令人醇醉的八十年代歌曲的旋律

前言: 老友新郎哥中年結婚，一班弟兄姊妹和死黨準備為他在婚禮當日獻唱助慶。由於大家都有不同喜愛的歌曲，歌手們就最後就 concluding 歌曲有不同的提議。當然，我們希望所選的歌曲不能太難學，又要有意思，因為是最後一首表演的歌的緣故，最好與 goodbye 有關。可是，選來選去，也未有甚麼結論。新郎哥是中年成熟的人，歌曲口味，也比較接近本人這個五，六十後的老坑，大大 不同那些八十後和九十後的年青人。例 如，我們都喜歡 月亮代表我的心，這一類經典，以旋律為主的歌曲。所以，在表達了不同意見之後，新郎哥就提議 晚安 這首歌，並說雖然八十後的賓客雖會覺老套，但是，這首歌是曲詞俱佳，也很適合當晚的場合。我並不曾聽過這首歌，但既是新郎哥的提議，大家都沒有甚麼異議。我就請新郎哥 send 個 karaoke video 來聽聽。可是，第一次聽到這首歌曲的旋律時，就引發我寫了以下的文章 ..........

晚安 的 youtube demo:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtcsO82XsRA

正文:

我急急下載了 晚安 這首歌曲後，就隨意打開 software 去 play，自已就走開了，沒有再看 monitor 和晝面的 credit 介紹。可是，我一聽到歌曲調子時，就 sense 到其曲調有一種令人感到縈繞不捨的深情和不吐不快的澎湃，很像七，八十年代鬼才劉家昌的創作。不是我自誇，七，八十年代在香港流行的國，粵語流行曲，我是有略有研究的。最後，我急急翻到前面，看看誰是作曲作詞者，正如我所料，這是劉家昌的作品。如個你不能意會我所說的 "令人感到縈繞不捨的深情和不吐不快的澎湃"，可以試試聽聽 海鷗 ，梅花，或是 在雨中 等歌曲，就可以 sense 我所說的是甚麼。晚安這首歌，就能營造激動中有深情，但同時流露出淡淡思情，難捨難離，帶有中國民間小曲的含畜蘊婉和流行曲的外展張力。


曲調之所以能喚起人的感情反應，不單是屬個人的 (personal)，還會是屬集體性的 (collective)。可是，這所謂的集體回憶，集體感情，也有時代的細分。比方說，我們這群六十後，就會特別感受到八十年代年歌曲，即現在被稱為老歌的風格和氣味。但八十後的年青人，就會對現今的流行歌有共鳴，舊歌嗎? 就難一點有感情反應。在這裡，我不得不指出我個人的意見，現今的流行歌著重節奏和 beating，以刺激聽者的 sensation 為主，但七， 八十年代的歌曲則著重旋律優美和雋永，以激動心靈和感情為主。能寫出流的優美旋律，而又有中國音樂的風味和格調，在當年，除了劉家昌外，就只有顧家輝，陳伯強，林子祥 (只有三幾首歌)等能做到。我看就連歌神阿 Sam 所寫的歌也不能。

劉家昌所寫的歌總有留給歌手發揮，充滿高潮張力的段落，這就拜他曾寫了不少電影音樂有關。我還記得，當年有一齣戲名叫 黃埔軍魂，由l甄珍和柯俊雄主演，其中的配樂和其劇情的推進，年青時的我就看得眼濕濕了。晚安 這首歌中的 Refrain 段落，聽者就 unexpectedly 聽到旋律突然從低音區轉到高音區盤旋，當我們還已為調子會走回主段旋律作再現時，(即以 A B A' 常用歌曲結構處理)，卻只聽到主音在高潮停穩著，然後才不捨地慢慢悄然退去。原來整首歌曲的結構就只是 A B 的二段體。

老餅即是老餅，我和新郎哥的喜愛，大都是以旋律為主的歌曲。旋律可以永藏心中。回憶，不論是個人的，又或是集體的，當受樂音喚起時，也同時帶動我們的感情反應和美學經驗。使我們從中享受音樂曲調的美。這種美不是只帶我們動官能，而是牽動我們內心的感受和回憶。這是現今八，九十後的年青聽眾所喜歡節拍強勁的歌曲不能做到的。

歌曲，仍應是以旋律為主。


全文完

David Leung (theorydavid)

2011-06-09 (published)

The Influence of 18th Century English Thoughts on the Librettos of Handel’s English Oratorios (Part 3)

前言: 韓德爾的神劇被視為同類型樂種的經典。但我們又是否知道，韓氏的神劇在當代音樂聽眾聽來，不單純是音樂美妙絕倫，非而且充滿愛國情懷和外在意義。皆因韓氏選擇劇本和處理音樂時，往往以樂音借喻，令聽眾能了解其中含意。雖說是巴羅克時期，當代英國的聽眾在聽音樂時，也慣於尋求音樂的表達意義。以下的學術文章，就簡論了韓德爾的神劇腳本和當代的英式思維的關係，讓讀者看出韓氏的神劇精彩奧妙之處。




Paper Continued:

The Influence of 18th Century English Thoughts

on the Librettos of Handel’s English Oratorios (Part 3)

