Folk Music of China

This book opens the door on the magnificent living traditions of folk music in rural China. Instrumentalists performing for folk ceremonial in Chinese villages today are still practising traditions handed down from the temples and courts of imperial times. Stephen Jones's book illustrates the beauty and varity of these folk traditions, from the plangent shawm bands of the rugged north to the more mellifluous string ensembles of the southeastern coast. Working closely with the Music Research Institute in Beijing, Stephen Jones has used his fieldwork in China to write a book offering insight into the riches of these traditions. It thus opens up a country where for the outsider offical culture still largely obscures folk traditions, and where revolutionary opera and kitsch urban professional arrangements still dominate our image of Chinese music. The volume is divided into three parts. Part 1 discusses the turbulent history of folk ensembles in the twentieth century and the survival of folk ceremonial. Part 2 outlines musical features of Chinese instrumental graoups, such as scales, melody, and variation, whilst Part 3 looks at some regional genres.Table of ContentPart 1 The social background: introduction; ceremonial music; the Republican period and the 1950s; instrumental music since the end of the cultural revolution; social aspects of instrumental music. Part 2 The musical background: genres and instrumentation; basic musical aspects; melodic repertories - the "labelled melodies"; variation techniques and large-scale structure. Part 3 Some regional genres: northern shawm-and-percussion bands - Liaoning and Shandong; northern ritual ensembles - folk, temple, and courtly ensembles of Hebei, Beijing, and Tianjin; northern ritual ensembles - Shanxi and Shaanxi; Jiangsu - Shifan and Jiangnan silk-and-bamboo; Fujian - nan guan and other traditions; Guandong - Chaozhou, Hakka, and Cantonese music; coda.