Harnessing Ethnomusicology for Chinese Historical Musicology

Translator’s Note

Among the historical writings of China, there are many works about [what we now call] ethnic groups,³ such as “Annals of Wu and Yue [吴越春秋],” “The Book of the Extinction of Yue [越绝书],” “Records of Huayang Kingdom [华阳国志],” and “Book of the Southern Barbarians [蛮书],” [which reflected the Sinocentric thinking of the time]. In addition, local chronicles, genealogies, family traditions, as well as literati’s travelogues, notes, and collections, also include descriptions of various ethnic groups’ lives and customs, recording the interactions between various ethnic groups in China and neighboring countries, as well as those along the Silk Road. For example, during the Eastern Jin Dynasty (317–420 CE), the monk Fa Xian visited India, Sri Lanka, Java, and other places from 399 to 412 CE, traveling to more than thirty countries and writing the “Record of Buddhist Kingdoms.” The Tang Dynasty (618–907 CE) monk Xuan Zang studied Buddhist scriptures in India, Pakistan, Nepal, and other places for more than ten years, and wrote the “Great Tang Records on the Western Regions.” During the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644 CE), the eunuch Zheng He made seven voyages between 1405 and 1433, sailing to the east coast of Africa, the Red Sea, the Islamic holy land of Mecca, as well as more than thirty countries in South Asia and Southeast Asia. His accompanying personnel wrote “The Record of the Scenic Places of the Sea [瀛涯胜览],” “The Record of Star Rafts [星槎胜览],” and “The Record of the Foreign Countries of the Western Seas [西洋番国志].” These are all important historical materials for studying the interactions between China and other countries and ethnic groups in the past.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, Liang Qichao (1873–1929) introduced the concept of Volk [minzu] to China through the work of Swiss-German scholar Johann Kaspar Bluntschili (1808–1881), and the concept was widely accepted.⁴ In 1899, Liang used the term minzu in an article titled “Monthly Records from the Eastern Region [东籍月旦].” In 1926, Cai Yuanpei published an article titled “On Ethnology” (minzu xue, the study of minzu), introducing the content and significance of this discipline and advocating for the study of ethnology in China. In 1927, Cai Hesen (1895–1931) compiled and published “The History of Social Evolution,” introducing the contents of Friedrich Engels’s book The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State. Later, Guo Moruo (1892–1978) wrote “Studies on Ancient Chinese Society” in 1929 based on the basic theories of Engels and Lewis Morgan on pre-historic society, interpreting records in ancient Chinese books of pre-historic society and slave society. The discipline of ethnology in China emerged and developed based on Western [imperialist] ethnological theories. In the 1950s, China officially recognized distinct ethnic groups (minzu) [and ceased using derogatory terms for minorities], leading to a boom in the study of ethnology, and resulting in the writing and publication of a large number of brief histories and ethnographies of ethnic minorities [while banning anthropology as a “bourgeois” discipline. Of the over 400 groups which applied for minority status, only fifty-five were eventually officially recognized, reflecting a decision-making process based what was deemed academically and bureaucratically feasible, as well as on issues such as affiliated groups’ different self-identification and disaffiliated groups’ shared geography. The mainstream Chinese ethnological and anthropological view on minority rights has not been observed in the last decade of assimilationist Chinese governance, anchored in the so-called fusionist theory of minzu, and enacted violently in the case of Xinjiang].

The concept of “ethnomusicology” (minzu yinyue xue) was introduced to China in the 1980s. Before that, Chinese scholars often used the concepts of “research on ethnic groups’ folk music [in China]” and “theory of ethnic groups’ folk music [in China]” [minzu minjian yinyue; minjian yinyue or folk music is distinguished from court, literati, and religious music in China]. Although their research objects were conceptually similar to “ethnomusicology,” their methods and research purposes were different: the older research mainly focused on the study of folk musical forms, and the research results (such as musical structure, melodic characteristics, etc.) served the purpose of socialist and social realist composition at that time. In contrast, “ethnomusicology” studied the folk music of China from the perspective of musical culture, combining diachronic and synchronic research. Ethnomusicology is based on the investigation and study of living folk music cultures, referring to literature, artifacts, and other materials, while accumulating a large amount of folk music materials, exploring the transmission and hybridity of music, developments and changes, and historical vicissitudes. When the research methods and theories of ethnomusicology were introduced in China, its topics involved the musical expressions of individuals, small groups, communities, regions, tribes, ethnic groups, countries, and even the assemblage of the entire Chinese nation, and also involved culture and related social forms. Its research not only elucidates the structure of folk music (such as musical structure) but also social and cultural influence. Based on already extensive extant work, Chinese ethnomusicologists further investigated and recorded various music forms and genres surviving among the folk, conducting comprehensive research on and ensuring the proper preservation of the music cultures of various transitional periods in Chinese history.

