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From the end of the last century, arranging Taiwanese folk songs for different purposes has become highly popular. Many Taiwanese composers have arranged originally mono-line melodies into vocals with orchestral accompaniment, or into arrangements for pure instrumental ensembles. No matter what caused the phenomenon - possibly the political situation, the rise of national consciousness, use in education, or just an increase in commercial demand -- these products were welcomed in the public media, and heard in different venues, including concerts, films, and TV episodes or commercials. Some of the products were thematic compilations, commercially available as CD albums. Among the one that are still sold in stores today are the collection of Chinese Symphonic Century arranged by Li Tai-Hsiang1, the albums arranged and released by Evergreen Symphony Orchestra, and Splendor—When Western Baroque meets Taiwanese Folk Songs, arranged by the author2. In fact, these Taiwanese musicians are not the only composers who have shown interest in creating this kind of music. In 1993, the Japanese composer and music professor, Masaaki Hayakawa produced two albums containing arrangements of Taiwanese folk songs, Four Seasons of Taiwan and Beautiful Folk Melodies.3 Along with the other composers’ works, his products are still commercially available today. Through this popular theme many composers have shown their great creativity and skill in arranging folk songs with a variety of interpretations. However, among the released audio products, only two series -- the series by Masaaki Hayakawa and Splendor, 1 Masaaki Hayakawa, Four Seasons of Taiwan., Taipei: Sunrise Records LTD., 1995. Audio CD.. Szu-Hsien Lee. Splendor – When Western Baroque meets Taiwanese Folk Songs, Taipei: Wind Records LTD., 2006. Audio CD Performed, recorded, and produced by Baroque Camerata, the faculty chamber orchestra in the department of music, National Sun Yat-sen University, 2006. 2 3 Masaaki Hayakawa is teaching in Nagoya University, Nagoya. His two albums for Baroque Chamber Orchestra were both brought out by Sunrise-Records, 1995. by the current author -- feature the Baroque music style, with instrumentation for Baroque chamber orchestra. The Baroque chamber orchestra usually consists of ten to twenty players: one harpsichordist, one contrabassist, and at least two players for each part of the strings. Sometimes wind or brass players participate to contribute different combinations of tune colors. Thus Baroque chamber orchestral color is characteristically light, transparent, and unique. In addition, it presents the sound of music from approximately 1600 to 1800, the Baroque and early Classical periods. The music style of that era is a mix of clear and joyful, realistic and intellectual. The folk songs arranged in this specific style can be understood and liked by folk song lovers naturally, and without much effort. It also lifts the folk song arrangements to attain a certain complexity and artistry. It not only benefits the economics of the performance, the convenience of the instrumental substitution, but also the uniqueness of the sound. Although written for the same instrumentation, and namely in the similar historical style, the current author’s arrangements sound very different from Hayakawa’s. The simplest, but intuitive analysis might find that Hayakawa’s is more sophisticated and strictly Baroque, and that Splendor has a stronger Taiwanese flavor and also is mixed with various western music languages other than Baroque. The contrast between these latter works arouses curiosity about several questions: 1) what music languages -- that is, the elements and techniques selected in the arrangements -- can be considered more Eastern and Taiwanese, or more Western and Baroque; 2) what music languages are indeed used and mixed in these two Asian composers’ arrangements; and 3) are the composers’ background, identity and era revealed in their musical arrangements. Many composers in Taiwan today are not enthusiastic about analyzing or critiquing their own music for public discussion. But as a music theory and composition teacher, this writer’s interest and curiosity has been aroused by the questions directed at me from other musicians, from persons in the private sector, and even from myself. Therefore, following the questions posed above, I will attempt to investigate my arrangements in Splendor from a theorist’s point of view, and to recall why I made various decisions about the fusion of different music languages when arranging the melodies as a composer. A brief comparison with Hayakawa’s Four Seasons of Taiwan will follow. The goal of this analysis and comparison is to point the way for young Taiwanese composers to become aware of, and to express, their identity both geographically and chronologically by sensitizing themselves to historical musical