Years of listening to Saint-Saens and the sound track to Bugs Bunny cartoons has given me a good idea of how we Western Caucasian types tend to ape music from the near and far east. But, presuming that stereotypes aren’t a one way street, there must be some back and forth on the subject.
Has anyone in Asia (I would presume Japan or China, given the influence of Western Art Music there) or anyone who is knowledgeable of Asian culture seen this phenomenon? Occidental music, i.e., music which mimics European music with a few cheap sonic markers so that an Asian can say “Ah ha! That’s from the West!”? If so, what does it sound like, and where can I hear it?
Given that the Western imitation of Eastern music just consists of “play something random in a pentatonic scale”, I imagine that Easterners could mimic our music just by using one of our scales.
but major and minor scales are essentially pentatonic with an added 4th and 7th. Are they just plucking a bunch of tritones back and forth?
If we essentialize classical music (to say nothing of folk/popular music), one of the big features absent in almost all other styles of music is the emphasis on polyphony and counterpoint, with really busy music in several voices. I know that Suzuki school repertoire is big on teaching kids Baroque repertoire; however, all of this seems to be speculation, and so I was hoping that someone might be privy to something that I don’t know!
I’ll be impressed if someone here actually happens to know something. You’re essentially looking for something like black face. When Britain was messing about in Chinese affairs, I wouldn’t be surprised if there was some amount of anti-European stuff produced, but you’d have to be a Chinese history expert who specialized in drama and music to find it.
The Japanese may have as well before their Isolationist period, though probably not after the country was reopened to the West.
I don’t know about other cultures enough to even guess when or if they might have produced something, or whether it would be likely that records would still exist.
Yes, I suspected it was a long shot. Like you say, it’s in need of an expert. But I figured if anyone would know it, the illustrious posters here might. Perhaps Mr. Cecil Adams would care to take a crack at it?
I think there was a thread up last month where someone linked to an Italian guy doing a rock song that sounded like English. I can look for it I guess, no idea where to start searching though. Here it is.
