texts
"Music -- What Is Its Future?"
Chou Wen-chung
Copyright © 2001 Chou Wen-chung and the Composition Area, Department of Music, the University of California, San Diego
Published by Permission
The following TEXT was commissioned by the Composition Area, Department of Music, University of California, San Diego for its SEARCH initiative. The TEXT is copyrighted and appears in its original publication here. While links TO this TEXT from other sites are welcome, the TEXT itself may not be reprinted for any reason without express agreement in writing from the copyright holders [Please contact Roger Reynolds: ping@rogerreynolds.com to facilitate this.].
SEARCH EVENT III, 21 April 2001, University of California, San Diego
PART II
Ironically, the Internet was invented for the survival of military communications from nuclear destruction. But, now it may well prove to be an effective tool for cultural survival around the world. In contrast to television and radio, which are designed or co-opted to serve as a tool for one-way transmission of unilaterally controlled messages, the Internet is a global medium for information sharing and interactive communication. The Internet and other interactive technological advances indeed have the potential for a confluence or re-merger of cultures. That, hopefully, will lead to a new, inclusive mainstream with clearly distinguishable currents.
But, we are not there yet. The treacherous undertow in cyberspace is "cultural egocentrism." The Internet, even as it becomes a global mode of communication, is fundamentally designed according to Western perception, and, therefore, forces the exchange to be carried out according to Western -- mostly American -- conventions, which often distorts the information exchanged. The homogenizing effect created globally by the Internet today still remains a serious threat to all heritages around the world. We have not been paying attention to Bartok's admonition of almost a century ago. This is not the fault of Americans or Westerners alone. Few around the world, even at this late date, recognize the need for a thorough realignment of attitude and education towards the world's cultures before we can speak meaningfully about cultural exchange, a term that has been so thoughtlessly abused despite the dedicated work of many individuals and institutions.
Some may argue that reality is changing at a fast pace due to globalization of the Internet. But, the effectiveness of the Internet is only as good as its resources -- the scholarship and cultural sensitivity of its sites. It is said that Chinese will soon become the most used language on the Internet. A staggering idea! The question nonetheless persists: "Is the language spoken in the context of Chinese or Western culture, or perhaps both, or even a new culture?"
This, then, is the moment to consider another question: Who represents the cultures other than Western -- the cultures commonly referred to for half a century as "non-Western?" (And, have we ever even heard of the term "non-Eastern?") There are, we need to recognize, two groups of individuals amongst the "non-Westerners." One are the Westernized, in education and culture. The other is those who have not been or have only superficially been Westernized, and are therefore more indigenous in their cultural perception and more aware of their heritage. We need to interact with both, but must discern the distinction.
This distinction brings up the next question: How conversant are both groups with their own legacies? Again, let me use Asia as an example. First of all, we must remember that the preservation of heritage throughout Asia has drastically declined since the onset of colonialism, which coincided with the rise of the European Age as well as the inception of cultural stagnation and disintegration throughout the East. It was not until a half-century ago, after World War II, that colonialism began to fade. As I said in Hong Kong last year,
Even then, in the East, it remained a time of continued chaos and destruction, a time of ongoing economic and ideological struggle, and not a time for valuing one's own legacies or nurturing artistic explorations. Innovation in the arts and education in culture were regarded as luxuries or frivolities... If there was art and culture, it was imitation... Thus, Asia was then as before, filled with the work of emulation of European and Soviet art of another time... Economically and politically, the struggle in the 1950s led to a brighter future. Culturally, however, neglect in the arts and education led to a void contributing to the further erosion of heritage and the massive collective loss of memory.
[Today], increasing waves of young and aspiring Asian artists have become exposed to fast-moving Western artistic developments. Invariably, however, due to the lack of living legacies of their own, their art has also become dominated by Western trends and fashions. Few are able to assert their own heritage, stand firm independently, or transcend cultures.
This scenario compelled me to work on the conservancy of indigenous cultures in Asia, relying on Yunnan's exceptional diversity in culture and ecology as an ideal testing ground. The tasks carried out in Yunnan include designing the education of college students in their own indigenous arts, as taught by rural masters; organizing regional and community scholars for fieldwork carried out through interaction with village cultural conveyors; and conducting surveys of arts and artisans. All of these tasks are conducted in situ and with participants from the United States, Asia, and naturally, Yunnan. Ten years of this work has brought me into contact with those who still live and think from within their own heritage; namely, the rural masters and mentors, as well as many of Yunnan's indigenous scholars. It is they who convey to me the spirit of their legacies. It is working together with them on the issues they face that gives me a sense of interaction with their heritage, within the context of their culture, environment, and aspirations. They represent the non-Westernized cultural force I referred to earlier.
