Characteristics and Differences between Eastern and Western Music

1, the different keys of the tone column

Oriental music is mainly five-tone tuning, Gong, Shang, Horn, Zheng, Feather, clear tone more. Western music is mainly used in the size of seven tones, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, of which 4, 7 is two semitones, so the appearance of turbid tone.

Oriental music and western music are two big conceptual categories, oriental music includes the music of many countries, not only China and many other oriental countries, the music of different countries due to the different tonal composition of the different countries in the hearing of the regional characteristics of very different; western music also contains the music of many countries, from Germany, Austria, France and other different countries of the different countries of the music is different.

2. Difference in scales:

Chinese music has mastered the seven-tone scale since early times, but has always preferred a more harmonious pentatonic scale, focusing on the development of music in pentatonic, and at the same time focusing on the pursuit of melody and rhythmic changes, and belittling the role of harmony.

The direction of development of Chinese music is different from that of Western music, which has gradually developed from the pentatonic scale of ancient Greece to the heptatonic scale, and up to the twelve equal-tempered meter; and from monophony to the use of harmony. So if western music is like a thick wall, the top contour is like the melody, the masonry is like the wall, even if the contour is straight as long as there is harmony, it is still a wall, just like some of Handel's works.

3. Musical Thinking Mode

The most fundamental difference between the Chinese music system and the Western music system is that it is full of dialectical spirit. Chinese traditional music is full of dialectical spirit. "Sound can have no fixed height", "beat can have no fixed value", and tunes can be freely "rotated", "transposed", and so on. Traditional Chinese music has become a living, open-ended narrative system.

While the Western music system is deterministic, "all tones have a fixed height", "all beats have a fixed value", "according to the score", not to add a tone not to lose a word.

Baidu Encyclopedia-Chinese Music

Baidu Encyclopedia-Western Music