Newburgh Hamilton’s libretto of Samson, written in its initial form by autumn 1741 and dedicated in the wordbook to the Prince of Wales, reflects the prince’s support of the war with Spain for which the Patriots had clamoured. But Samson contained more political context as time passed and even after its first performance, the political scene changed considerably. While Hamilton was writing his libretto the press was reporting the parliamentary ‘motion’ to remove Walpole, the ruling body of England, and commenting on the criticism of British foreign policy since 1725 with regard to the conflict in Europe, the attacking of the conduct of the West Indies War and the arraigning corrupt government at home. Here, Samson who was the Israelite hero, could well symbolize this Britain – native strength shackled by maladministration. At the same time, Samson might also represent an actual national hero, Admiral Vernon. He had achieved a few triumphs of the Spanish war and was a sharp and bold critic of that government as Member of the Parliament. His image forced to remind us the image of Hamilton’s hero, Samson, a figure of suffering the insults from his enemies and critical of his compatriots. As time passed, the symbolic role of Samson changed accordingly. In early 1743, Samson’s initial incapacity and eventual triumph over Philistines must have been seemed to represent the British fortunes in the war in the Continents and Low Countries. The allied navies of Spain and France invading the British Mediterranean fleet in 1744 undeniably reminded the English audience of the vivid image of the helpless Samson under his rival, Philistines’ hands. What would be the fate of the Great Britain? The patriotic oratorio audience might have been inspired much by the chorus in Act III, scene I of Samson:

How thou wilt here come off surmounts my Reach;

Tis Heav’n alone can save both us and thee.

With thunder arm’d, great God, arise;

Help, lord, or Isr’el’s champion dies:

To thy protection this thy servant take,

And save, O save us, for thy servant’s sake[7].

The political ideology in the text is clear and, perhaps, this is the charm of Samson, of Hamilton’s libretto, of Handel’s oratorios.

As we have examined before the main idea of the Handelian oratorios is Patriotism, it is not surprising that the text of the Handel’s oratorio was conveying the ideal of self-scarifice whenever the conflict between public and private interests occurred. In Morel’s Jephtha (1737), the author chose the biblical version of the classical topic concerning the offering up of a daughter for the sake of national success, instead of the private interest. In the story of Jephtha of the Old Testament, Jephtha vows that he will sacrifice to God the first being he encounters on his return from battle if God grants him the victory. His daughter, unfortunately, is the first one he met. He is shaken but his daughter accepts the fate and keeps alone for her whole life to serve God. Morell, undoubtedly, conveyed a message of a patriot king, Jephtha and a patriot daughter. He writes:

True, we have slighted, scorn’d, expell’d him hence,

As of a Stranger born; but well I know him;

His generous Soul disdains a mean Revenge,

When his distressful country calls his Aid –

And, perhaps, God may favour our Request,

If with repentant Hearts we sue for Mary[8].

     (Part I Scene I)

How godlike is it to be great!

When Greatness, free from private ends,

The Good of all Manking intends!                 ( Part III Scene II)

Morell here expresses the Patriot King’s noble aspiration to a public life guided by moral principles. ‘Virtue my Soul shall still embrace; goodness shall make me great’ shows that Jephtha ‘s whole family shares his moral principle. Jephtha’s daughter, also, put the national interests above her personal favorite. Therefore, the whole libretto, main characteristic of Patriot drama uses predominantly family relationships, rather than those of lovers as a source of trial, pain and tenderness[9]. This gives more touching aptness and can immensely attract the oratorio audience. Besides the charm of the text, the patriotic theme is again obvious. We can conclude that the Handelian oratorios not only reflect certain moral teachings of the 18^th Century English, but also promote an image of a Patriot King of England, or an ideal Government, with its patriotic standards set in Miller’s Joseph and his Brethren, Morell’s Judas Macchabaeus, Joshua and Solomon that the general English people had long been expected.

Undeniably, 18^th Century English thoughts have a tremendous impact on the librettos of Handel’s oratorios. Although it is rather difficult to assert that the ideas influence the texts more or vice versa, one important point is that the oratorios possess more meanings to the audience in Handel’s days than to the modern audience. The oratorio and the theatre were the essential centres of conveying messages, both of religious and political affairs. Oratorio audiences habitually accepted the allegorical meaning of the wordbooks. Christianity defending and the Patriotism were the hot topics in 18^th Century England and linked the daily life of the people. What the 18^th Century English people interested were mainly religion and politics. There was no conceptual separation between issues of Church and state, religion and politics. Handel’s oratorios could probably fulfill the necessities of the people, the government, and the country in his day. The plentiful meanings conveyed in Handel’s oratorio were valuable and essential to them. Therefore, this is the secret of the dramatic success of Handel’s oratorios to the 18^th Century English people, or perhaps, to some extent, to the oratorio audience in the present.

---

[1] Smith Ruth, Handel’s oratorios and eighteenth-century thought, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995, pp146-147.

[2] Smith Ruth, Handel’s oratorios and eighteenth-century thought, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995, p149.

[3] Smith Ruth, Handel’s oratorios and eighteenth-century thought, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995, pp10-11

[4] Smith Ruth, Handel’s oratorios and eighteenth-century thought, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995, pp175-176

[5] C.V. Palisca, A History of Western History, 3 ed., W.W. Norton, New York, 1981, p443.

