MetaFilter posts tagged with China and music

ba ling hou: best identified by their ambivalence

kliuless — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 07:59:58 -0800

Beijing's underground: "Five years ago, none of my students at Tsinghua or Beida had any interest in what we would call countercultural stuff," says Michael Pettis, a finance professor at Beida's -- that is, Peking University's -- Guanghua School of Management who owns D-22 and the Maybe Mars label. Today Mr. Pettis estimates that a quarter of his students have been to rock clubs and maybe 5% to 10% "are really knowledgeable and sophisticated."

Everybody was kung fu fighting

Joe Beese — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 07:34:17 -0800

"The Musical Cliché Figure Signifying The Far East", a.k.a. The Oriental Riff

Two strings and a bow

flapjax at midnite — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 04:26:43 -0800

Erhu: Water of Rivers (江河水) Ready to try it for yourself? How to Bow the Erhu How to do rolling vibrato on the Erhu (Dig the talking metronome in use on this clip. Gotta get one of those!) How to play the Erhu - Left Hand Position Great! Now you're ready for the 二胡 Erhu Masterclass - 江河水 (Running River) by Song Fei 宋飞.

The Guqin Silk String Zither

netbros — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 14:17:32 -0800

Pronounced "chin" ("stringed instrument") or "goo chin" ("old stringed instrument"), the qin / guqin throughout its long history has been the musical instrument most prized by China's literati. They categorized it as one of their "four arts", collected it as an art object, praised its beautiful music, and built around it a complex ideology (compare its image in popular culture). No other instrument was described and illustrated in such detail, so often depicted in paintings, or so regularly mentioned in poetry. And its tablature documents the world's oldest detailed written instrumental music tradition, allowing both historically informed performance (requiring silk strings) of the many early melodies, and practical exploration of the relationship between Chinese music theory and music practice. The guqin silk string zither work of John Thompson. John Thompson is the best-known musician giving historically informed performances of early Chinese music for the guqin silk-string zither. After a college degree in Western musicology (early music) and graduate studies in ethnomusicology, he began in 1974 to study the modern guqin tradition from Sun YüCh'in in Taiwan. Since 1976 he has focused on early repertoire, personally reconstructing over 150 melodies published in 15th and 16th century handbooks. In 1992 the National Union of Chinese Musicians invited him to Beijing as the focus of a seminar on reconstructing music from the earliest surviving guqin handbook, Shen Qi Mi Pu (1425 CE). While based in Hong Kong as artistic consultant to the Festival of Asian Arts he performed throughout East Asia, and published seven CDs of his musical reconstructions as well as four books of music transcription. Since moving to New York in 2001 he has continued to perform, research and lecture on the guqin. His website is the most comprehensive English-language source of information on this instrument.

The Godfather of Chinese Rock'N'Roll

nickyskye — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 11:44:04 -0800

"‘Bad boy’ Cui Jian, [pronounced Sway Jen] China’s first long-haired rock icon, has pulled off another musical coup by becoming the first artist to adapt hip-hop to the mainland. His hoarse voice has long signified anger, confusion and pain, especially during the 1989 student revolt when his hit single, “Nothing to my Name”, became a veritable anthem. Despite the government’s attempts to silence his voice by routinely banning his concerts, Cui Jian carries on with the rapper’s staccato precision." EAST vs WEST – Hyper and Cui Jian collaboration, a Hyper remix of an original Cui Jian piece - with great Chinese papercut visuals. Rebel Without a Pause? DJ Hyper's site Related AskMe post. Rock in Berlin "THE CHINESE AVANT-GARDE" Chinese Rock Concert in Berlin 1993 with Japanese subtitles. Cui Jian's bio l Cui Jian's website

music

plexi — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 14:14:30 -0800

The future of classical music lies in China. Chinese enthusiasm for Western classical music is deep, says New Yorker music critic Alex Ross, but traditional Chinese music is older and more classical than anything in the West.

Ethnographic materials from the Himalayan region

tellurian — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 16:37:00 -0800

Apa Tani bleeding tubes filmed by Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf and Paro, Bhutan in 1936 from Frederick Williamson, are just two of the extraordinary offerings from the Digital Himalaya Project.

Raise your flag!

finite — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 00:16:26 -0800

Björk, in Shanghai, on Tibet: Declare Independence! [YouTube] Bjork's Shanghai surprise: a cry of 'Tibet!' - Bjork's protest a sign of things to come for China - Björk Exposes China's Greatest Weakness - Bjork Shouts Out To Tibet During Shanghai Show - Chinese furious at 'Tibet-independence' Bjork Shanghai Daily says "Let's hope that Bjork's controversial parting comments do not lessen the likelihood of local music fans enjoying more of these acts in the future" without offering readers any hint as to what the comments were about. Declare Independence on mefi previously: 1, 2

Guqin, Confucius' favorite musical instrument

Kattullus — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 20:14:54 -0800

One of the songs on the Golden Record included on the two Voyager spacecraft was Flowing Water performed by Guan Pinghu on the guqin. The guqin, Confucius' favorite instrument, has been played in China for at least 3000 years. There's a lot of guqin videos out there but the two players I listen to the most are jts1702a and Charlie Huang (who is the main contributer to Wikipedia's excellent guqin article).

Adam's NIXON IN CHINA

wittgenstein — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 20:01:06 -0800

John Adams. NIXON IN CHINA. Excerpts: News has a kind of mystery. Act 1 Scene 3. Act 2 Scene 2a. I am the wife of Mao Tse Tung. Chairman Dances.

Fueled by Rice - biking from China to...France

pithy comment — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 12:15:33 -0800

Fueled by Rice - Five recent grads from the College of Saint Benedict and Saint John's Unviersity recently set off from Beijing to bike across Asia and Europe. The goal of their bike trip is to spread international good will on the local level and advocate reducing carbon emissions and living slower-paced, more enjoyable lives. Along the way they will bike through rural areas and play music in villages. As they travel, the group is posting photos, a blog, and will attempt to get a podcast up and running. They've even got the site up in Chinese, though the site seems to be blocked for most folks in China.

Robot Friend Ancient Music Fish

dfowler — Wed, 13 Apr 2005 07:57:16 -0800

With My Special Partner, I can drink my way back to the 7th Millenium BCE for ancient music, and the fish’ll tell me how to get home .

darukaru — Mon, 16 Apr 2001 03:17:48 -0800

"Indeed, so rare and precious are the fruits of [the music industry's] labor that it, unique among the world's enterprises, deserves to have the rules of decent civil behavior suspended." Illegal (even by Taiwan's laws) search-and-seizure of university students' computers. 14 students will be made an example of and 'prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law'... for mp3s. In East Asia, where apparently the record companies have no one better to pick on than college students. *cough*