| Term | Definition |
|---|
| age of china | 4000 years old |
| founding of prc | 1949 |
| ethnic makeup | 56 official ethnic groups, 93% Han, rest are 55 minority groups |
| major performance piece | Peking/Bejing Opera |
| cultural revolution | Complex social and political upheaval that began as a struggle between Mao Zedong and other top Communist Party leaders for domination of the Party and went on to affect all China with its calls for "continuing revolution" and "class struggle." Dates for the movement are usually given as 1966 to 1976. |
| hong kong returned | 1997 |
| qin | Seven stringed zither. Is not played with pinky, or Jinzhi- "Forbidden finger". Mentioned in Shujing in 6th century BCE. It has neither frets nor bridges, it does have thirteen studs or position markers called hui. |
| pipa | A four stringed, fretted lute with a bent neck and a pear-shaped body. Has 23-25 frets. |
| jiangnan sizhu | Chinese chamber instrumental ensemble made up of strings and winds popular around the areas of Shanghai. Played by amateurs for their own enjoyment. Like other traditional Chinese music it is considered a kind of background music to enhance the ambiance of a pleasant social environment. |
| composition of jiangnan sizhu | Strings (silk): -One pipa; -One or two Sanxian; -One qinqin; -One or two erhu; -One yangqin. Winds (bamboo): -One dizi; -One xiao; -One sheng. Percussion: -Gu and ban; -Muyu; -Pongzhong |
| jingju theater/peking/beijing opera | -Presentation of plots using music, speech, stylized gestures and dance movements, acrobatics, mock combat scenes, fanciful makeup and elaborate costumes. -Musical elements consist of four arias, heightened speech, and instrumental music. -Instrumental music has many functions: Accompany singing and physical movement and dance. Instrumental music is made up of 2 components: Wenchang – melodic (civic instrumentation) Wuchang – percussion (military instrumentation). Visual and aural elements are equally important. |
| kong fuzi | Confucius aka Master Kong (551-479 B.C.E.). Confucius Shi yin (proper sound) Chi yue (extravagant music). |
| western influence | -Originality and authorship; -Creation process; -Western instrumentation |
| new music history | -1911: Qing Dynasty; -1912-1949: tried to model China after the U.S; -1914 – 1917 Japan tried to gain control Protest songs. -May 4, 1919: National Peking University – liberal chancellor Cai Yuanpei (1867-1940) May Fourth Movement; -CCP (1921) Propaganda/nationalist music |
| pop music in china | -Shanghai; -Liuxing gequ Shanghai popular song; -Pop music of today: -PRC (1949) no more liuxing gequ -Canto Pop -1980s -Disike, jingge, xibeifeng |
| rock music in china | -Mid 1980's; -Zhong jinshu; -benke; -Cui Jian NY debut 1995: -Inner emotion, cultural and political issues -Deliberately idiosyncratic and ambiguous language |
| music for minorities | Han and non-Han: -Marxism provided pseudotheoretical justification for the Han to control and "help" minorities; -Mongolian Singers: -Mei sheng -Bel Canto |
| types of han music | instrumental music (solo and ensemble), musical narratives, musical theaters, and folk songs of different regions. |
| qin composition | 1. Sanqi (introduction); 2. Rudiao (entering the exposition); 3. Ruman (becoming slower); 4. Weisheng (tail sounds) |
| sanqi (introduction) | In a Qin Composition: Begins slowly in free rhythm. Its function is to introduce the principle notes of the mode used in the piece. |
| rudiao (entering exposition) | In a Qin Composition: The meter is established, and the principal motives of the piece are introduced, which are then varied by means of extension, reduction, ad changes in timbre, tempo, and register. This part is usually the longest and musically the most substantial. |
| ruman (becoming slower) | In a Qin Composition: The principal motives undergo further rhythmic variation, and modulation to other keys may occur. In some larger compostions, motivic materials occurring in the second part may be restated and reinterpreted here; this is called fuqi. |
| weisheng (tail sounds) | In a Qin Composition: A short code concludes the composition. The code, always played in harmonics and in slackening tempo, reiterates the important notes used in the composition. |
| characteristics of pipa music | 1. Continuous; 2. Divided into many sections that follow a theme and variation structure with themes derived from preexistent materials; 3. Divided into many sections that alternate song like with percussive material. |
| erhu | Two-stringed fiddles with hollow wooden clindrical sound boxes having one sided covered by snakeskin |
| sanxian | A three-stringed plucked lute with a long, fretted neck. |
| yangqin | A dulcimer struck with a pair of bamboo sticks |
| sheng | A free-reed mouth organ made of a series of bamboo pipes arranged in a circle, each with a reed in its lower end, and all inserted into a base made of copper, wood, or gourd, to which a mouthpiece is attached; two or more tones may be produced simultaneously on the instrument. |
| dizi | A transverse bamboo flute with six finger holes, a mouth hole, and another hole covered by a thin membrane, which vibrates to give the instrument a reedy sound. |
| jinzhi | "Forbidden finger", the pinky. Cannot be used to play the Qin. |
| han | Largest ethnic group in China, make up 93% of population. |
| mei sheng | A term meaning beautiful sound, the Chinese version of bel canto, incorporating Western vocal timbre. It was taught to Mongolian singers in conservatories in an effort to undermine Mongolian traditional music. |
| may fourth movement | Was an anti-imperialist, cultural, and political movement growing out of student demonstrations in Beijing on May 4, 1919 protesting the Chinese government's weak response to the Treaty of Versailles, especially the Shandong Problem. These demonstrations sparked national protests and marked the upsurge of Chinese nationalism, a shift towards political mobilization and away from cultural activities, and a move towards populist base rather than intellectual elites. Also refers to the period afterward reflecting a change in the culture of China. |
