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  • Folk Music of China: Living Instrumental Traditions by Stephen JonesReview by: Su ZhengAsian Music, Vol. 30, No. 2 (Spring - Summer, 1999), pp. 135-139Published by: University of Texas PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/834316 .Accessed: 14/05/2013 07:48

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  • Volume XXX, number 2 ASIAN MUSIC Spring/Summer 1999

    Book Reviews

    Folk Music of China: Living Instrumental Traditions. Stephen Jones. 1995. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-816200- 6. 422 pp, photos, figures, maps, music, bibliography, index.

    Described by the author as "a handbook, outlining the main topics for study, and also introducing modem Chinese scholarship" (vi), Stephen Jones' book presents an ambitious project derived from several years of collaboration with indigenous Chinese scholars and cultural institutions by a committed cultural outsider. The importance of the book lies in its pioneering subject matter, its encyclopedic scope, and its comprehensive coverage of the modem indigenous literature on Chinese instrumental music. Moreover, it also provides a site to examine a set of methodological issues involving the intriguing relationships between "Western ethnomusicology" and the indigenous study of Chinese music based on its "established scholarly conventions" (Witzleben 1997).

    Folk Music of China, together with the separately distributed 2-CD set (China: Folk Instrumental Traditions, Archives internationales de musique populaire, Mus6e d'Ethnographie, Geneve, VDE-GALLO, CD 822-823), reveals a vast, unfamiliar, and fascinating subject to the English- speaking world. Until recently, as Jones notes, studies of Chinese instrumental music in the West have mostly concentrated on urban, official, professional, or southern traditions, leaving rural, amateur, folk, or northern traditions largely the domains of indigenous Chinese scholars. Thanks to this book and CD, some of these "hidden" traditions, as well as rich Chinese scholarships about them, have become available for the first time to readers outside of China.

    Clearly, the major thrust of the book is Part III (Chapters 10 - 15), which provides a panoramic survey of nearly twenty important genres from twelve provinces and cities in Northern and Southern China, including various wind/percussion bands, string/wind-percussion bands, and string ensembles. Each genre is further described, with some variations, under the subtitles of instruments, instrumentation, keys, styles, structure, repertoires, variation techniques, scores, and notation. Jones states that these chosen styles, whose selection relied on Chinese scholars' decades of research, "are ensembles with long heritages, strict transmission, notated scores, and substantial theory; mostly derived from temple or courtly

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  • 136 Asian Music: Spring/Summer 1999

    music" (154). To prepare readers for the survey, Part I of the book (Chapters 1 - 5) offers an encompassing historical and social background of Chinese instrumental music, followed by Part II (Chapters 6 - 9) introducing some general characteristics of the music. At the end of each chapter or section, the author often lists some unanswered questions for further investigation.

    Although an in-depth analysis is not its goal, Folk Music of China raises a number of issues which invite commentary. First, throughout the book, the author persistently emphasizes the ceremonial contexts of Chinese traditional music, as opposed to the imposed secular official ideology in place since the nineteenth century, particularly after 1949. These ceremonial contexts are divided by Jones into three kinds: life-cycle, calendrical, and occasional, involving both Buddhism and Daoism music practices in and outside temples and, more importantly, the "vernacularized" lay ritual music practices performed by laymen, part-time specialists in the rural areas. For political reasons, contemporary Chinese scholars have not been able to address the subject of religion without restrictions. Jones' book certainly fills a significant gap in this respect.

    Second, the author firmly underlines his subject of study as "living," "folk," and "rural" musical traditions. However, upon close reading, each of these terms ("living," "folk," and "rural") becomes contestable. For example, the author admits that his data on some genres, such as Xi'an guyue and shifan, are based on studies of the old scores or research carried out in the 1950s and 60s by Chinese scholars. Tellingly, the only two highlighted biographies in the book are of two deceased masters: Yang Yuanheng (1894-1959) and Zhu Qinfu (1902-1981). One also notices that eleven of the seventeen musical examples on the 2-CD set were recorded between the 1930s and the 1960s. Moreover, many genres surveyed in the book (e.g., Cantonese music, Nan guan, Jiangnan sizhu) are neither exclusively rural traditions nor exclusively folk traditions.

