(There are four blog posts to Day Nine…feel pumped)
I might as well mention what I talked about in my presentation on Chinese music. I talked about the importance of music in Chinese history (in case you didn’t know, it’s very important). The characters that make up the word music in Chinese mean “tone”(aka the essence of music) and “happiness.” Throughout Chinese history, music has been used mainly for entertainment and ritual. Music has been used as a tool for social harmony by everyone from ancient emperors to Mao.
I also compared Western and Chinese music. There are three major differences I found between Chinese and Western music.
One, traditional Chinese music is melodic, whereas harmony is, at the times, the end all be all of Western music. Because Western music has harmony, all learned singers must learn to match the tone of all the others (one can’t sound too “bright” in comparison to “dark” sounding singers). Western choirs, because they are singing different notes, must sound like “one voice.” However in traditional Chinese music, all voices sing the same note, so it’s the varying tone colors that comprise the beauty of the song. I used a Chinese folk medley, consisting of various instruments playing the same melody, and compared it to the harmony in Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” as an example.
Two, the Chinese music scale is pentatonic, having only five notes a scale, while the Western scale has a richer seven note scale. This two note differences causes Western listeners to perceive Chinese singers as off tone at times.
Three, I’ve found that traditional Chinese singers sound a great deal more nasal than their Western counterparts. This is immediately evident after comparing a piece of Chinese opera to Western opera. The Chinese singer’s sound seems to come directly from the nose or face, whereas the Western singer sings deep from the gut.
There are many more differences, but these were the ones I covered in my seven minute presentation.
