“China Quality. It’s Getting Better All The Time.”
Posted by Dan on January 23, 2010 at 06:48 PM
http://www.chinalawblog.com/2010/01/china_quality_its_getting_bett.html

You may please limit that scope to some oversea Tibetans, most likely, these people are not born inside Tibet region and they are not even Chinese citizen anyway LoL

Thanks in advance.

X.T.X was a great choice. I should have featured Cold Blooded Animal in earlier music posts but it slipped my mind. I put up the actual videos rather than links to make it easier for everyone to access.

“especially Slavic folk songs used by the great Russian composers”
not just russian, also czechoslovak school of musical nationalism was perfectly reusing folk motives (personaly i recommend dvorak’s slavic dances – having label of any british artrock star it would be bestseller)
but folk themes are not case for classic music only, looking f.e. at

energy (no connection to other cases here) than idea that like-this

slavic ’simplest tune’ is candidate also for chinese version is nice

“if I could find it and knew it was traditional”
if i understand it well first filter is you have problem to interpret traditional music with piano or also with (some) present chinese music instruments, so you need something like violin because of different tuning systems
unfortunately wikipedia is here too short
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guoyue

I agree with everything you wrote. The definition of “folk music” can mean all sorts of things. Back when Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie were writing their songs, they were also recording “traditional” folk music such as “Comin’ Round the Mountain” which just meant they learned the songs in rural areas. These days, the songs they wrote are considered “traditional” folk music. For instance, Guthrie wrote “This Land is Your Land”, yet most people today would think that was a very old and traditional song. When I think of “folk styled music”, I tend to think more of bands such as The Strawbs with Sandy Denny, Fairport Convention, Richard & Linda Thompson, Simon & Garfunkel, Lindisfarne, Ralph McTell, the Limeliters, etc. I’d also throw claw hammer bluegrass in there.

Fortunately, I worked in the music business back in the ’70s and was able to see many of the great ’60s folk singers. Folk is best heard in a live, intimate setting, as is jazz. Rock is better in larger venues when there’s more air volume to dampen the sound, or on a CD when multiple tracking can be used that is not possible in live performances.

Many of the great “classical music” compositions were based on peasant folk music, especially Slavic folk songs used by the great Russian composers. Sometimes the simplest tunes can be the most fun to vary. I’d like to hear more Chinese folk music if I could find it and knew it was traditional.

There is an old Taiwan folk song called Lüdao Xiaoyequ, composed by Yao Di and Chen Chang-shou. When I saw Vienna Teng in concert, she sang it as an encore. I mentioned it to the head Buddhist nun at our local temple during a dinner and she immediately started singing it a capella. Right away a bunch of other women joined in. It was very cool! If you’re not familiar with the song or with Vienna Teng, here’s her version:

@ Steve & real name.

1) I guess it would depend on what you call “folk music”. There’s what the Chinese music industry calls “folk music”; there’s what the American music industry calls “folk music”; in the west, there was “folk-inspired” revivals in the 60’s and 70’s with the likes of Pete and Peggy Seeger; there’s “folk-styled” composition, and then there’s what academics call “folk music”. Since I just happened to have taken some classes (albeit introductory) on folk music, I sometimes get a bit snotty about definitions. Technically, the composition of folk music is a more communal and anonymous matter, mutable, possibly with many versions, constantly evolving…anyway, it’s kind of a broad subject. Anyway, often when we think of “folk music”, it encompasses all the above, which is fine, and good music is good music if it sounds good. I just think, that if we get really interested it, it might be nice to learn the difference between “folk-styled” music and traditional folk music.

2) Theoretically, I don’t actually care if parts of cultures become sinicized, or westernized, or whatever-ized. The thing about culture, especially folk culture, is that it’s not static and is not meant to be static. However, sometimes I am selfishly sad when traditional things evolve to something less “exotic” and “sacred” and become more familiar and in-the-present. But that’s kind of a ridiculous sentiment, because true folk culture is exactly what is current (ie. internet memes and all that). But I think, out of respect for history and traditional culture, we should at least acknowledge the differences between past and present traditions, and not try to lump them all together as one thing…I’m not sure if that made sense.

3) About the actual music. I guess it’d be hard for any folk artist to preserve the raw feeling of an acoustic, traditional performance. This is especially true in Asia where “live music” and the feeling it carries is often deemed to be second class to pristinely-arranged music and classical music (of both Asian and European traditions) The truth is, unless very cleverly engineered, these simple, and often unaccompanied pieces don’t sound very interesting recorded, especially next to the exciting and varied modern music selections we have today. I’m no expert in Tibetan Folk Music, but I’ve seen a fair share of Folk performances ranging from renowned ballad-singers and fiddlers from the British isles to old Chinese men with er-hu’s in the San Francisco subway. The thing is, regardless of whether the music is sad, celebratory, tragic, fast, or slow, the power comes from the community, from the environment, which is always casual and participatory. Much of the power comes from hushed silence of the audience during a ballad and the raucous laughing/dancing during a jig, but that’s not something you can convey through the television screens. Which is why, produced “folk music” is either not very popular, or dressed up to be dramatic and stunning and synthesized, rather than matter-of-fact and unaccompanied in traditional performances. So I guess what I’m saying is that these “folk-inspired” music sound great, and I really do love them, but it would be so sad to see the disappearance of traditional venues, which also.

Here are some videos of somewhat more traditional performances (at least, I think so):

Shane MacGowan of the Pogues:

Mongolian Long Song in Chicago:

A Tibetan song, no accompaniment.

I don’t know if it’s actually a Tibetan Folk Song, but on a bus! And the clapping along!

Another Tibetan Song by a young woman learning to sing folk songs. It’s not polished, produced, or accompanied. But it’s still endearing, no?

And because I happen to love throat singing, here’s some love for Tuva:

And because I love throat singing, and not just in Tuva, and this is hilarious, a Mongolian Beer ad:

I can understand why Tibetan singers would “sinicize” their music. After all, the market they are trying to penetrate is composed of mostly non-Tibetans so the music producers will try to imitate the more popular arrangements. I’ll hear certain sounds that are continually repeated on many Chinese recordings, almost like they are boilerplate arrangements.

I wouldn’t say Chinese music is westernized, though I think it tries to be in some respects. It has its own formula. Too many strings, a certain type of electric guitar style that would never work in the west, endless ballads… it’s a pretty typical Chinese style. If it compares to anything, it’d be Japanese production.

I didn’t hear any folk roots in the song you linked to, so I’m curious if others did.

In the end, it’s all about moving merchandise.

“Feck off,” says Seamus. “I am not going to pander to those stupid and degrading Brit stereotypes about little ginger haired people doing a jig and say ‘top of the mornin ..’. That is contrary to all my principles as a citizen of the modern Ireland”

“Fair enough Seamus, but there was fifty quid in it for you.”

“To be sure, what time do I start and do you want me to bring my own leprechaun suit?”