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Mathematical Rhythmic Structure of Chinese Percussion Music: An Analytical Study of Shifan Luogu Collections. Boyu Zhang. 1997. Turku, Finland: Turun Yliopisto Kirjasto. xv, 277 pp., map, figures, photos, musical examples and transcriptions, appendices, glossary, bibliography.
A number of important monographs and doctoral dissertations on Chinese music have appeared in recent years; yet Western scholarship has still barely scratched the surface of the immense richness of China's musical resources. Boyu Zhang's book holds the promise of helping to fill this lacuna on two counts. First, it is the only book written in English that is devoted entirely to percussion ensemble music, a genre that is largely unknown in the West. Second, the provocative title suggests a theoretical orientation that is rare in today's ethnomusicological literature. Unfortunately, the book, which is essentially the author's doctoral dissertation for the Department of Musicology at Turku University in Finland, succeeds only in part and does not quite live up to its potential.
It may be read first as a resource book on shifan luogu, a type of music performed mainly in parts of Jiangsu province in the eastern coastal region, and one that is classified by musicologists in China as belonging to a larger category of percussion music found in many parts of the country. As a resource book, it is rich in material on the historical background, social context, performance practice, and above all, the structural details of the individual pieces...