A Study of the styles and characteristics of basic music theory textbooks in China in the past 100 years

Yu, Feng; Zhang, Qiming; Thuy, Pham Minh

doi:10.1590/0101-3173.2023.v46esp.p117

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Articles • Trans/Form/Ação 46 (spe) • 2023 • https://doi.org/10.1590/0101-3173.2023.v46esp.p117 copy

A Study of the styles and characteristics of basic music theory textbooks in China in the past 100 years

Investigación sobre el estilo y las características de los libros de texto de la teoría musical básica en china en los últimos cien años

Authorship SCIMAGO INSTITUTIONS RANKINGS

Abstract:

Due to various historical and realistic reasons, the development of basic music theory in China lags behind in the teaching system, teaching content and other aspects. It is an important task for Chinese music workers to revise or supplement the current basic music theory and related textbooks and then build a discipline system of basic music theory in China. This paper synthesizes the theories of music education and music history, music culture, music morphology and other related disciplines. It uses scientific, objective and rational values and holistic and comprehensive concepts. It takes the development of the basic music theory education of China as the research object and takes history as a mirror to further consider and prospect the construction of the basic music theory discipline system of China. The basic theory of Chinese Music can be roughly divided into three stages: (1) The basic music theory from the early 20th century to the founding of the People’s Republic of China; (2) From the founding of the People’s Republic of China to the period of reform and opening up; (3) Basic music theory compiled and published since the reform and opening up. It can be seen, from the development of the basic theory education of Chinese Music and its teaching materials, that the development of western music theory in China, before the founding of the People’s Republic of China, was a process from passive acceptance to active absorption. The scope of spreading western music theory was from the palace to the church, then to the school, and, finally, to the society, which made the music theory teaching in China gradually develop into a major and minor system as the leading mode. The basic theory of Chinese Music gradually deviated from its own track. With the deepening of music research after the founding of the People’s Republic of China, the discipline development of basic music theory has witnessed a prosperous situation, and the construction of basic music theory is moving towards the direction of diversification and deepening. Many musicologists and music educators have made contributions to the construction of basic music theory in China from different disciplines and research perspectives. Based on the principle of “combining history with the theory” and combing the development of basic music theory in China, the ideal model of Chinese music theory discipline construction is conceived to promote the integration between traditional music theory and modern music theory from a diachronic perspective What is relevant to strengthen the unity of the nation and the world in basic music theory from a synchronic perspective, and to pay attention to the connotation of technology and culture in music theory teaching. But also to strengthen the scientific and logical concept in music theory textbooks.

Keywords:
Basic music theory; Textbooks in China; Styles and characteristics; Development context

Names	Authors	Publishers	Publication time	Main content
Music Textbook	Written by (Britain) Abel and translated by (Japanese) Suzuki Yonejiro translated and supplemented by Zeng Zhimin	Shanghai Guangzhi	July 15, 1904	The book was arranged into five chapters, including music scores, notes, rests, junctures, staves, intervals, scales, tones (i.e., int, donation), beats, marks, abbreviations, etc.
Middle School Music Theory Textbook	Compiled by Zhong Zitong	Shanghai Music Research Institute	In 1910	The book was divided into 32 lessons, including staves, notations, syllable marks, musical alphabets, and notes.
Middle School Music Classics Textbook	written by Tamura Toraichi (Japanese) and translated by Xu Chuanlin and Sun Shan et al.	The Commercial	April 1907	The book was arranged into 18 chapters, including staff notations, clefs, musical alphabets, notes, rests, repeats, beats, and ranges.

Names	Authors	Publishers	Publication time	Main content
Music Theory Textbook under New Academic System	Written by Xiao Youmei	The Commercial	March 1924	This book is divided into six volumes, every witten10 lessons, such as Volume 1, Music Theory Textbook for Junior Middle Schools, which is arranged according to 1-10 lessons, lesson 1: musical alphabets and major scales, lesson 2: sound recognition, including stave, notes and rests, notation, dotted notes, beats, musical terms, and lessons 7-10: major G and major F respectively.
General Musicology	Written by Xiao Youmei	The Commercial	May 1928	This book was arranged into ten chapters, including the musical alphabet, music score, theoretical overview, melody introduction, music form introduction, vocal music, instrumental music, the outline of music development, etc.
Preliminary Music	Written by Feng Zikai	Beixin	May 1931	This book consists of 20 chapters, including tone and range, scales and melody, notes and rests, beats, musical marks, chromatic scales, harmonic intervals, melody intervals, tempo and other slogans, transposition, grace notes, vocal music, musical instruments, etc.
Enlightened Music Textbook, Theory of Music	Written by Feng Zikai and Qiu Menghen	Kaiming	July 1935	This book was arranged into four chapters, compiled according to the Junior Middle School Music Curriculum Standard in 1932, divided into reading music, general knowledge of music, preliminary harmonics and small songs, and the teaching contents were specified according to the academic year.
An Outline of Music Studies	Written by Ying Shangneng	The Commercial	December 1935	This book was arranged into 13 chapters, including notation, music score, key signature, grace note, scale, interval, beat, rhythm, dynamics, melody and musical form, vocal music nouns, chords and closing methods, and word interpretation, with exercises.
Teaching Books Of Music Theory in Junior High Schools Method of Reading Music	Written by Qiu Menghen	Chunfeng Music Education Bureau	January 1938	This book was divided into 20 lessons, including musical notation, alphabets, notes, rests, beats, dynamics, scales, tone marks, transposition, tempo, and emoticons.