styles, and by developing the motivation and ability to combine multiple music languages. I. What music language is considered Baroque (Western), or Taiwanese (Eastern)? In seeking to understand music, many musicologists and music theorists compare music to natural language. They attempt to apply linguistic theories in studying music because they believe music possesses certain characteristics of language. The theories include semiotic analyses, information theory, theories of generative grammar, and other specially invented theories of what is being expressed in music.4 Yet, how music relates to language, whether music is itself a language, and what is meant by music language seems a never-ending debate. Some theorists have even warned us about the problems of trying to map music onto language directly. Music resembles a language. ….. But music is not identical with language. The resemblance points to something essential, but vague. Anyone who takes it literally will be seriously misled.5 Music resembles language in the sense that it is a temporal sequence of articulated sounds which are more than just sounds. ….. The succession of sounds is like logic: it can be right or wrong. But what has been said cannot be detached from the music. Music creates no semiotic system.6 It is not my intention here to discuss the pros and cons of comparing music to language. However, the fact that music theory teachers have successfully applied linguistic theories to help explain music is undeniable. The basic elements of music can be explained equivalently as the materials that compose prose or poetry: music scales provide melodic intervals in music and are like the intonations of a spoken language— probably in a sense of localism; chords are like the words pronounced in a language; and the scheme of chordal progressions function as grammars. Different music may be constructed in different pitch structures, just like different languages are organized using 4 Christopher Dobrian, Music and Language. http://music.arts.uci.edu/dobrian/CD.music.lang.htm,; Internet; accessed October, 2006. Theodor W. Adorno, translated by Rodney Livingstone “A Fragment” in Quasi una Fantasia: Essays on Modern Music, (London, New York: VERSO, 1998), 1. 5 6 Ibid. different intonations, words, grammars, and logic. This analogy can be applied with little deviation to approach western tonal music written within the era of common practice7, since tonal music has been well-developed for hundreds of years and is accepted by the public’s subconscious as a systematic and mature language. Thus Western tonal music language can refer to music that “intonates” in major or minor tonal diatonic scales, “speaks” horizontally in tonal melodies, and vertically in triads or seventh chords, and “communicates” through the functional harmonic progression, the scheme of T—S—D— T.8 Although the logic of music is not necessarily identical to literal syntax, music does have its own systematic organization, and good music usually is written with good organization. The analogy therefore goes beyond the organized connection of sounds and extends to the whole structure. The traditional theory of musical form employs such terms as sentence, phrase, segment, ways of punctuation, question, exclamation, and parenthesis.9 The Period, in musical terms, is similar to a finished sentence with a period; and sections or parts correspond to paragraphs. However, the extension to the whole music structure, which is called music forms, dwells in all music regardless of the pitch structures of the music. In the writer’s opinion, the same formal structures can be seen in different music languages, just like the sonnets can be read in English or Chinese, and an article composed in four paragraphs can be 7 Common practice refers to the years of tonal music from the 17th-century to the late 19th-century. 8 All the chords in tonal music are categorized into T (tonic), S (predominant or subdominant), and D (dominant), and function as the beginning points (also ending points) that are stable, transitions to the middle points, and the middle points that are unstable. The scheme of the progression is always follow the direction of T-S-D-T 9 Theodor W. Adorno, 1. written in any language. The antecedent-consequent periodic structures, the ternary formal design can be seen in many music works whether they are Eastern, Western, modal, tonal or atonal. Music language that the writer intends to define in this discussion is thus restricted to the use of pitch elements and structures--the scales, intervals, chords, and the connections of these elements. Further exploration of the resemblance of music and language, syntax, and the idiom of structuring music leads us to consider the composer’s personal style. The great composers in music history tend to express their emotions or characters by twisting or breaking existing rules. For the rules of tonal music language, the