Abstract
This chapter discusses current theories and methods for understanding music as cultures and as natural or man-made phenomena, the meanings of which are shaped by not only musical styles and structures but also performance sites and the participants’ aesthetics and music practices. This chapter begins with a survey of key concepts, such as sound culture, soundscape, and musikscape, and concludes with a case study of the musical world of Lin’an, the capital of Southern Song China (1127–1275), demonstrating the ways its citizens selectively and strategically produced and consumed a diversity of music in their historical time and place. With such demonstrations, this chapter underscores the observations that if current theories and methods of music studies developed in the West can be fruitfully applied to Chinese music studies, the applications would challenge the theories and stimulate further debates on their definitions and issues.
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Notes
- 1.
Written for general readers, this chapter outlines the fundamental issues of music, sound, and site as they are applicable to the study of Chinese music. This chapter cites only essential documents, highlighting those written in English. Readers interested in further inquiries are encouraged to consult the works cited, many of which include current bibliographies on ethnomusicology, musicology, Chinese history, Song dynasty history, and theories of historiography.
- 2.
There is a growing body of literature on Southern Song culture and music. For a general and recent work, see Zhao Xiaolan 赵晓岚, Jiang Kui yu NanSong wenhua 姜夔与南宋文化/Jiang Kui and Southern Song Culture (Beijing: Xueyuan chubanshe, 2001). For a representative work on literature, see Shuen-Fu Lin, The Transformation of the Chinese Lyrical Tradition: Chiang K’uei and Southern Song Tz’u Poetry(Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1978). For musicological works, see Rulan Chao Pian, Sonq Dynasty Musical Sources and their Interpretation(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1967); Lawrence E.R.Picken, “Chiang K’uei’s ‘Nine Songs for Yüeh’” Musical Quarterly43 (1957), pp. 201–219, and “Secular Chinese Songs of the Twelfth Century,” Studia Musicologia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae, Tomus 8 (1966), pp. 125–172; and Joseph Lam, “Transnational Understanding of Historical Music: State Sacrificial Music from the Southern Song, China (A.D. 1127–1279),” The World of Music38/2 (2001): pp. 69–83; “Writing Music Biographies of Historical Asian Musicians: The Case of Jiang Kui (A.D. 1155–1221), World of Music, 43/1 (2006): pp. 69–95; and “A Matter of Style: State Sacrificial Music and Cultural-Political Discourse in Southern Song China (1127–1279), (New York: Oxford University Press, forthcoming). The Shanghai Conservatory of Music has recently produced a number of informative and insightful dissertations and monographs on Song dynasty music and music history. These include: Kang Ruijun 康瑞军, Songdai gongting yinyue zhidu yanjiu宋代宫廷音乐制度研究 (Shanghai: Shanghai yinyue xueyuan chubanshe 2009); and Zeng Meiyue曾美月, Songdai biji yinyue wenxian shiliao jiazhe yanjiu宋代笔记音乐文献价值研究/A Study of the Historical Value of Song Music Notes,” Dissertation, 2009.
- 3.
Among works promoting such a view, the following studies are representative and have stimulated this author’s approach to the issues. Howard S. Becker, Art Worlds, 25th Anniversary Edition (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008); Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1984); Martin Clayton, Trevor Herbert, and Richard Middleton eds., The Cultural Study of Music (New York: Routledge, 2003); Tia DeNora, Music in Everyday Life (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000); and Christopher Small, Musicking: The Meanings of Performing and Listening (Hanover, NH: Wesleyan University Press, 1998).
- 4.
The leading musicologist on this rapidly developing frontier is Steven Feld, see his Sound and Sentiment, Birds, Weeping, Poetics and Song in Kalui Expression (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1982), and program notes to his many CD recordings, such as Voices of the Rainforest (1991, Rykodisc) and Romani Soundscapes in Bright Balkan Morning: Romani Lives and the Power of Music in Greek Macedonia (2002, Wesleyan U. Press) with Dick Blau (photographs). See also the Soundscape Newsletter (http://interact.uoregon.edu/Medialit/wfae/library/newsletter) which provides current research news and bibliographies; and Tim Rice, “Time, Place, and Metaphor in Musical Experience and Ethnography,” Ethnomusicology 47/2 (2003), pp. 151–179.
- 5.
Huang Xiangpeng 黄翔鹏, Chuangtong shi yitiao heliu 传统是一条河流 (Beijing: Renmin yinyue chubanshe, 1990); see in particular, pp. 35–38, 105–146, 215–225.
- 6.
