L8 Music, Ideology, and Politics

Frederick Lau
Department of Music
 Music, aesthetics, and politics
• What? Isn’t music for fun and pleasure?
• What other functions can music perform?

• --Music to bring awareness and heighten

emotion to people
• --instill certain consciousness to the people
• --Call people to action for a cause
 Politics
• the set of activities that are associated with
making and winning decisions in groups, or
other forms of power relations between
individuals.

• It appears in everyday life and not just

involving government or nations.
 Music=value=culture
• Music is a learned behavior

• Music embodies particular values

• Once share, it was turned into a system of
thoughts
• Music’s power to unit people
 Example of music & politics
• Music for patriotic feeling?
• Songs for football game?
• What about songs for protest?
• Songs for the demonstration?
 Mass-religious beliefs
• Kyrie eleison—Lord have mercy
• Gloria in excelsis deo--Glory to God in the
highest
• Credo--I believe
• Sanctus--Holy
• Agnus Dei--Lamb of God
 The Berlin Philharmonic and the Third Reich
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyBFm-vBvTQ&pbjreload=101
 Partial Text
• Gloria in excelsis Deo et in terra pax hominibus
bonae voluntatis. Laudamus te, benedicimus
te, adoramus te, glorificamus te, gratias
agimus tibi propter magnam gloriam tuam,
• Glory to God in the highest, and on earth
peace to men of good will. We praise You, we
bless You, we adore You, we glorify You, we
give You thanks for Your great glory,
Gloria (from the Missa Papae
Marcelli) by Palestrina
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_krgatq8vI
“We shall overcome”—Pete Seeger
Civil rights mov’t
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_Ld8JGv56E
Ohio (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
1970)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FakLUusNlXc&t=55s
Where have all the flowers gone (Pete
Seeger, 1955)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PS3-lyqCl80
This land is your land (Woody Guthrie
1940)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxiMrvDbq3s
1931
《獅子山下》 1970s
 《 》 2014
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=na2mR9mvDoU&pbjreload=101
 Music=value=culture
• Music’s power to unit people
• Music to share particular values
• Music is a learned behavior
 Chinese context
• What about the role of Music?
• How political is music in ancient China?
 Yayue -44¥ 1¥

• Music of the scholars and elites

• Confucius and Daoist thoughts dominated
music aesthetics
• Not for emotional appeal or entertainment
• Serious pursue of high ideals

• Tos serve the country

 Chinese music aesthetics
• Began at the end of Western Zhou (11th
Century BCE) 4
big orchestra
↳

• Music is tied to the nation

• Music is a function of politics
• Concept of “Harmony”
– Implies appropriateness, not excessive
• “ ”--to listen only to six pitches”
 Confucius (551-479 BCE)
Philosopher and Teacher

• Emphasize the role of music

• Music needs to have these qualities:
• 1. Ren (to be kind to someone) kind, moral
• 2. Music is a combination of quality of
“perfection and beauty “ ”
• 3. Poetry creates happiness, li makes you proper,
Étti accomplishment comes from music.
–“ , ”
 Confucianism
44k¥ Er
• The canon—Four Books & Five Classics 四書五經
• Regulate Relationship between people
– By adhering to LI 礼, a combination of etiquette and
ritual.
• Individual has multiple roles
Concept of ren expressed through five relationships
• Harmonious whole 大同
• Ritual music (ancestral worship)
• Ceremonial Music
• Imperial court Music
• Music of the literati and elites
 Bayin 八音 classification
“8 sounds”:
• metal—bronze casting, bell types (zhong)
• stone—stone chime (qing)
• wood—idiophone, zhu , yu
• earth—earth (xun)
• skin—drums, (jiangu, zhaogu)
Ea Fk
-