[6] Smith Ruth, Handel’s oratorios and eighteenth-century thought, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995, p220

[7] Smith Ruth, Handel’s oratorios and eighteenth-century thought, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995, pp298-299

[8] Smith Ruth, Handel’s oratorios and eighteenth-century thought, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995, p341

[9] Smith Ruth, p341


Paper Finished

David leung (theorydavid)

2011-06-02

The Influence of 18th Century English Thoughts on the Librettos of Handel’s English Oratorios (Part 2)

前言: 韓德爾的神劇被視為同類型樂種的經典。但我們又是否知道，韓氏的神劇在當代音樂聽眾聽來，不單純是音樂美妙絕倫，非而且充滿愛國情懷和外在意義。皆因韓氏選擇劇本和處理音樂時，往往以樂音借喻，令聽眾能了解其中含意。雖說是巴羅克時期，當代英國的聽眾在聽音樂時，也慣於尋求音樂的表達意義。以下的學術文章，就簡論了韓德爾的神劇腳本和當代的英式思維的關係，讓讀者看出韓氏的神劇精彩奧妙之處。

The Influence of 18th Century English Thoughts

on the Librettos of Handel’s English Oratorios (Part 2)

Paper Continued:

In the Part II of Judas Macchabaeus, author Morell writes:

To Heav’n let Glory, and all Praise be given;

To Heav’n give your Applause,

Nor add the second Cause,

As once your Fathers did in Midian

Saying, The Sword of God and Gideon,

It is the Lord, who for his Israel fought,

And this our wonderful Salvation wrought.

The above text provides a typical answer. Like many other Handel’s librettos of Israelite oratorio, albeit hedge the bets, the point of defending the Christianity is still clear. Morell’s commitment to the defence of Christianity is rather endearing. Here he contributes directly to the orthodox defence of the evidence of miracles and places great emphasis on God’s salvation and mercy, but at the same time, adding rational explanation to meet the Anglican’s teaching. Although contemporary biblical commentaries by orthodox believers reflect the difficulties inherent in the rationalist position in their attempt to present miraculous events as both mysterious and explicable, the librettists of the Israelite oratorios try to have it both ways, giving a rational explanation, or simply the ‘second cause’ while claiming divine intervention. In Belshazzar, Cyrus conquer Bablyon with intelligent strategy as well as the aid of a God-sent dream; in Jephtha, Jephtha has skills of an outstanding general as well as the support of cherubim and seraphim; and in Joshua, Joshua’s men have courage as well as the help of a stationary sun by God to win the battle[1].

The deists also tried to attack the traditional plank of ‘proof’ by discrediting the application to Jesus of the Old Testament prophesies of the Messiah and of the miracles he would realize. Charles Jennens, another librettist of the well-known Handel’s oratorios of Messiah, Saul, Israel in Egypt and Belshazzar, stands clearly on the side of defending the Christianity. He again paid attention on the Old Testament and to prompt renewed efforts to validate Christian revelation and its concurrence with the Gospels. The traces of this part of the debate in his librettos are particularly striking. In the libretto of Messiah, Jennens showed the parallels of Old Testament prophecy and New Testament fulfillment and the ‘harmony of the gospels’ with each other, and the actual verbal correspondences between Old and New Testament texts. Although the deists had pointed out that citations of the Old Testament in the New do not always correspond to the Old Testament text as we have it, Joseph Hallet jnr (1729-1736), a famous scholar, asserted that ‘among almost three hundred citations the far greatest part are exact’, while only ‘about twenty differ’. At least fifty one of the eighty biblical verses in Jennens’ libretto are either conscious quotations, or echoes, of the Old Testament in the New, for example, Isaiah XL.3, heard in the opening recitative, is quoted in Matthew III.3, Mark I.3, Luke III.4 and John I.23[2]. As a result, the 18^th Century religious thoughts absolutely have a great impact on the librettos of Handel’s oratorio. Meanings that the texts conveyed to the public were clear. On one hand, Handel maintained the rational ground of the belief of Anglican’s teaching by permitting the second cause adding in the librettos; while on the other hand, together with the contributions of his orthodox religious background of his librettists, Miller and Morell were clergymen, Jennens was a scholarly evangelizing Christian and Humphreys wrote commentary to defend Bible, Handel re-emphasized on the Divine salvation, miracles and prophesy fulfillments of the Old to New Testament in order to defend the Christianity against the deism. Perhaps, this was the factor of the success of Handel’s Oratorios in his day.

We have just discussed that the importance of music theatre as a vehicle for political messages. Music and musicians also served as a prime analogy for the state and statesmen. It was not surprising for the 18^th Century English audience to expect the presence of political themes in the artworks and entertainments. From the moment that Handel first arrived in England, he was involved in producing music for national events. The librettists would have been unusual if they had excluded political themes from their texts, and the oratorio audience would have been behaving anachronistically if they had not found political themes in them[3]. What were the political events and thoughts of the oratorio years which the librettists could have absorbed into their texts?

The main national events in the oratorio years were decades of wars and the rumours of war. Relations with other European powers were deteriorating throughout the 1730s. In 1731, there was a French invasion scare, serious enough for the British fleet to be deployed in the Channel. Also, the war of Polish Succession in 1733, the trade war with the tough rivalry Spain in West Indies for overseas commercial interests and the threaten of war with ambitious the Frederick II of Prussia in Europe for his political expansion in the Continent were the subjects of major debates in Parliament and were extensively reported by the press. The newspaper-reading member of the oratorio audience would have been aware of these popular issues: the foreign policy of the European alliance, the British army, the navy, and colonial and commercial expansion[4]. Therefore, all these political events in the oratorio years nourished the common political thought of the 18^th Century British Government and people, that is, the ‘Patriotism’.

According to the drama historian Murray Roston, ‘Handel succeeded in glorifying in Biblical terms the confident patriotism of the English people as they rose on the wave of imperial expansion, convinced that they were carrying the true God to the pagan corners of the world. The heroic, martial splendour of Deborah, of Judas Maccabeus, and of Joshua was adopted enthusiastically as symbol of English integrity and courage.’[5] Undoubtedly, Roston’s saying points out that the essential idea of the librettos of Handel’s oratorio is a kind of ‘patriot libretto’. But how could the political events and the patriotism be absorbed in the so-called patriot libretto? Ruth Smith gives us the answer.

