Listening Essay: Chinese Traditional Music & Modern Chinese Orchestra

Listening Essay: Chinese Traditional Music & Modern Chinese Orchestra
1) You will hear a “Chinese orchestral piece” (CD track 14) and an excerpt of jiangnan sizhu (CD track 1) from Lau’s Music in China CD.

2) Write a comparison between the two pieces “by focusing on the texture, timbre, orchestration, dynamics, and treatment of the main melody,” and by using the method of “the six parts of music.” (See Below)

3) How do these two musical examples differ? Can we draw any particular lesson from this? Several lessons? No particular lesson? Discuss.

The six parts of music
1) Basic Sound (Punction)
Ex. Human voices, Throaty male tenor, Female chorus alto, instruments (name and/or type), timbre
2) Harmony (Scale)
Ex. Minor pentatonic, major pentatonic, polyohonic, Major keys in Western scale….
3) Rhythm (Tempo)
Ex. Rubato, Fast, Moderate, Slow, 60 bpm
4) Melody
Ex. Level of repetition, Rhapsodic, Strophic, work music,
5) Lyrics (If any)
Ex. story
6) Choreography (can be assumed)
Ex. Dress, dance, stage settings

REMARK:
I uploaded the music pieces, the info from Federink Lau’s Music in China (the music pieces are from this book) and the lecture from The Garland Music Encyclopedia which I found that they are very informative.