Before the concept of ethnomusicology was introduced to China from the West, there were already many records of folk customs in historical books and novels throughout the ages. “Classic of Mountains and Seas [山海经],” compiled roughly from the pre-Qin (before 221 BCE) to the Western Han Dynasty (202 BCE – 9 CE), records rich mythological, religious, ethnic group-related, and folk medical materials. During the Eastern Han Dynasty (25–220 CE), there emerged the vernacular work “General Account of Customs and Traditions [风俗通义]” by Ying Shao. During the Wei, Jin, Southern, and Northern Dynasties (220–589 CE), there were works specially describing local customs, such as the “Records of Local Customs and Landscapes [风土记]” by Zhou Chu in the Jin Dynasty (266–420 CE) and the “Chronicles of Seasonal Customs in Jing Chu [荆楚岁时记]” by Zong Lin in the Liang Dynasty (502–557 CE). After the Sui (581–619 CE) and Tang Dynasties (618–907 CE), there were even more books recording customs and folk arts. In the Song Dynasty (960–1279 CE), there were works such as “Record of the Drunken Old Man’s Conversations [醉翁谈录],” “Records of Triumphs in the Capital [都城纪胜],” “Record of Prosperity [繁盛录],” “Old Stories of Wulin [武林旧事],”⁵ “Record of Dreaming of Millet [referring to a Tang dynasty story; 梦梁录],”⁶ etc., which recorded the customs of the time, and also described the performances of folk songs and other performances, constituting valuable materials for the study of ancient folk songs. The records of folk songs and customs in many historical documents are not only precious materials for folklore studies but also indispensable for the study of music history.

When the discipline of ethnomusicology was introduced into China from the West, it greatly changed the research methods of music scholars. Scholars realized that China is a multi-ethnic country, and the study of Chinese music history cannot be separated from research on music of various regions and ethnic groups. Without minority music narratives in Chinese music history and without much reflection on the phenomenon of multicultural musical culture, that history does not reflect the vast regions of China and the music history of multiple ethnic groups.

Throughout its history, China had numerous ethnic groups distributed widely. During the period when the Xia ethnic group (of the Xia dynasty, 2070–1600 BCE) was active in the Yellow River Basin, there were other ethnic groups such as the Nine Yi, Three Miao, Hun Zhou, and Qiang, spread geographically in all directions. During the Shang (1600–1046 BCE) and Zhou dynasties (1046–256 BCE), the Nanman operated in the Han River Basin, the Di and Qiang had wars with Shang, later submitted to Shang, and intermarried with the Zhou for generations, with the “music of the four barbarians” [so-called at that time] in the Zhou Dynasty becoming one of the means of expressing in court the reach of its political edification. In the Han Dynasty (202 BCE – 220 CE), those known as the Huaxia ethnic group was predominant, absorbing elements from other ethnic groups, forming the basis of [what is now regarded as] a single, populous, and widely distributed Han Chinese group. Throughout Chinese history, whether it was music institutions like the “Han Music Bureau,” or various dynasties’ xianghe and qingshang folk music, song and dance, or drumming and wind music, they are inseparable from the music of minority ethnic groups. The Sui (581–619 CE) and Tang Dynasties (618–907 CE) unified various ethnic groups that had been fighting for three hundred years since the Wei and Jin Dynasties (220–420 CE). In addition to the direct control of various ethnic groups in the central area of the country by prefectures, states, and counties, minority ethnic groups in border areas were also under the jurisdiction of the court’s frontier prefectures and states. In the Tang Dynasty (618–907 CE) in the capital Chang’an (now Xi’an), whether it was the court’s Nine Music or Ten Music court genres, or the folk tea houses, wine shops, and theater song and dance, they were all inseparable from the song and dance of minority ethnic groups, with costumes characterized by narrow sleeves, high hairpins, or long boots and short trousers. The Yuan (1271–1368 CE) and Qing Dynasties (1636–1912 CE) were periods of mutual influence and assimilation of the cultures of various ethnic groups, and it was also a period of prosperity for their music.

