Lau Readings

I would have to say that my favorite part of the Lau reading was the 5th chapter in which he spoke about the ties that Chinese music has to Chinese Ideology. As social/religious ideologies are very important in my life, as well as the way music relates to them, I found this look at another culture's music's tie to ideology fascinating. I feel, too, that it was an interesting chapter due to the fact that I am very interested on the purpose of music in addition to its theoretical construction.

Of course the first aspect of this chapter that I found interesting was the discussion that Lau presents on the effect that Confucianism had on the development of Chinese music. I thought it was very interesting how closely this paralleled the development of early music in the Christian Church. Both philosophies agreed that music was for the betterment of the person and introspection. Just as the fathers of the early Christian church asked composers such as Palestrina to focus on simple harmonies so as to allow church-goers to focus on worship rather than music, so too did Confucius ask the Chinese people to do the same. What I did find different between the two, though, was exactly how ordered and formal Chinese music, or Yayue, became. While the Christian music reformation stressed only simplicity, the Chinese music reformation seemed to stress many formal rules based on social status.

The next interesting parallel that I found was the use of Chinese music to convey political messages. While this is not a surprising concept to me, as I am accustomed to listening to the politically-charged American music of the 1960's and 1970's, I found the level to which music was controlled as a propaganda device shocking. While there is the parallel of both country's musics being used as propaganda and political tools, their is a sharp contrast as to who was controlling the music. I also found it fascinating how methodical and well-thought-out the construction of the Chinese propaganda music was. Many psychological factors were considered, seemingly more so than with the propaganda music in the United States.

Again, I think the most striking aspect to this chapter was the overarching theme of parallelism between the Chinese music tradition and the Western music tradition, especially considering the vast distance that separated the countries during these periods. This, I feel, is further proof of the point that music is the universal language--there are stark similarities in its uses and development from isolated (at that time) corners of the globe. I found the information in this chapter the most enjoyable in the Lau book, too, considering my own personal interest in the way that music reflects the culture that originates from.