During the two centuries before 841 the Japanese Court borrowed a large amount of secular entertainment music from China. 'Tang Music' survives in Japan in a substantial body of manuscripts, but is transformed in character in contemporary performance. This edition transcribes and comments on the music as it survives in its earliest sources and this process has revealed surprising evidence, presented in this seventh volume, for ancient interconnections in music of different cultures. Features: >The latest in the internationally recognised series transcribing the Chinese music brought to Japan 1400 years ago >This volume contains extended essays covering key factors of the research of over 20 years >Claims interconnections between the musics of Asia which has hitherto been unrecognised Contents of Volume 7: >1. How the Togaku repertory was acquired by the Japanese; & the processes of 'acculturation' that followed its acquisition (Laurence Picken) >2. In search of the music of pre-Nara Japan (Noël Nickson, Laurence Picken) >3. 'Old Music', 'New Music', & other classificatory terms in the musical vocabularies of Late Nara & Heian, Japan (Laurence Picken) >4. Locational & functional names of notes in modal note-sets across Eurasia (Laurence Picken & Noël Nickson) >5. Modalnote-sets & related matters in Ancient China; in Ancient & Modern India & Persia; in Ancient Greece; 6. The modal system of Togaku as a vestige of 28 mode-keys of the Tang inheritance: different modes with like finals; like modes with different finals (Laurence Picken) >7. Parallels in the organisation of music in time in Indonesia, Ancient India & Ancient China (Laurence Picken, Nicholas Gray & Robert Walker) >Envoi >Cumulative bibliography. (For this item please quote stock ID 21982) ISBN: 9780521543361

~This is a standard reference on Sonq dynasty music, and a model of meticulous scholarship. In it Professor Pian surveys the theoretical and practical treatises on music, the historical and encyclopedic compilations, the song collections, and various other related materials. She comments on available editions of the musical works themselves, the origin of each piece, and its value for scholarly research. She also explains in detail the intricacies of the Sonq dynasty modal system and forms of notation, an understanding of which is essential for reading Sonq music.

~Originally published in 1967, this title has been reissued with a new foreword and an introductory essay.

~Although born in Cambridge and eventually educated at Radcliffe College the author, Professor Rulan Chao Pian, spent much of her childhood and part of her high school years in China. This enabled her, with some training, to undertake a Chinese language teaching position, while studying Musicology in the Music Department at Harvard-Radcliffe. Her interest in the musical culture of China had thus led to the exploration of Chinese musical sources, hence her study of the Sonq dynasty musical sources as her doctoral dissertation. Next she went further into the investigation of broader musical fields such as the Chinese dramatic and narrative music, for which she did much field work and published numerous articles. In 1974 she was appointed Professor of East Asian Languages and Civilisations and of Music at Harvard until her retirement in 1992. In 1990 she was elected a member of the Academia Sinica, Taiwan. (For this item please quote stock ID 22564) ISBN: 9789629960995