Anthropology of Music in China. A critical study

Abstract

This article provides an up-to-date and critical review of Anthropolog y of music in China, with emphasis on the situation of mainland China from 1949 to 2001. It deals with the main theoretical issues, preoccupations and approaches prevalent among the concerned scholarly community there. In China Ethnomusicological study mainly developed in the second half of the 20th century, and it has advanced enormously since the early 1980s. Outstanding achievements include sorting out and developing the theory of Chinese temperamentology, collecting and recording the abundant traditional and folk musical materials, Archaeological findings of ancient music and musical instruments, and some new trends developed in the past decade. However, serious problems exist and the most fundamental ones can be grouped into four aspects: political interference; confinement to Chinese music itself; a strong attachment to the old style musicological approach, isolating the study from other disciplines including even its parent discipline, Anthropology; and ignorance of recent theory, methodology and their developments in academic studies outside of China.