The libretto absorbs all the political ideas in allegorical form. The mid-eighteenth century audience had been taught to regard the scriptural protagonists whom oratorios portrayed not just as figures from the semi-mythological history of a remote race and culture but, in a tradition dating from early Christian times, as reminders of their own redeemer, connected with their own individual lives. The preachers, the scholars and the press habitually identify modern Britain with ancient Israel and they make recurrent specific parallels which bear on the subjects of the librettos. God of Israel is paralleled with God of Britain. English is paralleled with the Israel. The enemy of Israel, such as Egypt, is paralleled with the rivalry of Britain in the Continent. The following comparisons show the commonplace:

The Stuart Family                    Saul and his descendants

George II                                David or Solomon
The Glorious Revolution         The crown of Israel passing from Saul and his family to David and his family

Catholic Europe                      The Philistines

The threat of Popery              ‘Egyptian bondage’ of heathen rites

Irreligion                                Israelite idolatry

Licentiousness                       Israelite neglect of God’s laws

All the figures and circumstances in the right- hand column are subjects of one or more of the Israelite librettos[6]. This kind of analogy was routine, God could intervene in the lives of the British nationals as He had done in the lives of the Israelites. We can take several examples to illustrate this: the Israel events in the libretto are equal to politics events of Britain, the patriotism of Israel is the model of the patriotism of English.

End of Part 2

To Be Continued

David Leung (theorydavid)

2011-05-27 (published)

The Influence of 18th Century English Thoughts on the Librettos of Handel’s English Oratorios (Part 1)

前言: 韓德爾的神劇被視為同類型樂種的經典。但我們又是否知道，韓氏的神劇在當代音樂聽眾聽來，不單純是音樂美妙絕倫，非而且充滿愛國情懷和外在意義。皆因韓氏選擇劇本和處理音樂時，往往以樂音借喻，令聽眾能了解其中含意。雖說是巴羅克時期，當代英國的聽眾在聽音樂時，也慣於尋求音樂的表達意義。以下的學術文章，就簡論了韓德爾的神劇腳本和當代的英式思維的關係，讓讀者看出韓氏的神劇精彩奧妙之處。

正文:

The Influence of 18th Century English Thoughts on the Librettos of Handel’s English Oratorios

George Frideric Handel (1685-1759), a German composer but with success of his career in England, undoubtedly, was a towering figure of the later baroque period. If Madame de Stael very perceptively remarked that Michelangelo was the “Bible’s painter”, Handel must then be called its composer. The number of his oratorios based on Biblical subjects runs to over 30, for example, Messiah and Judas Macchabaeus. Their continual performance by people of every kind from the date of their composition to present proves their accessibility[1]. The success of Handel’s oratorios is not only its accessible music, but also the contribution of its librettos. Just like Mozart accompanied with Ponte, Handel also had a lot of silent supporters, the librettists, such as Charles Jennens, James Miller and Thomas Morell. Although Handel did not write any of the librettos, he involved in editing the librettist’s texts, or principally cutting them. He absolutely recognized the importance of the librettos. The printed libretto-the wordbook-was an indispensable part of attendance at the oratorio in 18^th Century. English audience customarily bought copies of the text in the theatre in order to read the words during the performance[2]. Therefore, it is no doubt to assert that the success of the oratorios is largely the contribution of Handel. However, in the major modern study of Handel’s English theatre works, Winton Dean writes that in the modern opinion an almost complete failure largely because of its dreadful libretto, was popular in his own day. He continues, ‘Samson suffers from an excess of diversionary airs…..’ and he states that at least eight of these are better omitted in the modern performance[3]. In order to understand what captured the interest of the original audience, it is worth for us to explore the meanings conveyed from the librettos of Handel’s oratorios, and especially to recognize the impact on the thought of Handel’s time and to appreciate the artistic and moral criteria that influence their authors. The religious discourse, the moral teaching and the political ideology provide the entry point.

It is nearly impossible for us to understand the artworks, including the music, completely in 18^th century without knowing the thoughts and ideas of the cotemporary Englishmen. The dominant influences on mid-eighteenth-century English thought were religion and politics. They permeated life and art. The pulpit was the major public–address system. Sermons addressed and influenced every aspect of private and public life, of course, including art. Religious discussion, debates and even critics, were the major element of intellectual life. Music theatre served as a political messages center. Religious publications dominated book production, and people believed that God supervised lives and could and would intervene with punishment on a personal or national scale if provoked by wrongdoing[4]. Explicitly, such 18^th Century religious atmosphere nourished many of the Handel’s oratorio librettos.

Generally, eighteenth-century Anglican teaching stressed good works more than faith. Ethical social benevolence is the road to salvation. It was a time that concept of original sin was neglected, doctrine of redemption by grace was lessened and humanity’s potential to fulfill the requirements of divine percepts in life was emphasized. Some versions of religion even secularized ethics to the extent of suggesting that men and women did not need God to teach them perfection[5]. At the same time, the English translation of Richard Simon’s Critical History of the Old Testament dramatically undermined English Protestant faith in the integrity, inspiration and authority of Scripture. These scholarly criticisms of the text of Bible laid the seedbeds of the freethinking deist movement in England[6]. Therefore, the years of the performances of Handel’s oratorios, 1732-1752, were the years of Biblical criticism and religious debate, even the years of the major Anglican rebuttals of deism. Under such chaotic background, the bases of Christianity were threatened. Was the concept of divine revelation still important? Were mercy, miracles and fulfillment of biblical prophecies still the principal elements of truth and salvation? It is very interesting for us to find out the influence on the librettos of the Handel’s oratorio under such situation.