On the other side of the cultural interaction equation, the West certainly has had a long history of learning about other cultures. But frankly, shifting from cultural imperialism to cultural partnership is no easy task. It requires a clear distinction in attitude. We must be reminded that, at least since the inception of the last century, European musical practices have spread across the world overwhelmingly, edging out the musical practices of many places including, for example, Asia. Even today, it is still taken for granted that Western music is universal, and therefore emulation of the same by other cultures is both natural and expected. This attitude still dominates Western composers, educators, performers, and critics. Worse, this faith in the universality of Western music is widely shared around the world, particularly in East Asia. As I have often observed, Asian composers as a rule are satisfied with emulating the West and reluctant to search for their own roots. On the other hand, they are quick to adopt Asian ideas that have been Westernized by a Cage, Messiaen, or Crumb.
Recently, there has been remarkable creativity emanating from composers of many diverse heritages, such as South America and West Asia. But their own legacy always seems sublimated, consciously or unconsciously, often reduced to a matter of sentiment and is thus unable to cross-fertilize with the Western heritage these composers have acquired. Only when legacies again become vibrant can artistic independence assert itself and creative effort lead to cultural renewal, without which meaningful interaction in the arts cannot be achieved.
On the other hand, the strength of the Western arts is exactly its capacity to absorb ideas from other cultures. And, in the past half century, there has been an increasing interest in the concepts and practices of other musical cultures. Together with a changing demography and rising commercial promotion, this interest has given birth to a musical environment that is more multicultural than existed in any other society since China's Tang Dynasty. But, this phenomenon is more a veneer than substance. Under the shiny surface, we can find very little that is real. Heritage on all sides of the cultural equation, including the West, is forgotten and forsaken.
We need a new beginning. We need to go back to research and education. Modern ethnomusicologists have made good advances over the past few decades, as have their colleagues in allied fields. But their training is too limited for the investigation of issues that must be examined in the broadest cultural context. We need new procedures in fieldwork and research so as to pursue the kind of intercultural studies required for our future. We need collective and coordinated efforts involving diverse disciplines, such as historical musicology, theory, linguistics, history, aesthetics, cultural anthropology, and sociology. And, we must include participants from the culture or community specific to the research. Finally, interactive digital technology should be developed to serve as dedicated tools for research and education.
Even more crucial is the need for a change in attitude: We must learn about issues and solutions crucial to the participants of the culture or community under study, rather than appropriate information or material. These participants are not informants as they are being proactive rather than being debriefed. For example, in Yunnan, this equal partnership is applied to all of our projects. The result is that, while the main goal of designing strategies for cultural survival is being achieved, numerous fieldwork and research projects are being carried out by indigenous participants, producing dozens of publications within a few years while countless local cultural studies, community mentorships, and outreach programs are also born.
I believe our experience in Yunnan demonstrates that fieldwork and research can be creative, bringing forth fresh understanding and inspiring ideas. As I recall, my own composing began seriously not on the piano, but underground in the stacks of Columbia's Low Library, where the original East Asian Library was located. It was there that I first realized that to learn from other musical cultures is not to limit oneself to musical material, instrumental techniques, or tuning system -- necessary inquiries according to the modern Western norm. For example, we are told by the great Chinese Calligrapher of the Ninth Century, Zhang Xu, that he mastered the spirit of calligraphy from observing the performance of a great dancer, and conceived of his innovative calligraphy from listening to the new music of his time. Chang's comments highlight the fact that all art forms in ancient China shared common aesthetics. Thus, research in the music for qin, the Chinese zither, for example, requires references to philosophy, calligraphy, painting, and poetry.
Obviously, our education policy needs to be examined in terms of intercultural contents in its curricula. What has just been observed only illustrates the need for training students to become interculturally sensitive. However, orthodoxy stubbornly holds sway. I remember that once when Toru Takemitsu and I discussed in front of a group of educators the need for studies in non-Western music for composers, a prominent American composer objected to these studies on the basis that there were already not enough academic hours for traditional Western courses. True. That is why educational policy needs to be constantly reviewed, revised, and restructured. The truth is that our curriculum for composers, as I have complained in the past, seems to allow fewer and fewer hours devoted to the Western legacy and culture-related courses.
I believe in a curriculum that can balance the need for a sound understanding of European heritage, which must remain a major foundation for musical education, with the concurrent need for an increasing investigation of other musical legacies. Obviously, what I refer to in the latter case is serious inquiry into legacies, and not superficial courses on multiculturalism.
Perhaps the time has long past for an overhaul of our education for composers or music in general. I know from personal experience that any reexamination of priority in education is painful. At Columbia, I was asked repeatedly by the principal academic planners for our Humanities curriculum to design such a course on Asian music for college students. I was astute enough to decline the request until just before I retired from teaching. While the course became a success with students, I was personally denounced as a traitor in a meeting of senior professors by no less an authority than the incoming department chairman. Whenever and wherever a new educational concept is proposed, especially if related to culture, objection is bound to be vociferous. It took at least two years to convince the university in Yunnan of the need for the new arts department that my colleagues and I designed for students of Yunnan's many indigenous cultures, and even longer for the educational authorities to approve the curriculum. Today, it has become the focal point for international visitors to Yunnan, who are studying its innovative policies on ethnic diversity.