    As one of the major points of the book, the author contrasts the genetic connections between the living folk traditions and the ancient or lost literati, temple, and courtly traditions with the resistance of the folk traditions to the contemporary urban, official, and professional traditions. He is, nevertheless, not unaware of the penetrating power of the contemporary urban, official, and professional styles. Here and there, he offers a few valuable examples of the impact of commercialization and mass media since the 1980s. But clearly, and maybe regrettably, this set of relationships is not at the center of his concern.

    Third, students of Chinese music will appreciate both Jones' sincere indebtedness to his Chinese teachers and colleagues expressed so heartfeltedly throughout the book, and his sharp and insightful observations

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  • Reviews 137

    and criticism on Chinese indigenous scholarship. Jones points out in many places the problems of rejecting or omitting social and temporal contexts in Chinese music studies; of under-documented, often unreliable, and inaccurate musical transcriptions in Chinese publications; and of the impact of the urban and musicological circles on the folk traditions.

    As a graduate of the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, I have had the privilege of studying with a number of highly respected teachers, including Professor Yuan Jingfang, whose works have defined the modem Chinese scholarship on instrumental Chinese music, and contributed to the fundamental frameworks of Jones' book. For me, reading Folk Music of China was at once a nostalgic journey and a reflexive moment from a distance, both geographically and intellectually. It is interesting to compare the similarities and differences between Jones' approach, that of his Chinese teachers, as well as that of Western ethnomusicology. Clearly, Folk Music of China is influenced by several established conventions in indigenous Chinese scholarship. The most important ones are the genre of the book, the organization of the materials, the focus of study, and the approach to fieldwork.

    The general survey approach, usually attempting to cover the instrumental traditions of a whole Han Chinese area, has been favored by Chinese scholars writing monographs. Folk Music of China follows this model closely. It includes all the ensemble genres introduced in Yuan Jingfang's book (1987) and Ye Dong's book (1983), which include the best-known and most-studied ensemble traditions. Jones' book also follows Chinese convention in its structure, mostly organized according to each individual genre. Indigenous Chinese scholars have concentrated on musical analysis of the ensemble traditions, particularly forms, keys, and patterns of melodic development. These concerns are strongly reflected in Part III of the book, which are quite unrelated to classic Western ethnomusicological inquiries of meaning, cosmological view, sentiment, sensibility, and lately, power and identity, in and/or of music.

    The mode of Jones' fieldwork also seems to follow indigenous Chinese practices. From his brief indications scattered throughout the book, one obtains the impression that Jones made quite a number of field trips to many places (though he does not offer details about these trips, such as how long they were, where he went, and how many people accompanied him). Jones was received by the local cultural cadres, and would proceed to observe and record performances (again, no details on the processes and procedures). Unlike a typical music ethnography in the Western tradition, few informants' voices are heard in Folk Music of China, and equally scarce are any descriptions of a specific village, event, band, musician, or personal experience (e.g., many photos in the book, as wonderful as they are, contain no performers' names). This practice, called cai feng

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  • 138 Asian Music: Spring/Summer 1999

    ("collecting ballads") by Chinese scholars, differs greatly from "fieldwork" as understood and practiced in the West by ethnomusicologists.

    Of course, it would be inaccurate to describe Folk Music of China as merely a compilation and synthesis of indigenous Chinese scholarship. Many musical issues briefly mentioned by Chinese scholars are amplified and detailed by Jones, such as the questions of instrumentation, keys, and scales. Many topics that have not been systematically studied in China, including religion and music, ritual and music, social context of music, politics and music, historical context and music, rural tradition vs. urban tradition, folk tradition vs. elite tradition, are touched upon by Jones, especially in Part I of the book. Particularly, Jones' discussions of temple music traditions and the ceremonial nature of many Chinese instrumental music traditions are important contributions to our knowledge on these little- explored areas.

