East Asia will here be defined mainly as China (both the People's Republic and the Republic of China on Taiwan), Japan and Korea. This survey seeks to outline some general similarities and differences within this broad area, restricting itself for practical reasons to the majority cultures of each country. For more detailed discussions of these and the region’s minority cultures, see the relevant country article.
3. Aesthetics, cosmology and religion.
6. Musical features, transmission and notation.
DAVID W. HUGHES, STEPHEN JONES
The dominant Han Chinese culture, which has influenced Japan, Korea and to a lesser extent other neighbours such as Vietnam, co-exists with substantial minority populations within Chinese borders. South-western groups have affinities with Thai-Burman tribal cultures, and the far west (Xinjiang) with Islamic Central Asia (see China, §IV, 5); to the north and west, Tibetan, Mongol and Manchu cultures are also distinct (see Inner Asia; Tibetan music; Mongol music); to the south, the Taiwanese aborigines constitute a distinct cultural group (see Taiwan, §2). Korea and Japan are each much more ethnically unified, with only the Ainu of northern Japan and the Okinawans of southern Japan diverging significantly from the majority culture (see Japan, §VIII). Even after putting all these areas and cultures to one side, the following generalizations must be offered with diffidence.
China's vast land mass and political power have brought to it influences from a wide range of cultures and have led to a strong Chinese cultural impact on its eastern neighbours from early in the 1st millennium, well before these countries had their modern names or political identities. Chinese influence often flowed into the main Japanese islands through the Korean peninsula or the Ryūkyū archipelago, although direct links between Japan and China were also common. Conversely, China has been less affected by the musics of Korea and Japan than by those of other peoples. The centuries culminating in the Tang dynasty (618–907) saw the formation of a partly homogeneous East Asian élite culture (embracing less forcefully other areas such as Vietnam). The adoption of numerous aspects of Chinese culture – including systems of writing, literature and institutions – in Japan and Korea extended to genres and instruments of Chinese court music. This resulted in a closely related East Asian instrumentarium of Chinese origin, which might lead one to expect that the musics themselves would also be quite similar. However, contacts were reduced after the Tang period, resuming only in the 20th century; the Japanese Minshingaku is a rare borrowing from China in late imperial times. Musical practices developed quite separately under local conditions: instruments and genres found new uses and contexts while adapting to indigenous musical features and cultural forces.
Despite the often-heard claim that East Asian art music is ancient and timeless, few living genres have a verifiable tradition going back much earlier than the 16th century. Even court genres that go back to the medieval period have continued to evolve. As our awareness of the diverse musical practices of popular traditions supplements earlier scholarly concentration on courtly and literati genres, the differences among the musics of this vast area may now be seen to outweigh the similarities. This is surely why there have been virtually no recent scholarly overviews of East Asian music.
In language as in music, superficial resemblances disguise diversity. Although the Chinese ideographic writing system was adopted and modified in Korea and Japan, along with many loan words, the three languages themselves are quite distinct. Korean and Japanese appear to be genetically related, but Chinese not only has a totally different syntax but is tonal, influencing vocal style.
Until quite recently, Western concepts of East Asian music were dominated by traditions of ‘art music’, largely because the music and musical theory of the imperial courts and the literati class dominate indigenous historical records, leading to an under-representation of the musical culture of the lower classes. But both ceremonial and entertainment musics are far more diverse. While ritual has continued to play a major part in both élite and folk societies, the expansion of urban entertainment from the Chinese Song dynasty (960–1279) led to vocal narrative and dramatic forms becoming lastingly popular. The various regional forms of opera found throughout China have long dominated musical life. In Japan, major music-theatre genres like nō and kabuki developed. Puppetry and masked opera, based in ritual, are common throughout the region.
At all levels, from court to popular, the master-pupil relationship has often resembled the adoption of a religious disciple. In many genres public acknowledgment of one's master results in ‘schools’ or lineages. The transmission of Japanese arts in particular has been formalized into the iemoto guild system, where direct students of a single master pass on the art to their students in turn in a tightly controlled familistic hierarchy; headship often passes from parent to child. Though there has never been a true caste system, professional music-making has often been the ascriptive fate of particular groups, for example by heredity or through blindness.
Women traditionally occupy subsidiary positions as musicians at all levels of society. Female courtesans often provided music, even aiding transmission between literati and commoners. Though 20th century social movements have sought to a limited extent to extend equality – women are now widely accepted in Chinese opera and in urban professional troupes, for instance – discrimination is still evident in many contexts.
