Musical China Part 1: Ancient Melodies to Mandopop

Musical China Part 1: Ancient Melodies to Mandopop
Jul 17, 2009 By Susie Gordon , eChinacities.com

When you think about Chinese music, the first thing to pop into your head is probably the piping of a flute or the twang of a zither playing pentatonic melodies – that archetypal 'Chinese' sound that accompanies traditional dances, and emanates from the speakers of 'authentic' restaurants. But what lies behind this stereotypical sort of music is a story of politics, creativity, and polemic, and emerging from all of that into the modern day is a style of modern music that is popular all over the world.

Mandopop star anita mui during her final concert
Anita Mui during her final concert

The official origins of Chinese music date back to the Zhou dynasty of 1122 to 256 BC, but legend has it that a man called Ling Lun created it by tuning bamboo pipes to mimic birdsong. It was during the Qin dynasty (221 – 7 BC) that an Imperial Music Bureau was created to oversee court entertainment, and it flourished under Emperor Han Wu Di between 140 and 87 BC. The Bureau chose which pieces would be official court music, choosing from various folk pieces. The main instruments were simple stringed lutes, pipes and drums. The most popular was the gu qin (古琴) lute, part of the qin family, which formed the centrepiece of most works. The qin was played before the Han dynasty, but had its heyday in the Tang period between 618 and 907 AD, and was often accompanied by plucked or bowed string instruments, and gongs or cymbals. In many pieces, the instruments would form a melodic accompaniment to a singer – a nod to the original purpose of music which was to accompany a sung poem. Different regions developed different musical instruments as variations on the main types. For example, the zheng zither was popular in Henan and Shandong, while the pipa flute was used in Shanghai. Interestingly, a Jesuit priest named Matteo Ricci gave a harpsichord to the Ming emperor in 1601 AD, but this was kept mainly as a decorative piece and didn’t make it into the traditional canon.

However, several centuries later in the early days of the Republic Era (1912 – 1949), the New Culture Movement encouraged western influence on China’s music scene. Musicians were sent to study in the west and bring back information about the notation system used. Symphony orchestras were established in the big cities, and jazz music became popular during the 20s.

In 1942 the Yan’an Forum on Literature and Art was set up by the Communist party to turn traditional Chinese folk songs to revolutionary purposes. The famous nationalistic hymn ‘The East is Red’ was originally a Shaanxi folk song. Many of these songs were adapted and composed by Xian Xinghai, who is most famous for penning the ‘Yellow River Cantata’.

The rise of the Republic Era at the end of the 1940s coincided with the flourishing of a kind of music known as shidaiqu (时代曲). This jazz/traditional fusion originated in Shanghai, and was the forerunner of Chinese pop. The lyrics were usually highbrow, and often spoke of contemporary events such as war and social matters. When the Communists banned popular music, believing it to be pornographic, shidaiqu found a safe haven in Hong Kong and Taiwan where it continued to develop.

The Seven Great Singing Stars was the collective name for a group of singers comprising Bai Guang, Bai Hong, Gong Qiuxia, Li Xianglan, Wu Yingyin, Yao Lee, and Zhou Xuan. They contributed to the rise of Chinese cinema thanks to their appearance on the soundtracks of many films, and were multi-talented – able to sing, dance, and act. In effect, they were Asia’s first modern performing stars. The Japanese invasion put paid to their work, and a great era came to an end.

But the story of Chinese music didn’t end there. Shidaiqu performers escaped to Hong Kong and Taiwan after Communist crack downs and developed Cantopop in Hong Kong, and Mandopop in Taiwan. Mandopop or hua yu liu xing yin yue (华语流行音乐) grew steadily in popularity, spawning stars like Anita Mui who was known as the Chinese Madonna thanks to her risqué antics on stage. Despite pop music gaining an audience after Deng Xiaoping’s opening China in the 1970s, the authorities still kept a close eye on what was happening - Anita Mui was banned from performing on account of her ‘provocative’ dance moves and lyrics.

Mandopop’s rise in popularity was linked to the spread of Mandarin into Singapore, with the 1979 ‘Speak Mandarin’ Drive launched by then-Prime Minister Lee Kwan Yew to establish Mandarin as one of Singapore’s four official languages. This gave Mandopop a whole new fan base. The celebrity-crazed Noughties made it even more popular, with the advent of Supergirl and Superboy – Pop Idol-style reality TV shows in which new music stars are chosen. These days, the most popular Mandopop groups are S.H.E., Fahrenheit, and Hey Girl. Popular music has become so accepted by the government that Mandopop groups were used to promote the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

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