Chinese Classical
Music
Jeff Cribben
HL Music Theory
Period 6
Geography
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Rivers flow from west to east, including the
Yangtze, the Huang He, and the Amur.
The south has hill ranges of moderate elevation,
and the Himalayas.
Background
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Ling Lun was the “founder of music” because of the
bamboo pipes that he tuned to the sounds of birds.
The Imperial Music Bureau, first established in the Qin
Dynasty, was greatly expanded under the Emperor Han
Wu Di and charged with supervising court music and
military music and determining what folk music would
be officially recognized. In previous dynasties, the
development of Chinese music was strongly influenced
by foreign music.
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Chinese Music dates back to the dawn of
Chinese civilization with documents and
artifacts providing evidence of a well-developed
musical culture as early as the Zhou Dynasty.
Culture
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The "official" orthodox faith system held by most
dynasties of China is a panentheistic system,
centering on the worship of "Heaven“. It has
features of a monotheism in that Heaven is seen
as an omnipotent entity. Worship of Heaven
includes shrines, the greatest being the Altar of
Heaven in Beijing.
Culture
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The Chinese government
still has almost absolute
control over politics, and
it continually seeks to
eradicate what it
perceives as threats to the
social, political and
economic stability of the
country. In 1989, the
student protests at
Tiananmen Square were
violently put to an end by
the Chinese military after
15 days of martial law.
Instrument Background
Traditional music in China is played on solo
instruments or in small groups. The scale is almost
universally pentatonic.
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Woodwind and percussion
 Sheng, gong, paixiao, guan, bells, cymbals
 Bowed strings
 erhu, zhonghu, dahu, leiqin
 Plucked and struck strings
 guqin, yangqin, guzheng, ruan, pipa, zhu
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Guzheng
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Strings are tuned to pentatonic
Belongs to the Zither family of
instruments
Like the Guqin, but has
bridges
Has around 16-24 strings
Picks are attached to the right
hand and strings are plucked
and strummed
Guzheng
Pipa
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The pipa is a plucked Chinese string
instrument. Sometimes called the
Chinese lute, the instrument has a
pear-shaped wooden body.
It has been played for nearly two
thousand years
Gu Qin
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The guqin is a quiet instrument, with a range of
four octaves. Its lowest pitch is about two
octaves below middle C.
It has 7 strings, and dates back by legend 5,000
years
Zhong Ruan
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It is a lute with a
fretted neck, a
circular body, and
four strings. Its
strings were
formerly made of
silk but since the
20th century they
have been made of
steel.
Classical Chinese Music Structure
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Chinese traditional art music is:
• written, and largely utilizes a number
notation;
• homophonic (generally a melody line with
some harmonic accompaniment);
• rhythmically simple
• expressive, rubato, ornamented, and nuanced;
• mostly in just intonation.
Western Music Structure
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Western art music is:
• written, and largely utilizes western staff notation;
• polyphonic (independent lines of music played
together);
• rhythmically sophisticated by comparison with
Chinese, triple meters abound, and compound
meters also used;
• expressive and rubato, but not generally as nuanced
and ornamented as Chinese;
• in equal temperament.
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Liu Fang born
1974 is a pipa
player. Born in
China, she began
playing the pipa
at the age of 6.
Her first solo
public
performance was
at the age of 9. In
1985, at age 11,
she played for
Queen Elizabeth
II.
Liu Fang
Bei-Bei
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Bei Bei is a Gu Zheng (Chinese Zither)
performer, educator, and composer. She
started to play the Gu Zheng at the age of
seven.
The feedback that she has received as she
has introduced American audiences to Gu
Zheng and its broad and varied repertoire
has been extremely positive.
Shen Nalin
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Born in southwest of Sichuan, China, Shen
Nalin studied composition at the Sichuan
Conservatory of Music.
In 1994 he moved to New Zealand and
enrolled at the School of Music at Victoria
University of Wellington, and graduated in
2000 with Master of Music with
Distinction. For his Ph.D studies he is
composing an opera based on the dramatic
life and writings of Chinese poets.
He has composed chamber and orchestral
music for piano, strings, orchestra, voices
and compositions using Chinese
instruments including The Mortal World
for sheng, zheng, suona and percussion,
and The Cold Dream for zheng, sheng,
strings and percussion
Jeff Roberts
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The compositions of Jeff Roberts unite his
experiences as an improvising guitarist
improvising be-bop, free jazz and Brazilian
music and is a Chinese Guqin performer with
influences ranging from American
Experimentalism and the European avantgarde to Chinese and Korean traditional music,
reaching audiences through concerts in France,
Germany, Italy, China and the United States.
Roberts
Compositions
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Many of his musical styles are with a
combination of traditional timings and
instruments in mind
Chinese poetry, in particular, is inspiring to
Roberts, as he makes his music flow with the
theme of poems; also incorporating
instruments with different styles
Picture Brazilian-Chinese-Folk-American-Jazz
fusion
Wandering
“Reference to the
legendary Chinese
Tang Dynasty poet Li
Po. There is an
ephemeral beauty and
scattered ness in the
imagery that I find in
his poems: an
observation of nature
here, a memory of a
distant friend there,
then a
Taoist immortal, then
perhaps a ‘nostalgia’
from a past life.
Analogous to Li Po’s
wanderings in his
poems and in his life
as a recluse poet, this
piece wanders too.
Time Reflection
“Having lived for
periods of time
within different
musical styles and
traditions (jazz,
Brazilian bossa and
samba, classical,
Chinese, among
others), I have
developed different
senses of musical
time. These different
senses arise from the
cultural and
historical context of
the music. How one
learns to listen to
and appreciate the
music in the context
of its tradition
affects how they
experience musical
time.”
Current Stance
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In Chinese music, Jeff is currently researching and
analyzing structure in traditional guqin compositions.
As a guitarist, Jeff is involved in improvisation in
several different styles. He performs jazz regularly in
Beijing in local Jazz clubs and much of his time is
dedicated to performing various types of music
Jeff won a Fulbright Fellowship Award for studies in
China. He will continue his studies in Beijing, China
on guqin with leading guqin master Li Xiangting,
Works Cited
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www.wikipedia.org
www.chinesecultureonline.com
www.asiainfo.org
www.itvgou.com
Peking.org
Media.maps.com
www.worldofstrings.nl
www.theodora.com
http://www.china.org.cn/english/culture/151799.htm
http://www.elisabethwaldomusic.com/chinesemusic.htm
http://sounz.org.nz/contributor/composer/1684
http://www.improvis.org/
http://www.vi-co.org/pdf/Classical%20ChinaWest%20study%20guide%20_general_.pdf