Performing Local Identity in a Contemporary Urban Society: A Study of Ping-tan Narrative Vocal Tradition in Suzhou, China

China has many rich traditions of storytelling and story singing, which are deeply rooted oral traditions in their particular geographical areas, carrying the linguistic and cultural flavours of their localities. In Suzhou, the central city of the Yangtze Delta’s Wu area, the storytelling genre pinghua and the story singing genre tanci have become emblematic of regional identity. Since the 1950s, the two genres have been referred to under the hybrid generic name ‘Suzhou ping-tan’ after the city, or simply ping-tan in abbreviation. Nowadays typically comprising extended narratives performed over the course of half a month, ping-tan has maintained popularity up to the present day. Each afternoon, people go to the unique performance venue of the shuchang (‘story house’), which combines teahouse, performance venue and social centre, to enjoy solo or duet performances given by shuoshu xiansheng (‘storytellers’). The sung episodes are set to an accompaniment of sanxian banjo and – in duet performance – also pipa lute. In the context of face-to-face communication, establishing an empathetic bridge between storyteller and audience is of paramount importance, necessitating storytellers to polish and tailor their artistry efficiently in response to audience feedback. Following the development of radio broadcasting since the 1920s and television since the 1980s, ping-tan has also been widely delivered directly into people’s homes. Listening to and watching ping-tan has become a part of many local people’s daily habits. This thesis seeks to explain how Suzhou ping-tan has maintained its vitality in contemporary society. Various oral performance traditions have declined with the range of alternative types of entertainment that have bloomed in recent times, yet a great many Suzhou citizens still take for granted that ping-tan represents their local cultural identity. Drawing upon fieldwork conducted since 2011, this thesis explores the interconnectedness between the storyteller and audiences during and outside of performance. It analyses performer/audience ‘feed-back loop’ communication within a variety of fields of ping-tan activity, focusing in particular on the following areas: the role-playing and identity presentation of storytellers and audience members, the different types of ping-tan follower and their respective forms of involvement, the use of gesture in performance to communicate further layers of meaning, the nature of the mutually complementary relationship between words and music in ballad singing, and the effects of television and radio dissemination on ping-tan culture. This thesis identifies ‘feed-back loop’ interplay as being a key factor in ping-tan’s success, facilitating the multi-faceted involvement of all participants within a flexible and unpredictable shared experience

"Emergence": A Piece for Wind Symphony Inspired by the Chant of the Rio Xinane, the Origins of Music, and the Geometry of Harmony

In June of 2014, the Rio Xinane (a formerly isolated tribe) emerged from the jungles of Peru onto Brazilian land to meet with Brazils National Indian Foundation (FUNAI). Their dramatic style of communication includes breaking into song with a reciting tone, as well as body slaps and stylized gestures, and points to the common origins of language, music, and dance in human communication. Summaries of Aniruddh Patels Music, Language, and the Brain and Dmitri Tymoczkos A Geometry of Music show how music, language, and movement are intertwined, and how harmony maximizes the spatial dimensions of sound. Matter in the Universe is composed of vibrations, so the vibrations of music can reflect and affect matter. Consequently, music has a pivotal role to play in education and in health. Inspired by this research, Emergence, a piece for wind symphony, is a response to the beauty of Rio Xinane communication, composed within the framework of traditional Western harmony

KŪNQǓ IN PRACTICE: A CASE STUDY

Ph.D

In the borderland between song and speech

This book focuses on vocal expressions in the borderland between song and speech. It spans across several linguistic and musical milieus in societies where oral transmission of culture dominates. ‘Vocal expression’ is an alternative word for ‘song’ which is free from bias based on cultural and research-related traditions. The borderland between song and speech is a segment of the larger continuum that extends from speech to song. These vocal expressions are endangered to the same degree as the languages they represent. Perspectives derived from ethnomusicology, prosody, syntax, and semantics are combined in the research, in which performance templates serve as an analytical tool. The focus is on the techniques that make performance possible and on the transmission of these techniques. The performance templates serve to organize the vocal expression of words by combining musical and linguistic conventions. It is shown that all the cultures studied have principles for organizing these parameters; but each does this in its own unique way while meeting a number of basic needs on the part of human society, particularly communal interaction and interaction with the spirit world. A working method is developed that makes it possible to gain qualitative knowledge from a large body of material within a comparatively limited period of time

A Method of Teaching English Speaking Learners to Produce Mandarin-Chinese Tones

Learning Mandarin Chinese tones is a big challenge for English speaking learners. The average tonal production accuracy is reported to be about 70 percent for intermediate-level learners and 40 percent for beginning-level Chinese learners. The Chinese tonal proficiency significantly influences the learners\u27 communicative effectiveness, including listening and speaking, but research often overlooks tonal production. This study proposed and tested a novel method of teaching English-speaking learners to pronounce Mandarin Chinese tones. This teaching method includes a Chinese tones bookmark, and a 30--50 minutes in-class training module. The research undertook five cycles of Design-Based Research (DBR) implementations with 31 public school students, adult learners, and Chinese teachers. Two audio recordings, one pre-training and one post-training, were collected and compared through the paired samples t-tests. Interviews, surveys, and class observations were adopted to determine the participants\u27 attitudes toward the training and the teaching model. The results revealed that the designed teaching method was effective to improve the tonal production accuracy of English speaking K-12 children and adult learners. In addition, the results indicated that the participants\u27 attitudes toward the designed method were positive. This study contributes to the current Chinese tonal teaching repertoire and presents a flexible, practical method for teachers to use when instructing students on Chinese tones

Chinese Music and Translated Modernity in Shanghai, 1918-1937.

This dissertation examines how early twentieth-century Chinese of Shanghai “hosted” the musical West in their discourses on music, and in their musical production. Theorizing the processes involved as ones of “musical translation,” this dissertation analyzes how the Chinese “musical hosts” asserted their cultural values and political agendas in their understanding and adoption of Western musical theories and practices. Chapter 1 introduces Shanghai, and the sources and methodology of the dissertation. Chapter 2 explains the concepts of musical translation and modernity. Chapter 3 re-constructs the musical world of Shanghai, tracing how Chinese musical translations emerged from the modernizing city where Chinese had unprecedented contacts with Westerners in semi-colonial conditions. The complex musical network of Shanghai cut across colonial boundaries, shaping participants’ translated and modern practices. Chapter 4 traces how the intellectual and musical lives of major participants were tied to the socio-political network of Shanghai. Chapter 5 examines the ways in which Chinese intellectuals and musicians negotiated translated musical knowledge, including the discourses of technology, Chinese history, morality, and national essence. Through these discourses, Chinese projected their national needs and values on the Western music theories and practices they “hosted.” Chapter 6 examines five modern Chinese musical compositions as cases of translational creativity, demonstrating their different translational levels and aspects. The five cases include a Chinese art song composed by Yuen Ren Chao, an erhu solo work composed by Liu Tianhua, a Chinese piano piece composed by He Luting, a sizhu ensemble piece arranged by Liu Raozhang, and a new Peking Opera play performed by Mei Lanfang. This dissertation concludes by addressing the problem of the continuity of translated modernity in the subsequent Communist era of Chinese history the need for future research on reception aspects of Chinese musical modernity.Ph.D.Music: MusicologyUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/60665/1/jhcheung_1.pd