Another example of multicultural studies is the Pacific Composers Conference held in the summer of 1990 in Japan, concurrently with the Pacific Music Festival. The conference was a collaboration between my organization and Leonard Bernstein, as well as the London Symphony Orchestra. Forty-six composers of all ages came from more than a dozen countries around the Asian-Pacific region, including the U.S., Canada, Mexico, South America, Australia, and New Zealand. We spent ten intensive days offering less opportunity for performance, but much more time to explore ideas with such older composers as Isang Yun, Jose Maceda, and Joji Yuasa about how to be independent through knowledge. As I said later in an address in 1993 to composers gathered in Kazan, Tartarstan, "Independent is the key word: Independent of Western culture... of one's own culture... of conventions... It takes courage. Artists are the true warriors for humanity." Regrettably, the Pacific Composers Conference was only a single event rather than a standard component of a composer's education.
These are a sampling of tasks that must be undertaken to set the stage for real intercultural studies, without which a global era cannot take place. But where do we find such dedicated and far-sighted teachers, scholars, and artists who can help lead us into the future? In the West, perhaps we ought to look towards a revival of the Humanists at the dawn of the European Age described by Barzun. They were the enlightened, the idealists who saw the light and built the foundation for 500 years of cultural glory in the West that eventually spilled over across the world. We also need a revival of the "artist" of the Renaissance, who dared to be independent and to search for artistic truth through science.
Earlier in China, a millennium ago, these two -- the humanist and the artist -- were merged in one, the "wenren," or "the person with ultimate knowledge of the arts." The wenren was simultaneously a scholar or scientist, a statesman, as well as an artist accomplished in a variety of artistic media usually including calligraphy and poetry, and often music and painting. But the ultimate qualification for the artist, wenren, goes beyond achievement in these disciplines. A great artist or scholar used to be recognized as a sage. One early source states that such an artist-sage "is deeply concerned about the society," while another defines the role as "the first to be aware of what has to happen." In short, artists and scholars in China were regarded as the conscience of society and conveyor of its legacy.
For a global era to emerge, we may well need a synthesis of the humanist and artist of the European Renaissance and the artist-sage of ancient China. At the least, we need socially and culturally committed artists who are motivated by more than personal gain. A new era will not arise if profit-making and public manipulation are allowed to continue as our Mephistopheles. For rebirth, there is no room for Doktor Faust. We need composers who are truly independent -- socially, economically, politically, as well as creatively and esthetically.
The cynical and dogmatic will disagree, but perhaps they themselves are endemic of the myriad forces that are bringing down the European Age. It was almost half a century ago, when I was given my first review of some seriousness in The New York Times, which carried the screaming headline, "This is not Chiu Ching Chow stuff!" "Chiu Ching Chow" was then a popular expression for anything derogatory towards the Chinese or Asians. The times have change (in both senses of the word), but perhaps not as much as some might hope. Recently, in a radio interview, an influential American composer characterized any interest by a composer in exploring Chinese music as "dilettantism."
The truth is, even at this time, few who are either for or against cultural dialogues have real knowledge of the matter. A recent, widely promoted multi-national, multi-year project on the theme of cultural exchange along the Northern Silk Road that connected China with Central Asia and Europe millennia ago, is a highly laudable idea. Unfortunately, there seems to be less knowledge than entrepreneurship behind the concept. To promote, as the project does, mixing the instruments and musicians of diverse cultures along this stupendous ancient highway of trade and culture, and to commission compositions based on indigenous material by local and American composers is a grandiose thought. However, it may be premature, and without adequate knowledge of these unfamiliar cultures. Imagine a conventional American composer producing such a commissioned work without any knowledge of the culture of the theme. Or, a composer from anywhere between the Gobi Desert and the Caspian Sea, whose perception in music has already been Westernized. Cultural exchange requires meticulous study and painstaking preparation. Otherwise, as I concluded in my Manila paper of 1966, it will "only bring forth more Turkish marches, Twentieth Century-style." And, we are in the Twenty-first Century, now, aren't we?
We are behind the times. We need to study other cultures and revivify the legacy of the European Age. We need to make research and education relevant to the future. We need proper tools for intercultural communication. Above all, we need to install a new spirit of Humanism, the Renaissance artist, and the ancient Chinese artist-sage.
To sum up, we have a choice. And we must choose. We can choose to retain our status quo. Of this path, there are two identical precedents in history, one in the West and one in the East, namely the Roman Empire and the Later Han Dynasty, which existed concurrently for centuries. Each continued to expand its territorial possessions and prosper materially. However, each also remained in the shadow of its own glorious past. Both periods eventually ended in chaos that lasted for centuries. Or we -- artists, scholars, and educators -- can choose to take fate into our own hands and initiate cultural interaction in creativity, research, and education. We can be proactive in stimulating cross-fertilization of cultural legacies. We can foster creativity drawn from diverse roots, not imposed on the conquered by the conqueror, or the consumer by the promoter, but as partners in collaboration.
As I concluded in my speech on the new millennium last year, "then, and only then, will a new era arrive... A new era, not of globalization, but of global partnership." A new "dawn" of confluence, not decadence, is ours today, if we so choose.