For a stimulating discussion on the nature of music, see Elizabeth Tolbert, “The Enigma of Music, the Voice of Reason: ‘Music,’ ‘Language’ and Becoming Human,” New Literary History 32 (2001): pp. 451–465.
- 7.
For a classical discussion on the issues, see John Blacking, How Musical is Man? (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1973).
- 8.
Two representative publications on the issues are J. H. Kwabena Nketia, “Contextual Strategies of Inquiry and Systemization,” Ethnomusicology (1990), pp. 75–97 and Regula Qureshi, “Musical Sound and Contextual Input: A Performance Model for Musical Analysis,” Ethnomusicology 31/1 (1987), pp. 56–86.
- 9.
William Kay Archer, “On the Ecology of Music,” Ethnomusicology 8/1 (1964), pp. 28–33; Murray Schafer, The Soundscape: Our Sonic Environment and the Tuning of the World (Rochester, VT: Destiny Books, 1994); The Music of the Environment (Wien: Universal Edition, 1973).
- 10.
The term “musikscape” is rooted in my theory of “musiking.” When people “musik,” they manipulate music as objects, sites, and processes in particularized times and places to achieve personal and social agendas. For an application of the musiking concept, see Joseph S. C. Lam, “Imperial Agency in Ming Music Culture,” in Culture, Courtiers, and Competition: The Ming Court (1368–1644), edited by David Robinson (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008), pp. 269–320.
- 11.
For a survey of musical Confucianism, see Joseph Lam, “Musical Confucianism: The Case of ‘Jikong yuewu,’” in On Sacred Grounds: Culture, Society, Politics, and the Formation of the Cult of Confucius, edited by Thomas Wilson (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press), pp. 34–72.
- 12.
Yueji 乐记,in Baihua shisanjing 白话十三经, ed. by Qian Bocheng 钱伯城 (Beijing: Guoji wenhua chubanshen, 1996). See also Scott Cook, “YueJi—Record of Music: Introduction, Translation, Notes, and Commentary” Asian Music 26/2 (1995), pp. 1–96.
- 13.
Lin Yin 林尹annotated, “Chunguan zongbo 春官宗伯,” in Zhouli jinzhu jinyi 周礼今注今译 (Taipei: Taiwan shangwu yinshuju, 1972), pp. 231–232.
- 14.
Yueji, “Yueben bian乐本篇”, pp. 1262.
- 15.
Confucius/The Analects, translated by D.C. Lau (London: Penguin, 1979); see in particular III, VIII, XV, XVII, XVIII.
- 16.
Songshi (Song history), edited by Tuo Tuo (1345; Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1977), pp. 130.3029–3064.
- 17.
Songshi, 131, pp. 3050–3064.
- 18.
Songshi, 132–141, pp. 3067–3337.
- 19.
Songshi, 142, pp. 3339–3362.
- 20.
Joseph Lam, “Musical Relics and Cultural Expressions: State Sacrificial Songs from the Southern Song Court (A.D. 1127–1279),” Journal of Sung-Yuan Studies 25 (1995): pp. 1–25.
- 21.
Zhou Mi 周密, edited by Li Xiaolong 李小龙 and Zhao Ruiping 赵锐平,Wulin jiushi 武林旧事(Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2007), pp. 11–18. For a study on cultural living in Song China, see Stephen West, “Playing with Food: Performance, Food, and the Aesthetics of Artificiality in the Sung and Yuan,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, vol. 57, no. 1 (1997), pp. 67–106.
- 22.
Zhou Mi, “Dali nanjiao 大礼南郊,” pp. 11–18.
- 23.
Zhou Mi, “Jiulou 酒楼,” “Geguan 歌馆,” and “Zhuse jiyiren诸色伎艺人,” in Wulin jiushi, pp. 158–162, and 179–194.
- 24.
Yang Yinliu 杨荫浏 and Yin Falu 阴法鲁, Song Jiang Baishi Chuangzuo gequ yanjiu 宋姜白石创作歌曲研究 (Beijing: Yinyue chubanshe), 1957.
- 25.
Xu Jian 许健, Qinshi chubian 琴史初编 (Shanghai: Wenyi chubanshe, 1984), pp. 102–104 and Zha Fuxi 查阜西, Cunjian guqin qupu jilan 存见古琴曲谱缉览 (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 2001), pp. 330–333.
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Lam, J.S.C. (2013). Music, Sound, and Site: A Case Study from Southern Song China (1127–1275). In: Cheng, Pk., Fan, K. (eds) New Perspectives on the Research of Chinese Culture. Chinese Culture, vol 1. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-4021-78-4_6
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