« Martin Luther King Day | Main | Still Here »

Chinese Music

February 02, 2007

Music, perhaps more so than food, is one of the most distinctive characteristics of cultures. Chinese music is certainly one-of-a-kind - it wouldn’t be mistaken for anything else when you hear it. One of the reasons for its uniqueness is the fact that Chinese music is structured using a five-tone scale instead of the eight-tone scale commonly used in Western music.

Wikipedia has a good introductory article about Chinese music if you wish to find out a bit more about it.

I am not a fan of Chinese music myself – it represents no more than 2% of my 90+GB iTune collection. I listen to some traditional Chinese opera music which, similar to its western counterpart, has a dedicated but relatively small fanbase. Beijing opera is generally regarded as one of the treasures of Chinese culture.

Facial painting is an important characteristic of Beijing opera. It is applied to ‘jing’ roles (warriors, heroes, statesmen, or even demons) only and reflects the character’s age, profession and personality by using different colors. Each color symbolizes a certain characteristic; red for loyalty and uprightness, black for a rough, stern or honest nature, yellow for rashness and fierceness, white for a cunning and deceitfulness, gold and silver for gods and demons. In Beijing Opera, over one thousand painted facial patterns are used. Each pattern’s uniqueness lies in its ability to make subtle and interesting changes within the fixed facial pattern.

Singing in Beijing opera often takes the form of spoken dialogue (like rapping). The main and minor characters must adhere to a strict yet different form of ‘rapping’.

As for modern Chinese music, I only listen to about half dozen of them occasionally. There are really not many of them whom I can recommend, even with with some hesitation.

1. Cui Jian - excellent song-writer and is considered the father of Chinese rock. He wrote and performed a couple of political songs during the infamous June 4 Tiananmen protest and was ‘forced’ to become inactive afterward. He is probably one of the few Chinese musicians who has managed to attract a small fanbase in the West. His style is similar to, say, Springsteen.

2. Chai Chin – a singer from Taiwan who started her career in the 70s as a folk singer. Her best pieces remain some alt-folk or folk variations. She was performing recently in Shanghai.

3. Faye Wong – a mix of Bjork + Alica Key. Gifted song writer with a sweet voice. She used to be my top favourite but as she grows older or I grow older, I have not been listening to her very often in recent years.

4. Roman Tam – one of the best male voices. He did everything from Cantonese opera to pop music. And like James Blunt, he must have been the dream of every desperate housewife at one time in the 70s. Although he could and did sing in English, Cantonese and Mandarin, his more popular pieces were mainly in Cantonese.

Posted to General at February 2, 2007 12:00 AM :    Furl It!    del.icio.us

Comments

posted by: spectator at April 6, 2007 02:13 AM

Post a comment