So at this stage, I know I’m doing an iBook on Chinese music. But Chinese music, just like Classical music, has a huge range of information on instruments, repertoire, history etc etc. I wasn’t quite sure what scope I wanted to include for this iBook – after all I could go huge, but would that be the most effective way to go?
Therefore, I needed to be scrupulous about what to include and what not to. I figured the easiest way in is to explain the instruments – paralleling how schools often teach orchestral music by going through the instruments of the orchestra. I have watched this clip from Our Shining Days many times, and will continue to because it’s honestly so entertaining, but it also really highlights the parallels between the western and Chinese instruments, whilst still bringing out the sounds of the individual instrument tone colours in the mix. They also play a well-known piece of standard Classical repertoire – Flight of the Bumblebee.
Trawling through YouTube also yielded a useful documentary – I didn’t actually end up using it to explain the instruments but it did help give me an idea of the history behind the instruments. I did use the part talking about the Pentatonic Scale, as that was very well articulated.
At this rate it seems like it’s going for an early Stage 5 feel – say, mid Year 9.
I was pretty set for listening and performing components of this iBook but what needed some extra research and thinking was a compositional activity. I wanted to include stuff I’d learnt in this subject – especially the remix stuff.
It took me quite a while to find an example of a remixing of traditional music in an electronic style. I trawled through a few websites and did come across lots of interesting (although not necessarily useful) songs! There is a huge selection of early 2000s RnB tracks that incorporate traditional instruments – these include pop artists like Jay Chou and Wang Lee Hom. There are also rock bands of a similar nature, like XTX, and underground groups like Second Hand Rose. A similar concept prevails in Japanese music where J-rock meets Japanese traditional instruments in a style called ‘Wagakki’.
- https://www.quora.com/What-are-some-good-Chinese-music-groups-that-mix-traditional-and-modern-music
- https://farsidemusic.wordpress.com/tag/chinese-traditional-music/
- http://www.timeoutshanghai.com/features/Performing_Arts-Classical_Music/38460/5-Chinese-composers-you-should-know-.html
– lots of interesting artists and was great to listen to what’s out there!
But what I needed exactly was a very explicit remix of Chinese traditional tunes. And thank goodness Lofimaker was the artist who I found that was exactly what I needed.
I first came across his remix of ‘Ambush on Ten Sides’ – it’s a banger to be honest! It was also confusing, as that particular youtube channel actually creates visuals for EDM-style tracks, rather than being the original music artist themselves. I then came across a few more tracks on his Soundcloud, and discovered he’d also done a remix of the famous Erhu solo ‘Horse Racing’. I also found some bio stuff (not a lot but at least its there!) about his practice as an underground electronic music artist.
- He operates under the label ‘Do Hits’, you can see a short bio here
- This is his Instagram
- Interviews can be found here and here
I actually put this a little on the back burner, as I needed to work on the construction of the actual iBook itself to really start to get a feel of the whole scope of the project.
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