Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2brh9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T13:21:28.773Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Recent technology and the hybridisation of Western and Chinese musics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 May 2005

CHRISTOPHER J. KEYES
Affiliation:
Department of Music, Hong Kong Baptist University, 224 Waterloo Road, Hong Kong E-mail: [email protected] URL: http://www.hkbu.edu.hk/~ckeyes

Abstract

Although the hybridisation of Western and Chinese musics has been progressing for over a century, many early attempts tended to treat Chinese material in a rather superficial manner. This resulted in mere ‘Orientalist’ Western pieces and rather bland pentatonic/romantic ‘Chinese’ music that simply harmonised the basic outline of popular Chinese melodies with Western chord progressions. The use of recent technologies has greatly accelerated the pace and depth of this hybridisation and solved many of its artistic problems. Technological advances now make it possible and practical to incorporate the subtle but essential elements of traditional Chinese music, and of course other world musics, in works that seem satisfying for Western and non-Western audiences. This paper presents a brief historical overview of the hybridisation of Western and Chinese musical traditions, examines common pitfalls of many early attempts, and reviews how these issues are addressed compositionally and technically in the author's recent electroacoustic pieces, Li Jiang Etudes No. 1, 2 & 3.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press 2005

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)
Supplementary material: File

Keyes supplementary material

Keyes supplementary material

Download Keyes supplementary material(File)
File 5.7 MB