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Research Activities in China: Country Report

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 March 2019

Extract

The tradition of scholarly native music research in China is centuries old, particularly in the areas of tuning and temperament, historiography, music typology, music archeology and repertory study. In the twentieth century, native musicologists continue this long established tradition and its methodologies. At the same time, and particularly from the early 1980s on, ethnomusicology from the West influenced Chinese musicologists. Theories and methods of ethnomusicology and anthropology began to appear in the writings of native scholars in their study of Chinese music. This new “-ology” is viewed as an addition to the more “traditional” Chinese musicology. What most native musicologists seem to be interested in is what parts of this new “-ology” are useful to the “Chinese” situation. Using both the more “traditional” and the “newer” methodologies, native scholars have invested great efforts in recent decades in collecting, compiling, analyzing, and comparing regional musical styles and repertories. The sum of these scholarly activities forms the foundation of Chinese musicology. Because of language barriers, these research activities were not widely known outside the country. The following report outlines some of these research activities.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © 2000 by the International Council for Traditional Music

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References

1 An international conference on Chinese music will be held in early 2001 to discuss, among other themes, perspectives and paradigms of theories and methods of Chinese musicology.Google Scholar

2 This report mainly focuses on the research activities of native scholars in mainland China, as this is the area least known to the international scholarly world. The problem we faced in preparing this report was which items should be selected from the immense amount of activities and achievements made by native scholars in recent years. We also look forward to seeing other reports dealing with Chinese music research in Taiwan or elsewhere.Google Scholar

3 Collections of qin (seven-string zither) music are published in traditional qin notation.Google Scholar

4 Geographical coverage includes Beijing, Hebei, Shanxi, Inner Mongolia, Liaoning, Jilin, Heilongjiang, Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Fujian, Jiangxi, Henan, Hubei, Hunan, Guangxi, Sichuan, Guizhou, Shan'xi, Gansu, Ningxia, Xinjiang, Tianjin, Anwei, Shandong, Guangdong, and Qinghai.Google Scholar

5 Edited by Jiao Jianzhong and published by the Fengchao Sound Publishing Company in Taiwan, 1996 - 1998.Google Scholar

6 This project was funded The Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for the International Scholarly Exchange.Google Scholar

7 Information supplied by the Cantonese Opera Research Programme.Google Scholar

8 Society of Chinese Traditional Music is a national scholarly organization devoted to the study of Chinese traditional music (mainly music of the Han nationality). The Society organizes its national meetings biannually.Google Scholar

9 Society for Music of China's Minority Nationalities is a national scholarly organization devoted to the study of Chinese traditional music of minority nationalities. The Society organizes its national meetings every two years.Google Scholar

10 By “official,” we refer to those journals that are supported by the government and follow closely its cultural policiesGoogle Scholar