Part I (To Be Continued)

David Leung (theorydavid)

2011-05-20 (published)

---

[1] H.C. Landon, Handel and his world, Weiden and Nicolson, London, 1984, p133.

[2] Smith Ruth, Handel’s oratorios and eighteenth-century thought, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995, pp5-6, p23

[3] Dean Winton, Handel’s Dramatic Oratorios and Masques, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1990, pp631-2

[4] Smith Ruth, Handel’s oratorios and eighteenth-century thought, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995, pp.8-9

[5] Smith Ruth, Handel’s oratorios and eighteen-century thought, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995, p.141.

[6] Smith Ruth, pp141-142.

In Search for Home Culture: Muzak in Chiense New Year Celebration

前言:

在大型高級購物商場裡播放的背景音樂，究竟有甚麼作用呢? 以下文章就是我以前做的一個 field work 研究，探討商場的背景音樂對購物者和遊人有甚麼影響。我的研究是在特定的節日期間做的，所有資料是在農曆新年期間搜集而心成。所以，結論是與農曆新年有關的。

In Search for Home Culture: Muzak in Chinese New Year Celebration

Introduction

The notion of cultural identity has in recent years become increasingly problematic. When we think of ourselves as belonging to a particular culture, we tend to forget that we are living in an affluent, globally connected world where the crisscrossing of cultures has become the norm. We can have European raisin bran for breakfast, Indian curry for lunch, and Japanese sashimi for dinner; we can enjoy Western operas, traditional Chinese music, Western classics, jazz, rock, Canto-pop, Japanese song, or even African juju; we can be a Christian, an theist, a Buddhist, or a Sufi. We can choose – or believe we can – different aspects of our lives from what has come to be called the “global cultural supermarket.”[1]  And cultural identity as such is simply a matter of consumer’s choice.

Yet multiculturalism can be deceptive. For while we no longer have a single dominant culture, our ancestral cultures have not forever vanished. The latter, which regularly confound us by their resilience, their survival in spite of everything, may well remain in potent shape.  But if freedom of choice does not necessarily imply the loss of identity, where do we see the possibility of a home culture in a world that seems to encourage too much diversity?  How are we supposed to locate our identity amid a cultural anarchy? One possible line of inquiry towards answering these questions is offered by looking at the way in which a specific social activity – shopping and buying during the Spring Festival period – under the New Year festive atmosphere, which is mostly enhanced by a particular type of community-based music, namely, muzak accompanying Chinese New Year celebration, is used in the department store or shopping mall in Hong Kong.

This paper attempts to show that while the notion of cultural identity is never without ambiguity in present day societies, neither will it be easily undermined by a laisser-faire orthodoxy that simply encourages one to pick and choose. The moral demands and collective identities of a culture may be brought into focus under such specific activities and festive circumstances when the entire members of a community find themselves awakening to their cultural self-understanding.

Participation-Observation Method

The methodology I employed in this paper is the participation-observation method.  This ethnographic method entails a kind of double role or stance.  One the one hand, the “participant part” means that the researcher immerses him/herself in a real world, the “field-based” setting.  This suggests that the researcher is committing his/her whole self to that setting.  By experiencing that setting through feelings, thoughts, emotions and so on, the researcher can obtain a more self-understanding of that music culture or some aspects of it from an insider’s perspective.  However, on the other hand, the “observer part” can bring about a “scientific” approach to creating knowledge and understanding by collecting data, interviewing and observations from that particular setting.  In this paper, my main focus is the socio-cultural activity of shopping-buying “new things” by Hong Kong people during the Spring Festival (The Chinese New Year Festival) under the New Year festive milieu, which is prepared and enhanced by the specific kind of muzak played in the department stores. 

My fieldwork will be carried out in one of the large, representative shopping malls, the Sogo Department Store, at Causeway Bay in the Lunar New Year public holiday.   I will observe and participate in people’s festive activities and examine how the background soundscape can open up a wider sensuous dimension of visitors to conform to the traditional customs.  I will also interview several visitors about their feelings and reactions under such socio-cultural environments.  Be it a functioning anarchy or a faded mosaic, multiculturalism can be a testing ground for traditional cultures to reemerge in a new guise.

Chinese New Year Custom

To Chinese people, “having everything new” for the coming new year is as important as having a Christmas tree or receiving a present at Christmas to westerners.  Without any exception, Hong Kong people are aware of buying new “presents” for themselves, as well as for the others in this festival.   The Chinese describe Spring Festival without having everything new not only as being like a dish without seasoning, but also as symbolizing a bad, unhappy and unfortunate year coming.   Although this year-by-year festive activity is embedded with abundant traditional cultural meanings, it also function as an essential medium for the survival of such Chinese traditional culture.   But how this tradition can be continued in a place where the tradition has often been undermined?

It is widely known that under the British colonial sovereignty, the Chinese traditional cultures in Hong Kong were often undermined.   But traditions can always manifest themselves in new guises and continue to be extant.  As Paul Connerton argued in How Society Remember, “the cultural images of the past are conveyed and sustained by social practices and ritual (more or less ritual) performances.”[2]   We, indeed, experience our present world in a context which is causally connected with past events and objects.  Some of our ancestral cultures can also manifest themselves year-by-year in form of a particular social practice.   Buying and shopping in Chinese New Year time, thus, should be regarded as one of such practices.   But how can music relate to this socio-cultural activity to enhance a metaphor for the “Chinese identity” formation?

