Week 4

The audience only have commercialized productions of "Chinese folk music" in hotels and bigger cities to compare the "Ancient Naxi music" to. They can only compare a flashy production with westernized and electric instruments in a concert hall to a Naxi ensemble in a courtyard. Their perception is skewed by the commercialized and flashy music presented by big city hotels. The Communist also censored ethnic art and music during the 1950s. Many of the traditional ensembles were disbanded and music might have been lost. The current traditional ensembles borrow from the ritual model, but only four out of twenty of the pre 1949 musicians were in ritual groups.

Western scholars accused the modern Chinese orchestra as not being authentic enough because the program performed by the orchestra consisted of classical, modern, and folk music, and the program says that hearing the performance will give the audience a general understanding of Chinese traditional music. The professor claims that the choice of pieces cannot give the audience an understanding of Chinese traditional music because there are pieces which are classical and modern. He also adds that by adding a bit and a bit of westernization, the overall feel of Chinese music will be tainted. The professor urges that the East should remain East. I do not agree with the professor. Chinese music has always borrowed from cultures and instruments have been acquired through many years of contacts with other countries. The Pipa can trace its roots from the Middle East, for example. The fusion of different music with each other is authentic. Take hip-hop for example. Current artists sample and fuse different sounds together and develop new sounds. It is had to determine where to draw the line as "authentic" goes. There is a lot of gray area. Music is ever changing and it is impossible to put a finger down and deem certain musics authentic or not. Can you label a biracial child unauthentic? All musics are authentic to its own style.

Week 3

The Gamelan performed in California and Bali had very different settings. The California performance was set in a theater, and the Balinese Gamelan was set outside by the beach. The California production had dancers and more exaggerated costumes and props that served to attract the audience and present Indonesian culture as more exotic that it is. The performers in Bali were dressed in mostly white and plain. There were no dancers and the music served to as a celebration of the culture by bringing musicians together in collaboration to celebrate their traditions. The performance in California served to entertain the audience and spread the culture of Indonesia to those who had previously no experience with that country.
The audience in California were outsiders looking in. The stage served as a barrier between performer and audience. Those sitting in the seats were excluded from the performance and could only watch from a far as the dancers and instrumentalists dressed in exaggerated costumes bedazzled them. The audience in Bali, however, were more immense in the performance. There was no stage in which the performers were separated from the audience. Those experiencing the culture and those performing were side by side and intermingled. There was no excessively exotic costumes or dancers to elevate the culture and promote difference between performers and audience.

Singapore

Week 2

I grew up in Singapore for the first 10 years of my life and am of chinese descent. However, moving to the United States when I was 10 years old and assimilating myself to the American culture imbedded a different musical culture in me. I listened to a lot of alternative rock and punk music during my teenage years and even formed several bands in which I played guitar and created "western" music. Last summer, my family travelled to China and Japan. We went to a Peking Opera show. The experience was not entirely familiar to me and was actually quite foreign. I had been familiar with this type of musical performance vaguely through the course of my life via television. I was an insider and an outsider. I am Chinese and this is my culture, but living in America and choosing to listen to mainly "western" music drew my knowledge of Peking Opera away from it.
There are many aspects in my life which accentuate the different parts of my identity, and music has played a large role in each part. I am a Christian, and on sundays when i go to church, I am immense in the worship songs the church band plays and sing those songs. I am also a member of the UCLA bruin marching band, and when I participate on saturdays during the football games and basketball games in the winter, I am participating and expressing my school pride by playing the school song and several other fight songs. I was also a violinist in my earlier years, and that aspect of me, musically, was expressed through years and years of practice and playing classical music.
I was in the pit orchestra my senior year for our musical production of "How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying". Playing the trombone in the pit orchestra was only one of several working parts in order for the whole musical to be a success. There were the actors, the dancers, the stage crew, those who built the sets, and the directors that oversaw all the aspects of the musical and made sure that it ran smoothly. All these parts working together presented a visual and aural spectacle for all of the audience to marvel at.

Ethnomusicology 5 4/2/07

Hi, my name is Minyong Yu. I am a first year student at UCLA. I grew up in Singapore and started playing the violin at the age of three. I picked up the trombone in the second grade and the guitar in middle school. I play in the bruin marching band, and playing guitar leisurely in my spare time. I played guitar in a band and was part of several ensembles such as jazz band and wind ensemble back in high school. Music has always been an important part in my life and I am interested in ethnomusicology. I grew up in Singapore where I experienced several cultures like Chinese, Indian and Malay. I have also traveled to many different countries around the world such as New Zealand, Australia, China, Japan, and Indonesia, and have been immersed in their culture, including their music.