The Chinese state belief system of Confucianism has been pervasive, with its hierarchical and cosmological system expressed through ritual music. Throughout recorded history, music in China has been linked with the social and cosmic order, the Confucian ‘mandate of heaven’ being seen as authorizing governments that observed proper music and ritual. The generation of the five pitches was connected with the five elements and the five directions, and that of the 12 basic pitches to the lunar months. Pitch relationships were further equated with social hierarchies. These theories were enshrined in the classical texts of Confucianism and inherited and augmented in later dynasties, still forming a canonical system today. This body of theory was adapted in Korea, where Confucian state ritual traditions developed under the influence of those in China, and to a lesser extent in Japan. Japanese and Korean theoretical writings in general often drew on Chinese models, though such similarities partly obscured the diversity of actual music-making.
Mahāyāna Buddhism has also been a unifying factor. Chinese Buddhism spread to Korea and Japan in the 5th–6th centuries ce. Again the Tang dynasty was the period of greatest contact. Note a cumulative linguistic tendency: in India, Buddhist lyrics were composed in the native Sanskrit; the Chinese retained those texts and added further lyrics in Chinese; the Japanese and Koreans kept both and added yet further texts in their own languages. Something similar must have happened with the music as well, though this is more difficult to chart. Though broad similarities may be found between the chant and percussion accompaniment of Buddhist rituals throughout the region, musical practice may have begun to diverge quite widely from an early stage.
Indigenous religions such as Chinese Daoism, Korean shamanism and Japanese Shintō, which developed in parallel with Buddhism, have their own distinctive musics. Temple as well as folk religious traditions show regional features. In Japan, Buddhist chant influenced nō singing, gidayū and the shakuhachi flute. In China, singing styles and dramatic expression of opera and ritual are closely related. In Korea, Confucianism and Buddhism compete with an indigenous shamanic tradition whose uniqueness took on nationalistic symbolic importance by the 1990s.
Another common theme in more literate traditions of East Asia is the relation between music and the spiritual contemplation of nature, often through association with poetry. In vocal lyrics such imagery may also be used as a metaphor for human feelings of separation or longing; folk-song lyrics often treat these same themes less philosophically. Likewise, solo pieces for instruments such as the Chinese qin zither or the Japanese shakuhachi are often inspired by natural scenes such as rivers or mountains; programmatic descriptions may even accompany instrumental notations. Nature is only one theme, however; the spectrum is wide, also including battles and inebriation, though connotations may be philosophical rather than mundane.
Polarities commonly expressed in music, particularly in China and Korea, are heaven and earth, martial and civil, yin and yang. The contrast of refined versus vulgar (Chinese ya-su, Japanese ga-zoku, Korean a-sok) has long been influential among the literati. For example, the Neo-Confucianists of Japan's Tokugawa period (1603–1868) castigated shamisen music as erotically stimulating, hence zoku and morally corrupting; similar value judgments have been common throughout the region. But again one must search beyond literati traditions to the less explicit aesthetics of more popular genres.
The notional homogeneity of East Asian musical culture is based largely on court genres that were exported from China to Korea and Japan. Chinese instruments were known in the north Korean kingdom of Koguryǒ by the 4th century ce. Masked dance drama from southern China was transmitted first to the Korean kingdom of Paekche and thence to Japan. Korean music was also performed in Japan. Such transmission peaked during the Chinese Tang and Song dynasties (7th–13th centuries). The cosmopolitan Tang court saw what might be called the first ‘World Music’ boom, with ensembles from Central Asian, South and South-east Asian and Korean kingdoms employed there. As elements from these various sources intermingled in new ways in the Tang capital Chang'an, the results were often exported to Korea and Japan. Though foreign ensembles were also employed at successive Chinese courts, the most lasting foreign influence on Chinese music was from the instruments of Central Asia, such as pipa lute and suona shawm.
The court genres were of two very different types: several genres of banquet music and the monumental Confucian state ritual ensembles. Chinese court banquet music was imported and ritualized in Japan (tōgaku) primarily in the Tang period and in Korea (tangak) mainly in the Song, but subsequently practice was constantly modified. A state Confucian court ritual ensemble (aak), in which ritual grandeur and perceived correctness took precedence over purely musical factors, was exported to Korea in 1116; it was one of several genres from the Chinese Song dynasty performed at the Korean court. Though later reforms were partly inspired by the Chinese classics and modifications on the Chinese mainland, practice again diverged.