    It is rather remarkable that there are almost no typos or misspellings of the thousands of Chinese names and terms used in the book. The author and the press must be credited for their meticulous and thorough editing. On the other hand, perhaps as a consequence of the extremely broad subject and extensive materials, the organization of the book at times is quite confusing. There are too many subheadings in each chapter, some of them overlapping, which prevents a smooth flow and the development of ideas. Some chapters are overlapping as well, and a few chapters' titles do not match their contents (e.g., Chapters 10 and 13). The map of Northern China at the outset of Chapter 10 does not include Jilin Province, which is discussed in the chapter. Also, quite a number of musical examples are not given sources.

    There are also a few inaccuracies in the book. Yang Yinliu, the preeminent Chinese musicologist, was not a student of Abing as Jones claims (252). Cantonese music, described by Jones as a "new" instrumental genre of this century due to its lack of record in the earlier period (40, also Chapter 15), was actually already a popular ensemble form in the second half of the nineteenth century among the rural population of Taishan (south of Canton/Guangzhou). Sources from the United States documented the existence of such ensembles, typified by their wujia tou (five instruments) form of instrumentation, among the early Chinese migrants, the majority of whom came from Taishan (Zheng forthcoming). In Chapter 13, Jones characterizes p'i-p'a as an instrument linked to literati pastime, folk tradition, and narrative singing. But he ignores the important fact that p'i-p'a had been a major instrument for courtesans at least since the T'ang Dynasty (618-907 AD). Of course, these problems do not affect the overall high achievement of the book.

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  • Reviews 139

    Jones' Folk Music of China presents a thought-provoking example of how a student of Western ethnomusicology has negotiated with indigenous scholarship in his research and writing. There is no doubt that it has opened a window to a kaleidoscopic musical world, while a myriad of questions remain to be asked and answered. And certainly, many students and teachers of Chinese music in the West will benefit from the rich materials contained in both the book and the CD.

    Su Zheng Wesleyan University

    References Cited

    Witzleben, J. Lawrence 1997 "Whose Ethnomusicology? Western Ethnomusicology and

    the Study of Asian Music." Ethnomusicology 41/2:220- 242.

    Yuan Jingfang 1987 Minzu qiyue [Chinese Instrumental Music]. Beijing:

    Renmin yinyue chuban she [People's Music Press]. Ye Dong

    1983 Minzu qiyue de ticai yu xingshi [The Form and Structure of Chinese Instrumental Music]. Shanghai: Shanghai wenyi chuban she [Arts Press].

    Zheng, Su Forthcoming Claiming Diaspora: Music, Transnationalism, and

    Cultural Politics in Chinese (Asian) America.

    Imaging Sound: An Ethnomusicological Study of Music, Art, and Culture in Mughal India. Bonnie C. Wade. 1998. Chicago Studies in Ethnomusicology. Chicago & London: The University of Chicago Press. 276 pp. 166 black & white full-page figures. 20 color plates, index, bibliography, maps. ISBN: 0-226-86840-0 (cloth) 0-226-86841-9 (paper).

    The Mughal period in North India from the 16th to the early 19th centuries, and especially the reign of Akbar (1556-1605), was a time in which a new North Indian urban culture was shaped out of the Indian, Persian, Turkish, and Central Asian components of the court complex.

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    Article Contentsp. [135]p. 136p. 137p. 138p. 139

    Issue Table of ContentsAsian Music, Vol. 30, No. 2 (Spring - Summer, 1999), pp. 1-171Front MatterMinyo in Korea: Songs of the People and Songs for the People [pp. 1-37]The Social Life of Genre: The Dynamics of Folksong in China [pp. 39-86]"Classical Music," "Folk Music," and the Brahmanical Temple in Kerala, India [pp. 87-112]Patterns of Social Organization in the Sabbath and Holy Day Services of the Karaite Community in Israel [pp. 113-133]ReviewsBook ReviewsReview: untitled [pp. 135-139]Review: untitled [pp. 139-143]Review: untitled [pp. 143-149]Review: untitled [pp. 149-153]Review: untitled [pp. 153-155]

    Audio Recording ReviewsReview: untitled [pp. 155-157]Review: untitled [pp. 157-160]Review: untitled [pp. 161-163]Review: untitled [pp. 164-166]

    Video Recording ReviewReview: untitled [pp. 166-168]

    Back Matter [pp. 169-171]