Transcript The Music of Asia

A BREIF overview



Asia has many countries and each has a
unique mix of sounds and styles.
We will only look at China, Japan, and
Indonesia.
Realize that these are just brief looks at the
surface of music in Asia!



Chinese culture reaches back to 2000 B.C. \
They invented the compass, gunpowder,
paper, and printing
Their music in characterized by heterophony
and the pentatonic scale





Sizhu (SUH-droo) music played in tea houses
a “jam session” with instruments like the erhu
and dizi
Northern Chinese villages often have suona
(so-nah) players.
Chinese opera is popular in the cities
Opera singers sing with tense-Guttural
sounds






Erhu (ur-hoo): Two string fiddle that rest on
the player’s knee
Pipa: 4 or 5-string lute held like a small cello
Dizi (dee-zee): bamboo flute that buzzes like
a kazoo
Yangquin (yahn-chin): hammered dulcimer
Sheng (shung): small bamboo pipes bound in
a circle.
Chinese Pop Music: Cui Jian


Taiko: a drum ensemble that blends martial
arts and music
Taiko drums were used in religious
ceremonies and in battle to frighten the
enemy and issue commands




Shamisen: three stringed guitar that is
plucked
Koto: a 13 string instrument that is plucked
with finger picks. The koto is Japan’s national
instrument.
Shakuhachi: a bamboo flute
An ensemble of Shamisen, Koto, and
Shakuhachi is called a sankyoku.




There are three major types of classical music
in Thailand: Piphat, Khruang Sai, and Mahori.
Most of the music has small ching hand
cymbals and wooden sticks to mark the beat.
The Qeej
Khong Wong is a circle of gongs similar to the
instruments of the Indonesian Gamelan




A gamelan is a set of gong instruments that
are struck with padded sticks
Gamelan is mainly from the islands of Bali
and Java
A gamelan cannot be separated into
individual instruments or interchanged
Gamelan music uses unique scales, or sets of
notes, that sound strange to our ears.