The Evolution of Chinese Popular Music: Modernization and Globalization, 1927 to the Present (Ashgate Popular and Folk Music Series) - Softcover

Cheng, Ya-Hui

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1032314044 ISBN 13: 9781032314044

Publisher: Routledge, 2024

Synopsis

Ya-Hui Cheng examines the emergence of popular music genres – jazz, rock, and hip-hop – in Chinese society, covering the social underpinnings that shaped the development of popular music in China and Taiwan, from imperialism to westernization and from modernization to globalization. The political sensitivities across the strait have long eclipsed the discussion of these shared sonic intimacies. It was not until the rise of the digital age, when entertainment programs from China and Taiwan reached social media on a global scale, that audiences realized the existence of this sonic reciprocation. Analyzing Chinese pentatonicism and popular songs published from 1927 to the present, this book discusses structural elements in Chinese popular music to show how they aligned closely with Chinese folk traditions. While the influences from Western genres are inevitable under the phenomenon of globalization, Chinese songwriters utilized these Western inspirations to modernize their musical traditions. It is a sensitivity for exhibiting cultural identities that enabled popular music to present a unique Chinese global image while transcending political discord and unifying mass cultures across the strait.

About this title

About the Author

Ya-Hui Cheng is Assistant Professor of Music Theory at the University of South Florida.

Edition details

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 2024
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1032314044
• ISBN 13: 9781032314044
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 230