Music’s Social Power

Despite its alleged autonomous statue, music is also well known for its social power to influence people’s daily life.   It is implicated in every dimension of social agency.  Just as Tia DeNora argued, “music may influence how people compose their bodies, how they conduct themselves, how they experience the passage of time, how they feel – in terms of energy and emotion – about themselves, about others and about situations,”[3] music, in this respect, can provide a framework for the organization of social agency, and a framework for how people perceive, whether consciously or subconsciously, potential avenues of conduct.   Unsurprisingly, therefore, exploiting music’s social effects are familiar to marketers and social planners.    Many in-store experiments suggest that background music, such as muzak in shopping malls, can be used to structure a range of consumer behaviors and choices, such as, the time it takes to eat and drink, the average length of stay in a shop, the choice of one brand or style over another and the amount of money spent.[4]  Creating a happy and relaxed environment through the imaginative use of music is a vital element in securing maximum turnover and ensuring that the business has optimum appeal.  When the muzak is used correctly, it can influence customers’ buying behavior by creating or enhancing the image, mood and style that the business strategy wishes to achieve. 

During the period of the Hong Kong Lunar New Year, the muzak played in many large shopping malls and supermarkets is the traditional Chinese instrumental music.  This practice may be one of the usual marketing strategies.  However, I believe that this muzak for Chinese New Year celebration does not merely function to fulfill the commercial objective.  It also helps to enhance, or even to confirm every local’s intellectual and sensuous self as a “Chinese,” both in a cognitive and aesthetical dimension.   As viewed, the background music can serve as a medium to modulate and structure listeners’ parameters of aesthetic agency, such as feeling, motivation, desire, action style and memory.   Reliving experience through the Chinese traditional instrumental music assists to constitute memory of a “self-culture.”   Within this human-music interaction, when locals are participating in the family-based activities of shopping, eating, drinking and celebrating in such a festive milieu, whether they are self-aware or not, their practices are interwoven with their acts of memory, reshaping and cementing the so-called the cultural identity. I now begin the description of my observation in the Sogo Department Store.

第一部份:

Part I -- To be continued.

David Leung (theorydavid)

2011-05-08 (published)

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[1] It is a term used by Gordon Mathews to describe the present problem of cultural identity of a particular nation or a society.  See Gordon Matthews, Global Culture/Individual Identity: Searching for Home in the Cultural Supermarket (New York: Routledge, 2000), 1-2.

[2] Paul Connerton, How Societies Remember (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 2-3.

[3] Tia DeNora, Music in Everyday Life (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 17.

[4] For the discussion of these in-store experiments by many other scholars, refer to DeNora’s exploration in Music in Everyday Life, 18.

Visiting a Soundscape Site – The “Kingdom Hall”

前言: 研究 soundscape 是屬於民族音樂學的範疇。我也曾修讀過一些這學科的研究方法。以下的文章就是作為旁觀者，我怎樣觀察和了解王國聚會所舉行的一個聚會的 soundscape.

正文:

Visiting a Soundscape Site – The “Kingdom Hall”

      One of the most interesting soundscape in the Christian community of Hong Kong, perhaps, may come from the small family churches in private buildings. Here, I am not talking about the soundscapes produced by the large churches, such as St. Joseph Cathedral in the Central. The ringing of church bells from these large cathedrals has been familiar to many local people, signaling their urgent need for spiritual comfort. However, I am far more interested in a sound that bridges local believers and God in a more private space located in the urban area. It is a “religious site” that has no loud voice of church bell or grand symphonic sound of organ and choir.

It has been widely known that Hong Kong is small but the population is large. Housing congestion is one of its serious social problems. Many large, wealthy church organizations, such as the Roman Catholic or the Anglican, possess large buildings to provide liturgical services for their believers. However, the locations of these large cathedrals or church buildings are often not convenient to the majority of the ordinary layman, especially the grass-root believers who have no private vehicles. In order to meet their spiritual needs, family churches that held meeting in a private resident building is commonly found. Whether in Sunday morning or any weekday night, or coming from the altar or the seats, a special, unique sound of hope and joy, wish and bless, will disperse in the air, spreading out from a small flat, through the doors, windows, then finally up to the heaven. This is a wonderful keynote sound that cannot easily be overlooked in our local society. It may have imprinted itself so deeply on the believers hearing this sound that life without it would be sensed as meaningless and hopeless joke. It may even affect the behavior of people or life style of a society, like the “wanderer”, who finally regained his courage and hope to live on after he has heard an anthem from a church, in O’ Henry’s short story “The Cop and the Anthem”.  

Last Sunday morning, I was invited to attend a meeting held in a private family church. It is located in the residential area of Tseung Kwan O. The place is called Hong Shing Garden, consisting of eight blocks of building. Although it is called “Garden”, it is not the high status garden as you usually find in the mid-hill of the Central, but an estate-like house built by the Housing Society. You can sense a grass-root smell here. There are a few shops forming a small shopping arcade inside the Garden. The situation of the “church” is quite convenient to the people living there, how local, how intimate. If you walk out of the “church”, you can immediately enter the Seven-eleven, the next shop, for a drink. Also there are a few fast food restaurants, a barber shop, a bread shop and a beauty salon located nearby, providing services to the local inhabitants.

