Routledge Handbook of Asian Music: Cultural Intersections

379 Pages·2021·12.102 MB·English

by  Tong Soon Lee (editor)

“A fine collection of essays that present Asian music as forming along a diverse array of continuums
of interconnections: between local and global, east and west, elite and popular, ethnic identity
claims, ritual and entertainment, human and nature, self and other, and imagined notions of
community. The ethnographic studies and theoretical analyses here offer a new scope of
understanding Asian music that defies fixed boundaries.”
—Joys H.Y. Cheung, Assistant Professor
Graduate Institute of Ethnomusicology,
National Taiwan Normal University
“This is an essential resource for scholars of Asian music. With contributions from a diverse group
of internationally renowned academics, the chapters push beyond bounded understandings of
musical communities by foregrounding social interaction and cultural exchange. These rich case
studies are organised around key contemporary themes that will help to invigorate debate on
music and society in Asia.”
—Lonán Ó Briain, Associate Professor of Music
Department of Music, University of Nottingham

ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK
OF ASIAN MUSIC:
CULTURAL INTERSECTIONS
The Routledge Handbook of Asian Music: Cultural Intersections introduces Asian music as a way
to ask questions about what happens when cultures converge and how readers may evaluate
cultural junctures through expressive forms.
The volume’s thirteen original chapters cover musical practices in historical and modern
contexts from Central Asia, East Asia, South Asia, and Southeast Asia, including art music
traditions, folk music and composition, religious and ritual music, as well as popular music.
These chapters showcase the diversity of Asian music, requiring readers to constantly reconsider
their understanding of this vibrant and complex area. The book is divided into three sections:
• Locating meanings
• Boundaries and difference
• Cultural flows
Contributors to the book offer a multidisciplinary portfolio of methods, ranging from
archival research and field ethnography to biographical studies and music analysis. In addition to
rich illustrations, numerous samples of notation and sheet music are featured as insightful study
resources. Readers are invited to study individuals, music-makers, listeners, and viewers to learn
about their concerns, their musical choices, and their lives through a combination of humanistic
and social-scientific approaches.
Demonstrating how transformative cultural differences can become in intercultural encounters,
this book will appeal to students and scholars of musicology, ethnomusicology, and anthropology.
Lee Tong Soon is a Professor of ethnomusicology and Asian studies at Lehigh University and
the General Editor of the Yearbook for Traditional Music (International Council for Traditional
Music). His primary area of teaching and research is Asian music and its diaspora, particularly
on the music of the Chinese, Malay, and Peranakan communities in Singapore, Malaysia, and
England. He is the author of Chinese Street Opera in Singapore (2009).

ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK
OF ASIAN MUSIC:
CULTURAL INTERSECTIONS
Edited by Lee Tong Soon
First published 2021
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2021 selection and editorial matter, Lee Tong Soon; individual chapters,
the contributors
The right of Lee Tong Soon to be identified as the author of the editorial
material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted
in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Lee, Tong Soon, 1969– editor.
Title: Routledge handbook of Asian music / edited by Lee Tong Soon.
Description: [1.] | New York : Routledge, 2021. | Includes bibliographical
references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020044780 | ISBN 9780415830669 (hardback) | ISBN
9781000337204 (adobe pdf ) | ISBN 9781000337327 (epub) |
ISBN 9781000337266 (mobi)
Subjects: LCSH: Music—Asia—History and criticism. | Music—Social
aspects—Asia—History.
Classification: LCC ML330 .R68 2021 | DDC 780.95—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020044780
ISBN: 978-0-415-83066-9 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-367-72326-2 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-14272-0 (ebk)
Typeset in Bembo
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
CONTENTS
List of figures ix
List of tables xiii
List of appendices xiv
List of contributors xv
Preface xviii
Introduction: cultural intersections in Asian music 1
Lee Tong Soon
PART I
Locating meanings
1 Indonesia, meet the Beatles! Sound, style, and meaning in Indonesian
popular music 15
Andrew N. Weintraub
2 Composing at the intersection of East and West: beyond nationalism
and exoticism? 47
Andrew P. Killick
3 Composing traditions: cultural consciousness and hybridity
in cross-cultural musicking 72
Jonghee Kang
4 From humble beginnings to qin master: the remarkable cross-
fertilisation of folk and elite cultures in Yao Bingyan’s dapu music 88
Bell Yung
vii
Contents
PART II
Boundaries and difference
5 Water festival as spectacle: Sino-Burmese identities, ethnic politics,
and public performances in Macau 123
Tasaw Lu Hsin-chun
6 Nature of narye: sound, spectacle, and the politics of performance
in fifteenth-century Korea 150
Hyeok Hweon Kang
7 Negotiating rural modernity with acoustemology: Hakka children’s
songs in contemporary Taiwan 174
Luo Ai Mei
8 Peranakan music and multiculturalism in Singapore 204
Lee Tong Soon
PART III
Cultural flows
9 Imagined homogeneity: maqom in Soviet and Uzbek national projects 221
Tanya Merchant
10 Sikh music and its revival in post-partition India 241
Li Wai Chung
11 Tradition and innovation in the dayunday courtship drama of the
Magindanao, Muslim Filipinos from the southern Philippines 262
Mary Talusan
12 Creativity in Sundanese music and radio broadcasting in West Java,
Indonesia 294
Indra Ridwan
13 Music, tourism, and cultural exchange among the Naxi
of Southwest China 320
Helen Rees
Index 355
viii
FIGURES
1.1 Drawing of Soekarno and the Beatles by Aga Depresi 17
1.2 Transcription of bars 4–6, “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” Koes Bersaudara Plus 22
1.3 Photograph of Koes Plus on the exit stairs of an airplane landing in Kupang,
Timor, in 1974 24
1.4 Photograph of the Beatles on the exit stairs of an airplane landing at London
Heathrow Airport on 5 February 1964 25
1.5 Vocal parts, verse 1, “Balada Kamar 15,” Koes Bersaudara Plus 26
1.6 Selection of posters advertising concerts of Beatles cover bands and groups 33
2.1 Conceptual map of the “Old High Culture” and its neighbours 49
2.2 Southern Fantasy by Hwang Byungki, second movement, cycles 15–22,
compared with passages from Hwang’s sanjo 63
3.1 Beginning of “Tribulationem, et dolorem inveni” by Carlo Gesualdo 76
3.2 Second movement (bars 53–60), Morning of the Ocean 78
3.3 Excerpts from Morning of the Ocean featuring ornamental figuration
of the main melody 81
3.4 Opening of Azalea Flowers (bars 1–4) 82
3.5 Morning of the Ocean, first movement (bars 1–14) 82
3.6 Vocal parts sung by haegŭm players in Azalea Flowers 83
3.7 Singing with polyphonic accompaniment in Azalea Flowers 84
3.8 Singing and playing the haegŭm in Azalea Flowers 84
4.1 Map showing Hangzhou, Sandun, and Hushu 94
4.2 Sequence of ten-finger actions 100
4.3 Pitches produced by the ten-finger actions 100
4.4 Two optional rhythmic treatments of the ten-finger actions 101
4.5 “Drunk” rhythmic motif 101
4.6 “Drunk” melodic motif 101
4.7 Chen Zhuo’s rhythmic groupings of three-pitched lines 102
4.8 Two rhythmic interpretations of “Jiukuang.” 103
4.9 The jianzipu notation of “Jiukuang” from 1425 copied out by Yao
in his calligraphy, showing sections one and two 105
ix