The Music Teacher: The Professionalization Of Singing And The Development Of Erotic Vocal Style During Late Ming China
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
12-1-2015
Published In
Harvard Journal Of Asiatic Studies
Abstract
I focus on the professional singing teacher as a new social identity during the late Ming, particularly their social transformation from anonymous grifters to meaningful names in the elite singing culture of kunqu. A close, intertextual reading of different versions of Wei Liangfu’s (fl. 16th century) singing thesis, Nanci yinzheng—combined with historical, fictional, dramatic, and poetic accounts of musical performance given by professional singing masters and their courtesan students—reveals how the professionalization of teaching music resulted in the low rate of musical literacy among commoner-singers and the renowned erotic vocal style of the late Ming. In this process, moral critique, sensual pleasure, and technical criticism were more closely intertwined than has been generally believed.
Keywords
vocal history, vocal art, pedagogy, music eroticism, music connoisseurship, voice, kunqu 崑曲, Suzhou 蘇州
Recommended Citation
Peng Xu.
(2015).
"The Music Teacher: The Professionalization Of Singing And The Development Of Erotic Vocal Style During Late Ming China".
Harvard Journal Of Asiatic Studies.
Volume 75,
Issue 2.
259-297.
DOI: 10.1353/jas.2015.0016
https://works.swarthmore.edu/fac-chinese/60