By the end of the twentieth century, scholars paid more attention to the ethnomusicological study of traditional music during the transitional modern period of Chinese history. Scholars noticed that research in music history requires ethnomusicology. By leveraging ethnomusicology, they can better explore the development of musical culture. The research focused on synchronic, structural aspects of musical culture. It was recognized that the study of Chinese music history cannot be separated from ethnomusicology. The fruitful results of research in Chinese music history and the research outcomes of ethnomusicology are closely intertwined. Therefore, in contemporary China, music research combines historical musicology with ethnomusicology, conducting research on Chinese music culture from a new perspective. Combining different methods in researching various topics in Chinese music is the trend of modern music research. This multi-dimensional research proposes new, higher requirements for methodology from music researchers. Due to the cross-disciplinary nature of contemporary musicology, in the study of certain topics in the history of Chinese music, ethnomusicology is essential, involving a large range of ethnomusicological writings. Therefore, it is necessary to accept the research methods and concepts of ethnomusicology in studying Chinese historical musicology. Only in this way can Chinese historical musicology be enhanced, leading to a transformation in its theory and concepts.

1. The Chinese term for “Chinese historical musicology,” Zhongguo yinyue shixue, is literally translated as “Chinese music historiography.” However, yinyue shixue, “music historiography,” covers both Chinese and Western music, of which research in the latter is conventionally called “historical musicology” in English—hence I prefer “Chinese historical musicology,” which comprises broadly historical research rather than specifically historiography.
2. To facilitate the translation, I used ChatGPT to generate the first draft of the text, before matching it with the original to make corrections where necessary. The first draft was generally reliable, with only one mistranslated phrase. My corrections generally pertained to revision for idiomatic expression in English. The entire process took about two hours, which is an indication of the potential for ChatGPT translation to dramatically accelerate global communication between researchers of different language communities, whether Chinese, Indonesian, Spanish, or English. I have used the translation function of ChatGPT in multi-lingual pedagogy as well. In my current position, I teach a graduate seminar comprising Chinese students who do not speak English fluently, and international English-speaking students who do not speak Chinese fluently. In addition to providing live translation, I also require students to use ChatGPT to translate their lesson notes (based on articles read) to and from English and Chinese and share them with one another. My overall aim in using ChatGPT is to leverage its potential in certain kinds of time-consuming writing tasks for original (non-ChatGPT generated) texts. For students, I suggest using ChatGPT to revise their texts (in any language) to improve grammar and style; this is particularly useful for students writing in their second language (e.g., ESL students in the US; international students in China). In terms of its editorial function, I have used ChatGPT in softening the critical tone of a review essay, comparing my original text with ChatGPT’s before making a final decision on wording.
3. Tian emphasizes ethnic minority groups throughout the article, which he references using the Chinese word for “ethnic group,” minzu, and I have largely retained “ethnic group” as the preferred translation for the term. However, minzu used to also be translated as “nation.” This is, in the first instance, related to the intertwined concepts of “nation” and “ethnicity” stemming from different periods of European discourse. The meaning of minzu as “nation” derives from the theorization of Volk or ethnic nation in nineteenth-century Germany, indicating a people with common descent, territory, language, and culture, and from later Soviet usage of the term. The meaning of minzu as “ethnicity” derives from the Euro-American popularization of the term over “race” after World War II—something was evidently lost in translation, since “nation” was taken to be equivalent to “ethnicity” in the shared translation to minzu. As a result of the conflation, minzu historically denoted both the ethnic nation modeled after nineteenth-century Germany, and the fifty-six ethnic groups of China (including the Han Chinese), but the former usage is now considered outdated in scholarship. Some Chinese writers prefer zuqun as the proper translation of “ethnic group,” to differentiate from minzu as “nation.” In 1989, Chinese anthropologist Fei Xiaotong suggested a locally and globally acknowledged theory of “pluralistic unity” accounting for the syncretism versus distinction of Han and minorities over three millennia, thereby placing the two conceptions of minzu in a dialectic that is expressed in his oft quoted saying “you are part of me and I am part of you.” To further confuse matters, minzu is also used in minzu yinyue xue—that is, “ethnomusicology.” The Chinese term for ethnomusicology thus carries all of the above conceptual baggage, as well as (when explained in the context of Euro-American ethnomusicology) the meaning of “people” (ethnos; which I would translate as renqun in Chinese) as opposed to ethnic group. See Aga Zuoshi, “The ‘Minzu’ Conjecture: Anthropological Study of Ethnicity in Post-Mao China,” cArgo: Revue internationale d’anthropologie culturelle & sociale, no. 8 (2018): 83–108.
4. Another source of minzu is the Japanese word minzoku, which is a translation of Volk.
5. The translation of this title has been corrected based on input from Tse Chun-Yan.
6. The translation of this title has been corrected based on input from Tse Chun-Yan.