• gourd--sheng
• silk—qin, se
• bamboo—flute (di, xiao, chi, paixiao)
Yu
Zhong
Bianzhong
Bianqing
Gu zhaogu zhu
paixiao
 Confucius ritual
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m01ZdZf3nw8
music starts at 39min
Guqin - 7 string plucked zither
Hr rid
gets
under strings Zheng : 14-21
strings

✗
ridged
 Yayue vs Suyue
Yayue (elegant music)
ú Court music
ú Ancestral ceremony
ú Ritual music
ú Appeal to higher ideals
ú Guqin music

§ Reaffirm social order as prescribed by Confucianism

§ Music is inseparable from li –the code of behavior

between people : “music is the harmony of heaven &
earth”
 Guqin - 7 string plucked zither

- Mythical sages Shen Nong & Fuxi created the instrument

Shang dynasty artifact unearthed
Believed to have evolved 14-15th BC

- played by elite
- notated in treatises and handbooks
IIF
- act of contemplation & self-purification
't
EE z
- leads to spiritual enlightenment (harmonious world)
- embedded in Confucian philosophy & Daoist mystical
symbolism
 Chinese musical heritage

ancient trunk Guqin

embraced nutter -

Ily

II -1¥ { bgtt : locally known played by urban unite

much more recent

self cultivation
-
Guqin
Back of guqin
Calligraphy on the back of a guqin
Taigu yiyin
Different styles of guqin
Guqin table
Playing the quqin
Cai De Yun
Li Xiang Ting
 Guqin & Xiao Performance
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ns_fcv6KOPo&list=RDTFWCOXmQMzw&index=10
 Functions:
Qin: used in the Confucian orchestra

Played as both solo and ensemble

Since ancient time, the qin is associated with the perfect

harmonized classical ideals.

Early notation: YU LAN from the 6th century

 Music of the PRC
• TALKS AT THE YANAN FORUM ON LITERATURE
AND ART 1942
• 《在延安文 座 会上的 》

• Music is to serve for workers, peasants,

soldiers
• For the consolidation of Leninism, Marxism,
and Maoist political ideology
 南泥湾 Nanniwan (1943)
• Composed by Ma ke 馬可
• From the yangge piece 秧歌舞《挑花 》
• in glorifying the hard work of
transforming Nanniwan into a
beautiful and prosperous futile
place.

Nanniwan̶east of Yan an, Mao

started planting for the 8th Army
 南泥湾 Nanniwan lyrics
• 花 的花儿香 听我来唱一唱 唱一呀唱
• 来到了南泥湾 南泥湾好地方 好地呀方
• 好地方来好 光 好地方来好 光 到 是庄稼 遍地
是牛羊
• 往年的南泥湾 是荒山 没呀人烟
• 如今的南泥湾 与往年不一般 不一呀般
• 如呀今的南泥湾 与呀往年不一般 再不是旧模 是
北的好江南
• 北的好江南 花 山 呀山
• 学 那南泥湾 是江南 是江呀南
• 又学 来又生 359旅是模范 走向前 花送
模范
• 走向前 花送模范
 南泥湾 Nanniwan
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBDMT57SpD8
 Yangbanxi : 紅燈記

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JIY8Y5q
NL8
 1945
Chinese opera based on the folklore of the
white-haired girl, spread widely in the
Communist occupied Northern China since the
late 1930s.
1950 the film was made
1958 Peking opera performance
1965 adopted into a ballet by Shanghai Dance
Academy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRQ9BjvqBNY&pbjreload=101
watch from 1:43 till the end
 Model Opera=Yangbanxi

• Series of shows planned and engineered during the

Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) by Jiang Qing, the
wife of Chairman Mao Zedong.
• They were considered revolutionary and modern in
terms of thematic and musical features when
compared with traditional Chinese operas. Many of
them were adapted to film.

• Use Beijing opera plus Symphony Orchestra

• All music was banned Maoist Period Attack :
tudou.nl wins

£8k '¥4±
• Only Model opera promote
T
state -
sponsored music syst
From 1978 -

now : open
door
policy
✗ longer support music