Chinese instruments imported to Japan and Korea include most prominently the sheng mouth organ (Jap. shō, Korean saeng), zheng zither (sō/koto, kayagŭm), pipa plucked lute (biwa, pip'a), bili/guan oboe (hichiriki, p'iri) and di transverse flute (ryūteki, jǒk). The important Chinese two-string fiddle family (huqin etc.) is found in Korea (haegǔm) but never settled in Japan. Shawms are common throughout China (suona, derived from Central Asian zurna); they have never settled in Japan, but they flourish in Korea (the t'aep'yŏngso) in various genres, most prominently in ‘farmer's music’ (nongak). Conversely, the Chinese three-string plucked lute sanxian reached Japan (shamisen) but is not found in Korea. Barrel drums play a major role in all three cultures, while hourglass drums are important in Japan and Korea but have long been rare in China. In many cases the names of related instruments in all three countries are still written with the same Chinese characters (though pronounced somewhat differently), but in others the names have changed.
Even those instruments adopted as part of a court ensemble often enjoyed more popular uses. The best examples are long zithers: secular repertories for Chinese zheng, Korean kayagǔm and Japanese koto developed independently both of the courts and of each other. By contrast, the instruments of Buddhism (largely percussion) are also widely shared but have rarely transcended their original contexts. The same is true for the Confucian ritual orchestra exported from China to Korea, which included large frames of bells and lithophones.
These and several other instruments still show clear genetic similarities between countries, but they have evolved considerably, to the extent that none of the relatives could be interchanged today. More importantly, the music played upon these instruments soon diverged, which of course triggered some structural changes. Thus the blow-hole of the Korean t'aegŭm transverse flute is much larger than its Chinese antecedent, facilitating the distinctive wide vibrato favoured in Korea; the loosely strung silk strings of Korea's kayagŭm serve the same function, in contrast to Japan's koto. Another case is the Japanese notched flute shakuhachi. Examples of 8th-century Chinese manufacture preserved in the Shōsōin treasury in Japan have five fingerholes and one thumb-hole (like their Chinese relative, the xiao), suitable for playing the heptatonic scale then used in China. Centuries later, all shakuhachi had lost one fingerhole and now were more suitable for playing Japanese pentatonic melodies. And the large plectrum of Japan's shamisen suits the percussive nature of its music, as opposed to its Chinese relative. In the 20th century metal or nylon strings have commonly replaced silk. Communist China and North Korea have attempted to popularize ‘improved’ versions of instruments (often on Western models), with more success in urban than rural areas.
As all three countries have now been permeated by Western music practice and values, one may get a misleading impression of traditional elements by exposure to 20th-century hybridized styles such as the koto compositions of Michio Miyagi, the kayagŭm music of Hwang Byung-ki or a composition or arrangement of the Chinese ‘conservatory style’. This section will focus on the more traditional end of the spectrum.
The concept of mode, or mode-key (see Mode, §V), is common, known in Chinese as diao, in Japanese as chō, in Korean as cho; it extends also to Vietnam, where it is called diêu. Chinese modal theory influenced Japan and Korea in the Tang dynasty but continued to develop, from the Song dynasty largely in the context of vocal dramatic music. The 16th-century scholar Zhu Zaiyu was the most celebrated in a long line of theoreticians seeking to codify a tempered scale, though this remained remote from practice.
Composition in the Western sense has been influenced by traditional music in varying degrees. Though composers such as Tōru Takemitsu and Tan Dun have succeeded in the West partly by virtue of an imaginative recasting of their national traditions in a modern vocabulary, most seem to resist being pigeon-holed as exotic representatives of a merely national culture. Under Western-influenced compositional demands, for example, variants of Japan's 13-string koto have been developed with 21, 25 and 30 strings to transcend pentatonicism.
Neo-traditional styles have also emerged to suit ‘modern’ tastes. An example is the rise of large-scale drum ensembles in Japan (see Kumi-daiko), using traditional instruments and musical elements in new ways, and in concert rather than ritual settings. Korea's samulnori percussion ensemble represents a parallel development. In China politically modified versions of yangge (song and dance with percussion) have supplemented, rather than replaced, its traditional ritual function.