(music playing)
Alright, we just finished talking about texture,
and, as I told you then, you're probably not going to hear very much music
that's in monophonic texture. But, if you lived in China,
you would probably hear a great deal of monophonic texture because that's very
typical of Chinese folk music. So,
like most cultures, Chinese culture uses music for
religious rituals, for ceremonial kinds of things especially related to the
court, for festivals... So, even the same kinds of things that we think about music being
use for in all sorts of cultures
are... also occur in Chinese music. But, unlike most cultures, in China,
music is also connected to philosophy and mathematics.
Now, we've saw the music was connected to mathematics way back when they were
using the Pythagorean tuning,
but, other than that, we haven't really made those kind of connections.
So, we think about the way the Chinese...
philosophy works - everything, it seems, is tied together so it's... that doesn't
seem unusual they would use this particular approach to music as well.
The scale that is used in
most Asian music, not just China, is what we call the pentatonic scale -
Penta = 5, tonic = sounds. Compare that to the
eight note scale that we use in Western music.
So, in a pentatonic scale, this is the pattern that you would have:
(plays example)
You see, I was playing... Well, you couldn't see but you can hear. That... that's...
the equivalent of just playing the black notes on a keyboard.
(plays another pentatonic scale)
You can go that way. So,
it's a five note scale. Like a lot of
atonal music, which will talk about later, it leaves this... there's really no sense of
where things are going because there are no tones that say "Oh, I've gotta go here."
And so, that... allows composers to use that kind of scale
to really go off in a lot of different directions, and you can hear that in
Chinese music.
Each of the five notes of the pentatonic scale is related,
in Chinese culture, to one of the five elements - earth,
metal, wood, fire, and water.
So, each note has...
a philosophical significance... beyond
the pitch itself. In Chinese music,
the melody and the timbre, or the the unique sounds of things,
is much more important than rhythm. So, you don't hear any driving, rhythmic
things going on in most Chin... traditional Chinese music.
It's all about the melodic line and about
the sound of the instrument, or the changing sounds
of instruments. So, those are things you can think about as you listen to that music.
Now, the Chinese, as we know, were way ahead of... of most other cultures.
We just didn't know about it, because it was a very isolated country.
We talked about music notation...
from the Gregorian chant... Well, we will talk about it. I'm sorry. We haven't talked about that yet
but we will... we will look at...
Gregorian chant and the kind notation that was used for that,
which is how we developed sort of our modern notation system.
But, the Chinese were using music notation probably...
three or four hundred years before that. So, they were...
they were well advanced in the notation system. They also had opera
a lot earlier than Europeans did as... as we will see.
Opera starts in... Europe around 1600.
By the year... 1300, the Chinese had their own opera
system and... it's a very interesting opera if you'd like to take a look at that sometime.
So... very advanced and... and we know that about Chinese culture.
The orchestra, in Chinese culture, is much larger than
the Western orchestra. Typical
Symphony Orchestra would have, today, maybe 60 or 70 players.
If it's a really massive piece, we might go up to 80 or 90.
But, a typical Chinese orchestra might have as many as a 150 different players,
and part of the reason for that is, because as I said they're very
interested in timbre and the tone colors,
so more instruments give you more opportunities for more tone colors.
So, that's a slightly different approach. The music that we're going to watch...
performance that we're going to watch are not orchestral pieces,
these are solo works. Both the solo song and solo instrumental music are very common in
Chinese culture.
So, what are the instruments that we would see in Chinese culture?
I will apologize in advance to anyone who actually speaks Chinese if I butcher the
name of something.
So, we have string instruments, and the most famous of those is the
pipa.
And I'm going to... give you a video
of that being played. It's...
very, sort of ethereal-sounding when you have a one string instrument
when you don't get all the supporting harmonies that we're used to
hearing.
It's a very different kind of... sound
It... and, as I was actually looking for videos to show you
about 90 percent of them will say
"beautiful Chinese music" as if there were ugly... they weren't gonna
acknowledge it or something. I don't know. It's always got beautiful in front. And there's also
lots of it that's... that's Chinese music for relaxation
because it is very relaxing music. There's not a lot of rhythmic intensity
to get your heart pumping or anything, so it it does tend to be relaxing.
So, go and take a look at the pipa re...
video that I provided for you to see this particular Chinese instrument.
Alright, so that was a string instrument and we... and we've... we know about string
instruments from our own cultures.
Now, let's look at a woodwind instrument that's very popular Chinese music,
that is the bamboo flute. So, we know that a flute is a long tube.
The... European flute, if you want to call it that,
has keys on it, although it might also be open-holed when you play it.
A bamboo flute doesn't usually have keys on it. It's usually just open-holed you just cover with
your fingers.
It produces basically the same sound because it is made of wood,
and that's truly a woodwind instrument! It has a slightly more mellow sound
than a metal flute does. So, you might think about that...
and maybe compare that to a... a metal flute sound as you look at those
particular videos
so you can see the difference in the tone quality and the timbre there.
of the Chinese bamboo flute and the modern...
metal flute.
So, I hope you enjoyed that performance. The final... category of instruments that's
very popular in Chinese culture is percussion instruments.
As... the gong
I saw video once where on percussionist from the New York Philharmonic
referred to Asia as gong heaven.
So gongs, drums, wind chimes... we've
we've... talked about the Chinese Bell Tree in
percussion classes, so lots of percussion kind of things...
We don't usually see that as an separate kind of ensamble, it's usually more of a support for some
other kind of instrument.
So, as you listen to other kinds of music through the semester,
you might think about this Chinese style.
How does Western music compare
to is very traditional Chinese music which is even older than
the music that we're going to listen to? So I hope you've enjoyed this
short introduction to Chinese music. If you like it a lot
you know there's lots of videos out there and lots of places for you to learn
more about it.