On the wall of the entrance of the “church”, there hangs a plastic block writing the meeting times and the name of this “church”, “Tseung Kwan O Kingdom Hall”. Instead of using “church”, the use of “Kingdom Hall” as the name seems to give visitors a rather new, fresh impression, telling them that the “Hall” inside possesses boundary, like a ‘kingdom”, which is a new, however isolated, world. If God presents at the splendid cathedral, God will also dwell in here, since this is His ‘Kingdom’. Thus, the “Kingdom Hall”, which is a community (Christians) inside a community (people living in Hong Shing Garden), is the soundmark.

I still remember that the keynote sound of the “Kingdom” community was not a ting-ting sound of a church bell. It was indigenous sound, like the voice from chatting. People attending the meeting were familiar to each other. They called themselves “brothers” and “sisters”, just like belonging to the same family. It seemed that there were no different between the voices inside the “Kingdom” or outside the retailing shops, except that the language spoken here was more polite and gentle.

The main signal sound undoubtedly was a man’s voice from the stage. Yes, the voice is from the “stage”, not the altar. I did not call it an “altar” because I found no liturgical objects, scared cross, splendid idol of Jesus, or brilliant paintings over the stage. This interior design was so plain, pure that the “Kingdom” looked like more a family, giving visitors a sense of warmness and intimacy. No sooner did the man announce the opening of the meeting than the whole group of worshippers (not more than a hundred) stood up, and then, sang and prayed. This series of actions was the only liturgical activity that I found in the entire meeting. For the rest of the time, the signal sound was the only male voice from the stage, sounding like a priest or bishop, and giving a talk based on the bible to the audience (the worshippers). It was seen that the signal sound of the “Kingdom” was a regular routine, which includes the voices of speech, singing and prayer. During the two hours’ meeting, the background keynote sound remained the occasional noise and people’s daily lives sounds of buying and selling, chatting as well as walking to and fro outside the “Kingdom” community.

Undoubtedly, the “Kingdom Hall” is a special soundmark in the local community. The soundscape produced not only regulates the daily lives, behaviors and life style of the local community, but also brings forth a special form of voices that bridges the God and the grass-root people, not in a supreme and splendid Cathedral, but in a warm intimate family-like “Kingdom”.

David Leung (theorydavid)

2011-05-2 (published)



Music Theory Workshop -- 後浪漫風格和聲彙語的研究

致各同學，朋友:

梁 sir 現定於五月十一日開辦一個新的中高等程度和聲理論課程，詳程請看下面課程簡介。

如有興趣報讀的同學們，可以給我 一個 confirmative email，留下通訊方法。如果有足夠同學人數可以開課，我會 send 給你們一個 學員備忘通知。就算以前就某一個課程已留下 email 的同學，因現在是一個新課程，所以也請大家再留一次，以作安排。一般來說，我是不會打擾大家的。如果想進修一下 harmony 和分析樂曲的知識，這些不用趕考試的課程是很適宜的。

謝謝!

梁 sir

Music Theory Workshop 後浪漫風格的和聲彙語研究

這個課程旨在幫助學員進一步掌握調性和聲 (Tonal Harmony) 在十九世紀中後期，在各大師的音樂作品中之運用。眾所週知，由於十九世紀的作曲家為了表達含高度浪漫精神和獨特的個人風格，就在其作品中大量運用變化和絃 (Chromatic Harmony) 和遠系轉調，使傳統的和聲彙語不斷擴張，導致作品的調性面臨瓦解。雖然這樣產生了不少優美感人的樂曲，可是，也同時使一般音樂愛好者由於大師們的音樂語言的艱澀，以致未能理解其樂曲的原貌精神，以及背後蘊藏的深厚意義。這個課程的設計，就是基於要了解樂曲原貌這個基礎意義，跟學員以 workshop ， 即工作坊的學習方式，以數個有代表性的浪漫風格音樂大師們的作品為研究樂例，去探討他們個人獨特和聲的語彙與創作技巧，掀開這些樂曲的神秘面紗。

再者，經梁 sir 教學多年的觀察，學員在八級樂理課程中學過初級和聲學後，只忙於應付各種樂理考試，如八級樂理或 AMusTCL等，根本沒有靜下來消化其學得的和聲理論知識，看看它如何運用在解釋個別大師的音樂作品上。這種學習方式除了能拿一張證書或文憑外，對了解音樂和享受其美，沒有太大幫助。因此，這個課程是希望學員從分析作品的過程中，學到如何運用其學過的和聲概念和分析技巧，去對作品作一個有意義的詮釋，從以提高他們對音樂的認識和鑑賞能力。梁 sir 會引導學員在每一課堂上運用一至兩個技巧去分析和詮釋指定的樂曲或其片段，以此作為研究例證，並輔以 CD / mp3 的音樂作聆聽和思考之用。

課程題目包括:

1.    Enharmonic Modulations By Using Chromatic Harmony
2.    Diatonic Sequence and Chromatic Sequence
3.    Further  Expansion of the Harmonic Vocabulary
4.    Chords and Progressions in Special Situations
5.    Tonal Harmonic Vocabulary in the Late Nineteenth Century

6.    Color and Drama in Composition: Modal Mixture and Chromatic Mediant and Submediants

7.    Tonal and Harmonic Ambiguity
8.    Neo-Tonality: Impressionism
9.    Learning from the Masters: Chopin and Schumann
10.  Learning from the Masters: Brahms and Debussy

全個課程.: 共十課，每課 2 小時

上課時間: 7:45pm -- 9:45pm

上課日期: May 11, 2011 (Wednesday)

