Klarinet Archive - Posting 000183.txt from 2003/01
From: Mark Gresham <mgresham@-----.com>
Subj: Re: [kl] The Sound of a Jin Yin Clarinet
Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2003 15:58:52 -0500
Buckman, Nancy wrote:
> Mark Gresham said:
>
> We have to remember something may not be automatically "good"
> just because we don't understand it, any more than being automatically
> "bad" just because we don't understand it.
>
> My point was that what sounds bad to us may be perfectly fine to their ears.
> What they want to hear may not be possible to create with our embouchure
> style.
Then you missed my point entirely.
I suggest that they *have* been heavily "westernizing" musical
influences for almost a hundred years, and progressively modeled the
playing of "western" instruments after Euro-American performance
practices. In Taiwan and the USA, "every Chinese child has a violin or
a piano, and they know Mozart and Bach, but they don't know their own
music," says my Chinese gu-zheng playing friend. He observation is that
the equivalent of the "boomer"-age generation of adult Chinese-Americans
and Chinese in certain regions basically turn on their heels and walk
away from traditional Chinese music, which the teens and children are
*fascinated* by because they've never heard it before, or have only seen
an Chinese instrument used as a wall decoration. (A 6-year old in one
of our elementary workshops on Chinese music had recently arrived from
the PRC and was lost in a sea of American culture and language. He
spotted the gu-zheng and when my friend started playing, stood up and
shouted "That's Chinese!" in Mandarin. He was grinning from ear to ear.
Yet there will be 20-year-olds who are embarassed by being in the same
rooma s "grandfather's music." And indeed on much of the mainland, it
is different, in that they have more heavily supported continued use of
traditional instruments and music as well, and written new music for
those ensembles, in spite of the period of descructive influence of the
Cultural Revolution. Western influences are sometimes tagged as
"experimental" -- the Tiawanese Experimental Chorus sings Schubert and
Mozart! But to answer "What they want to hear may not be possible to
create with our embouchure style" I have to suggest that indeed they
most often DO use a western model for the sound they want for western
instruments. Huang Zi in the early 20th century (Shanghai) was largely
responsible for Western influences and the introduction of western
practices during the "first" republic, before Mao's communist
revolution. While the PRC itself essentially closed doors to the west,
musical influences continued to flow in and out of it, often leaking
through Hong Kong and certain other crossroads; such as the radical "4
finger" hand technique necessary for modern, larger, 21-string
gu-zhengs. (We could humorously call it "the hand of four," except that
politics is still a tricky matter with things Chinese.) Now that PRC is
far more open again ("only Nixon could go to China") they do look again
to the west for models of playing *western* instruments while now
heavily promoting cultural exchange of "modified" Chinese traditions to
the west. A clarinet makes a poor substitute for a sheng (though
harmonica, which was modeled on the sheng, isn't a bad hypothetical
substitute), so Americans insisting that Chinese make "Chinese" sounds
on it is like what my friend calls using "Chinese laundry" script for
lettering--it isn't Chinese, it's an American stereotype, and it can be
dysfunctionally "bigoted" itself in a mis-guided though perhaps
well-meaning effort to be "culturally inclusive."
So what I'm indeed suggesting is that a western model of tone *is*
likely what they want to hear from a clarinet, as an ideal (in the
mind's ear), but not from a more "traditionally Chinese" instrument like
sheng. (And there are instruments now considered "Chinese" which were
historically cultural imports from elsewhere.)
But there are all different levels of acceptance of what will pass
for "ok" in business at a lower tier. Look at Wal-Mart and
K-mart--they're not exactly Tiffany's. What I'm suggesting is that our
clarinet experts are looking for and audio sample somewhat closer to
Tiffany's, though the manufacturer may be thinking closer to Wal-Mart as
being "acceptable example." The problem isn't the ideal of "mind's ear"
being "culturally" different, but that there are different acceptable
levels that are also "qualitative" within a model.
My claim is that their model for the sound of a clarinet is far more
"western" in intent than you may be willing to accept as legitimately
coming a "Chinese" perspective.
Depite Mr. Dewey, not all value differences are due to "cultural
relativism."
I do, however, think ignoring China and its potential economic and
cultural impacts in the near future would be a very tragic mistake.
--
Mark Gresham, composer
mgresham@-----.com/
Lux Nova Press http://www.luxnova.com/
LNP Retail Webstore http://www.luxnova.com/lnpwebstore/
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