| liuxing gequ | A popular song produced in Shanghai since the late 1920's that is a hybrid of various Western and Chinese musical genres. Its lyrics are sung in Mandarin. |
| zhong jinshu | Chinese heavy metal. |
| benke | Chinese punk music. |
| boya | A great Qin master who composed "Flowing Water". Lived during the Spring and Autmn period 770-476 BCE. Had a close friend who understood his music, when he died he quit playing Qin. From this story arose the phraise "Zhi Yin" meaning "a good friend who understand my music." |
| cui jian | NY Debut 1995, Inner emotion, cultural and political issues. Deliberately idiosyncratic and ambiguous language. Political protest song rejecting the new wave of materialism and loss of ideals. |
| mao zedong | 1893–1976, Chinese Communist leader: chairman of the People's Republic of China 1949–59; chairman of the Chinese Communist party 1943–76. |
| characteristics of jiangnan sizhu | Usually performed in neighborhood teahouses. Although drum and clapper player is supposed to provide the beat for the music, players typically are not overly concerned with rhythmic exactitude. All instruments play together most the time. Begins sowly and gradually accelerates, ending in a fast tempo. Heterophonic, each instrument embellishes melody differently. Most important feature is the structural expansion in which musical materials are expanded by slowing down the tempo of the original melody and adding notes. The overally fuzzy timbral quality of this purely meolidic music is attributable not only the combination of plucked and bowed strings with winds but also to the fact that they play in a relatively high register and use several slightly different tunings. Songs flow into one another. Melodic embellishments used extensively. |
| characteristics of jingju theater | Jingju theater is a conglomeration of the dramatic presentations of plots using music, speech, stylized gestures and dance movements, acrobatics, mock combat scenes and fanciful makeup and elaborate costumes. Characters of Jingju are divided into four main categories and their role is reflected in the costume and makeup the actor wears and prescribed physical movements of each. The basic musical elements of jingju are arias, heightened speech and instrumental music. Instrumental music in jingju has many functions. First, to accompany singing and physical movements and dance, it can also described a dramatc situation and action, indicate the spatial dimension of the setting, convey the moods and psychological makeup of characters, and provide a soundscape or sound effects connected with a particular dramatic moment. In Jingju, the aural and visual elements are of equal importance. Such a highly stlized and conventional theater requires an audience that possess the art of watching and listening to appreciate it fully. |
| categories of actors in jingju theater | Sheng, Dan, Jing and Chou |
| sheng | In Jingju Theater: Male role divided into old male, young male and warrior subcategories |
| dan | In Jingju Theater: Female role, divided into old female, young refined female, young flirtatious female, and female warrior subcategories |
| jing | In Jingju Theater: Painted face, a rough or heroic male role whose face is painted with intricate colored patterns |
| chou | In Jingju Theater: a male comic role. |
| instrumental ensemble of jingju theater | Split into two components: The melodic civic instrumentation ensemble. Percussion, military instrumentation ensemble. The percussion ensemble plays a more important function than the meoldic group, the percussion ensemble also provides rhythmical punctuation for movements and singing, and it serves to combine all the discrete elements of a play, musical as well as gestural, into a complete whole. |
| percussion ensemble of jingju theater | Made up of five instruments: Danpigu (a single headed drum), ban (a paired wooden clapper; danpigu and ban are played by one person, who functions as the conductor). Daluo (a big gong that produces a falling pitch), xiaoluo (a small gong that produces a rising pitch), and naoba (a small pair of cymbals). Several other percussion instruments are used for specfial effects such as the datangu and the xiaotangu. The music of the percussion ensemble includes some sixty conventional rhythmic patterns, each of which is identified by a proper name and specific syllabic pattern. The five instruments are combined in different ways to indicate different kinds of dramatic situations, atmospheres, or moods. |
| melodic ensemble of jingju theater | Features mostly strings and winds and well as a set of 10 small, suspended pitched gongs called the yunluo. The strings are the jinghu, the erhu, the yue qin, a sanxian, and a ruan. The winds are the dizi transverse flute, the sheng, and the big and small suona. The primary functions of the melodic ensemble are to play introductions and interludes for arias, to double aria melodies, and to play incidental music for dance and miming movements, but the strings and the winds perform somewhat different functions. The strings accompany the two main types of arias known as the xipi and the erhuang. In addition the strings play various indidental pieces, all of which have proper names- to accompany some miming movements such as sweeping, changing clothes, putting on makeup, drinking wine and walking. Each individual piece of named incidental music has an association with specific dramatic situations and moods. The winds sometimes accompany arias. The performers usually play more than one instrument. |
| vocal music of jingju theater | Comprises arias, recitative-like short phrases, and heightened speech, which is a type of stylized stage speech having steeply rising and falling contours that exaggerate the natural tonal contours of the Chinese language. |
| qin embellishment | -Vibrato; -Portamenti; -harmonics; |
Combine with other sets
Share on Facebook
Share on MySpace