ABSTRACT
CENTRALIZATION AND REGIONALISM: URBAN AND RURAL TRADITIONS Although some scholars have described East Asian societies and their musics in terms of a polarity between “great” traditions (centralized, urban, official, orthodox) and “little” traditions (regionally varied, rural, unofficial, heterodox), there is actually a continuum rather than a sharp division between the national and the regional, and interchange between centers and the periphery has shaped much of the history of East Asian music. Musical regions have developed in conjunction with linguistic dialects.
CLASSICAL, FOLK, AND POPULAR MUSIC While most English-speakers have a sense of distinction among the terms classical , folk, and popular music , their exact definitions and lines of demarcation are somewhat ambiguous, and in East Asia the situation is even more complex. In East Asia, although some classical music (as in the West) is old, precisely written down, and performed by professional specialists, the tradition of the scholar-amateur who performs for selfcultivation is also widespread, and new dynasties often developed their own new or reconstructed “classical” music to supersede that of the outgoing regime. In modern times, the term “popular music” is associated with the mass media, but for centuries before the advent of radio, television, films, and recordings, a variety of singers, storytellers, and actors provided popular entertainment for the masses. Music in the courts and among the literati has constantly borrowed from folk and popular traditions; in a similar manner, many modern concertized traditions are based on music (and dance) orginally performed as entertainment in villages or teahouses, or in ritual contexts such as weddings, funerals, and religious or shamanistic ceremonies.