Names	Authors	Publishers	Publication time	Main content
Concise Tutorial of Music Theory	Written by Sun Congyin	New Music	November 1951	The whole book was arranged into ten chapters, including musical notation, musical alphabets, notes, rests, beats, semitones, accidentals, key signatures, scales, intervals, various marks, grace notes, vocabulary of music, and so on
Fundamentals of Music Principle	Li Chongguang	People’s Music	October 1962	This book was arranged into 15 chapters; each chapter was divided into several sections, including tone and pitch, temperament, notation, general theory of modes, various modes based on the pentatonic scale, intervals, chords, rhythm and beat, tempo and dynamics, transposition and alternating modes, etc. The appendix briefly introduces numbered musical notation and ganache tablature, the common music vocabulary.
Basic Theory of Music	Written by Sposobin (USSR), translated by Wang Qizhang	People’s Music	August 1958	This book was arranged into 15 chapters, including some knowledge about sound and pitch, rhythm, beat, tempo, interval, chord, mode, transposition, grace note, phrase, and ellipsis in notation.

Names	Authors	Publishers	Publication time	Main content
Elementary Music Theory Tutorial	Edited by Yan Chengquan, Tong Zhongliang, and Zhong Juncheng	People’s Music	October 1990	This book was arranged into 14 chapters, which cover the basic western music theory knowledge and the basic music theory knowledge of Chinese folk music, such as the circle-of-fifths system, twelve toning rules, eighty-four tones, the model of “Zhi” and “Wei,” the common sense of ganache tablature, and so on.
Basic Tutorial of Chinese Traditional Music Theory	Edited by Tong Zhongliang	People’s Music	January 2004	This book consists of 9 chapters, including the name of bamboo pitch-pipes used in ancient China, five-tone scale and seven-tone scale, three-tone equal temperament and eight tones, change of keys and eighty-four tones, rhythm and beat, ganache tablature, abbreviated character notation and other tablatures, circle-of-fifths system, and its toning system, bell temperament, temperament for plucked instruments and new temperament (a set of precise proportional numbers to specify the length of each pitch pipe of the twelve-tone equal temperament), etc.
Basic Music Theory of the Chinese Nation	Edited by Du Yaxiong	China Federation of Literary and Art Circles	October 1995	It was arranged into ten chapters, including pentatonic scale, twelve-tuning system, banyan, banish (a form of the beat), ganache tablature, a half-character score of Yan music (music score for lute, wind instrument, etc.), scores for plucked instruments, rhythm score, curve score, gongs, and drums score, the common sense of temperament, etc.
Common Sense of Chinese Music Theory	Edited by Du Yaxiong	Beiyue Literature & Art	August 1999	This book was arranged into nine chapters, involving sound, tone, rhythm, beat, banyan, ganache tablature, knowledge of temperament, jun, gong, key and relations of key, melody, polyphonic Music, traditional notation, aesthetic features of Chinese traditional Music, the relationship between scores, singing, and performance, etc.
Chinese Music Theory	Edited by Du Yaxiong, Qin Dexiang	Shanghai Conservatory of Music	January 2007	This book was arranged into six chapters involving the music system, material system, temperament system, tune system, structure system, and sign system.

Names	Authors	Publishers	Publication time	Main content
Tutorial of Modern Music Theory	Written by Tong Zhongliang	Hunan Literature and Art	In 2003	This book was arranged into five chapters, covering the elementary music theory of music in the 20th Century, including the new mode scale, the liberation of modern beat and bar, modern chord and accord, modern tonality and key relationship, and music theory related to modern composition techniques, etc. The appendix includes MIDI timbre and percussion key table, jazz music chord symbolization table, synthesizer and computer music vocabulary, etc.
Basic Music Theory Tutorial for Preschool Teachers	Written by Xia Zhigang	Hunan Literature and Art	May 2013	This book, arranged in ten chapters, was introduced in the preface as an elementary music theory textbook for preschool education and preschool teachers’ college students, covering knowledge of sounds and musical alphabets, staff notation, numbered musical notation, rhythm, and beat, common musical signs, intervals, chords, modes, Chinese national modes, melodies, musical forms, etc. According to the characteristics of schools for kindergarten teachers, the structure analysis of common musical forms of children’s songs was added.
Elementary Music Theory of Popular Music	Edited by You Jingbo	Anhui Literature and Art	July 2016	This book was arranged into 12 chapters. According to r characteristics of popular music, besides the music theory knowledge of sound, rhythm and beat, interval and mode, it also included chapters on blues mode and its musical characteristics.

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