This special panel focuses on insider understandings in music analysis. While each presenter explores distinct case studies across Chinese musical genres, the panelists invited for this panel conduct analytical studies based on the perspectives of local musicians or composers, presenting knowledge from the field. The presentations span a wide spectrum of musical forms, from traditional and literati genres to modern adaptations. While ethnomusicology in China is often seen as emerging in the 1980s, following the increasing adoption of imported theoretical frameworks including ethnographic fieldwork and attention to cultural context, the panel begins with a paper that revisits analytical studies of Chinese music based on musical materials collected through fieldwork by indigenous scholars prior to the arrival of ethnomusicology in China. Building on academic conventions and scholarly achievements developed during this earlier period, the subsequent papers apply solid analytical approaches, enriched by later ethnomusicological perspectives, to research diverse Chinese music traditions: from in-depth analysis of the fundamental rhythmic structures in traditional Chinese music, the structural and melodic evolution in Jiangnan Sizhu, improvisation in Nanyin, as well as sonic features of qiang in Beijing opera. Based on an interview with the composer, the panel rounds out with an analysis of a modern Chinese piano transcription work adapted from a local folksong, focusing on narrative structures in a descriptive programme piece that conveys a continuous storyline through musical expression. The panel foregrounds internal views on Chinese musical creativity and practice. In doing so, we contribute to broader conversations on the foundations and futures of local musical knowledge, especially from within non-Western traditions.
(Click on the titles to read the abstracts)
Feng Jun (SOAS, University of London), “Fieldwork before Ethnomusicology: Revisiting Analytical Studies of Chinese Folksong in the National Music Theory Era (1950s–1980s)”
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Zhang Boyu (Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen): “The Rhythmic Structure of Chinese Traditional Music”
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Li Ya (Shanghai Normal University), “The Structural Principles and Melodic Evolution in Chinese Literati Music: An Analytical Perspective on Jiangnan Sizhu Classical Repertoire”
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Wang Xianyan (China Conservatory of Music): “Cultural Conventions and Improvisation in the Inheritance of Gongche Notation in Fujian Nanyin”
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He Chang (University of Sheffield): “Qiang of Laosheng Role Type Music in Beijing Opera: Representation, Transcription, and Analysis”
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Liang Chloe Xinyi (University of Sheffield):
“Programme Style in Chinese Piano Music–Taking Dan Zhaoyi’s The Story of a Cowherd as a Case”
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Presenters’ bios
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