上課地點: 旺角，通菜街，威達商業大廈，408 室。(請參閱右方地圖)

人數: 5 至 8 人 (小組)

講授語言 : 粵語及英語

論音樂理論與數學的關係

前言: 究竟音樂理論與數學是否有直接關係? 有很多同學做和聲習作時，根本不聆聽音響，而 是在計數。可是，老師就會在這時大大禁止他們這樣做。同學們就算計數做對了和聲答案，也不算甚麼。可是在音樂理論的研究裡，數學是否沒有任何地位? 如果是有，也是甚麼呢? 以下的閱讀文章評論，相信可以簡易的提出了答案。

正文:

Music Theory and Mathematics

The story of Pythagorean’s discovering the mathematical ratios illustrates not only the establishment of the underlying the science of harmonics but also a frame of reference in music-theoretical thought in the association between music and number. Indeed the relationship between music theory and mathematical models is not through number alone but through the more fundamental notions of universality and truth embedded in Pythagorean and Platonic mathematics and philosophy that one best begin to apprehend the broad range of interrelationships between music theory and mathematics. Catherine Nolan discusses such a relationship in several perspectives of topics, including numerical models, geometric imagery, combinatorics, set theory and group theory and transformational theory in this article.

The article is set out in the discussion of Pythagoreanism in two aspects: numbers are constituent elements of reality and numbers and their rations provide the key to explaining the order of nature and the universe. Nevertheless, central to Pythagorean mathematics is a theory of ratio, the relation of two quantities, and a theory of proportion, the relation of two or more ratios. These theories explain musical intervals in terms of ratios and combinations of ratios, correlating music theory with acoustic science. Through the ratios the dissonant intervals are computed in relation to the consonances.

The rich implications of Pythagorean and Platonic philosophy and mathematics, r4atios and magnitudes and their geometric representation, governed the science of music from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance. Ratio and proportion indeed are understood today in the form of algebraic terms. But they were conceived in Greek mathematics as a close association of arithmetic and geometry epitomized by proportional relations of lengths of vibrating strings. Pythagorean’s notion of ratio and numbers thus developed the diatonic tuning which was a music theory remained virtually unchallenged until the fifteen-century. In the monograph Le istitutioni harmoniche (1558), for example, Zarlino, a well-known Renaissance music theorist, appealed to this number theory for theoretical justification of the imperfect and perfect consonances.

While the representation of musical intervals through numbers has undoubtedly been most important to music theory, other kinds of mathematical models have also been adopted. This is the notion of geometric images which is used as heuristic devices to conceptualize music theory from number and proportion to logical and spatial representations of relations. Boethius, for example, utilized geometric figures, ideal universal shapes constructed mainly of lines, circles and arcs, to illustrate harmonic rations and divisions of the monochord. This seminal music theory indeed covered a long tradition extending back from Boethius and early medieval of monochord tunings of engaging geometric space to represent harmonic space to Descartes and the  seventeenth-century Enlightenment of formulating a coordinate system and analytical geometry in La geometrie. However, another important mathematical branch, Combinatorics, which concerned with numeration, grouping and arrangements of elements in finite collections or sets, almost came parallel with the development of Descartes’ notion of analytical geometry in the same period. The mathematical combinatorics appeared in the form of ars combinatorial inspired numerous discourses on rational methods of musical composition by a variety of authors of theoretical treatises and practical manuals. Kirnberger, for example, described compositional decision-making by selection, using chance procedures from the total compilation of permutations of a given unit such as melodic or rhythmic figure or a two-part melodic-harmonic module. Thus, from the above discussion, music theory developed in relation to mathematical numbers, ratios and geometric imagery throughout the history was inextricably associated with the development of western science and humanism and rationalism in western culture.

The mainstream of music theory in relation to mathematics in the Modern period was undoubtedly the concept of Set theory, which was initiated by Milton Babbitt and Allen Forte. The algebraic structures of set theory and group theory are designed to explain harmonic innovations in the refractory repertoire of post-tonal music and extend to theoretical studies of other musical parameters and harmonic languages of systems. Even in the present academic field of music theory, there is a growing number of mathematicians and theorists continuing to explore and generalize the algebraic structure of the diatonic system and scales or tonal systems of disparate origins, ranging from diatonic or microtonal scale systems to medieval or non-Western modal systems. Furthermore, the music theorist David Lewin expounded a series of profound treatises, Generalized Musical Intervals and Transformations, in 1987 was also an important concept of mathematical music theory. His GIS covered a delineation of a formal space consisting of three elements: a set of musical objects, a mathematical group of generalized intervals and a function that maps all possible pairs of objects in the system into the group of intervals. Lewin’s model creates a transformation network recasting the role of generalized intervals, modeling actions upon or motions between objects, and is termed as “Transformation Theory”.

Therefore, mathematics brings to music theory not only the technical means to perform measurements and computations and the statistical means to correlate data, but also the conceptual means, symbols and vocabulary need in order to model musical relations of various kinds and to delineate levels of abstraction. The diversity of music theories developed throughout the western history, undoubtedly, tells the fact that from the ancient Greek to the postmodern present, the studies of numbers, ratios, sets, geometries are all inseparable from music and its related concepts. As such, to regard music theory as a fundamental mathematical paradigm is to enhance our understanding of one of the most abstract form of arts (music) in the world with a rather rational process – mathematical reasoning. In this sense, hearing music is no longer an irrational aesthetic process, which has also been the core of our understanding of music for many centuries in the western history of music.

David Leung (theorydavid)

2011-04-22 (published)