use of mode mixture and borrowed chords, enharmonic tones, and the interruption and the prolongation of the expected harmonic progression are common techniques. They function against the normal logic of the predominant music language, but without moving the language toward nonsense. The syntax can be different from composer to composer, or from piece to piece, and conceived of as a composer’s signature. In western music history, Baroque is a turning point in that tonal music reached maturity, became dominant over modal music, and flourished for more than three hundred years. The unique Baroque sound and the contrapuntal texture that continued to develop from the polyphony of the Renaissance, along with the tonal language, contributed the historical music style of Baroque. Although the great Baroque composers—A. Corelli, J. S. Bach, G. F. Handel, or A. Vivaldi all had their own music signatures, the historical styles recognized in their music are all considered the same. The music language of the Classical era also is tonal. However, the historical styles of Baroque and Classical have essential differences. First, the texture of Classical is less polyphonic. Furthermore, in spite of the same basic schemes of harmonic progression as that of Baroque, the tempos of Classical chordal alternations, and the moving of bass lines, are relatively slow. One of the typical Baroque features is the rapid sequential melodic and chordal progressions, which can be heard in famous pieces, for instance Pachbell’s Canon in D or Bach’s Prelude in C. The progressions are used for prolonging a period of music and function as bridges or transitions to modulate between sections. [Fig 1] Sequential harmonic progressions Following our previous assumption, if chords resemble words, then fast chordal alternation and decorative moving of melodies should create the impression of wordiness or grandiosity. This is actually one of the Baroque flavors: the tonal language spoken by unique orchestral sounds, presented in contrapuntal multiple voices, and elaborated with characteristics of rhetoric, color, and “splendor.” Using the previous assumptions, it is not hard to discover what distinguishes the language and flavor of Taiwanese music -- at least of Taiwanese folk songs, -- from that of Baroque. First of all, the scales are different. Scales are the collections of the melodic intervals frequently appearing in a piece of music. In Taiwanese songs, as well as in most Chinese songs, the commonly used intervals are almost identical to the intonation of the spoken words. In other words, the intonation of the spoken language leads the melodic contour that is structured with particular intervals. For the Taiwanese languages, the intonations of words mainly can be mapped onto simple intervals of major second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth and octave. Minor second and seventh are not considered idiomatic in the language. When words are sung in secession, the melodic intervals indicated above may move in succession, either in the same direction or in the opposite direction according to the word connections. However, thirds moving in the same direction in secession are not heard in the language. The motion in this mode is instead a second, a third, a fourth or a fifth to connect with major second (Fig. 2). In other words, unlike the triad being the essential element in tonal music language, the connection that may generate the sense of the broken triad chord is not considered idiomatic in Taiwanese music language. [Fig.2] The intervallic motions of the melody. They can be transposed or rotated. The result is that the scales used in the majority of Taiwanese music are pentatonic (Fig. 3). By starting from a different point on this five-note sequence, a scale with a different interval a sequence is created. Similar to the construction of modes in modern Western music, the modes of scales are named after its starting note as in Gong (宮), Shang (商), Jue (角), Zhi (徵), and Yu (羽), like Chinese modes are named. [Fig.3] This observation about the scales, intervals, and melodies comes from the writer’s experiences while composing songs sung in Taiwanese or Chinese languages. Some may disagree with the writer’s observation, and argue that the language and music of Taiwan is too diverse to support that observation. How and why the pentatonic scales are used in the majority of Taiwanese music’s language is actually not that simple to explain. But it is undeniably true. Taiwanese music indeed has diverse origins. The contemporary works may have mixed the musicality and other characteristics of the music of aborigines, of the immigrations from China, of the influences from Japan, and of the western world. If the spoken language influences the scales and intervals in which a song is constructed, then different intonation from these languages should lead to Pluralism in Taiwanese music. To take the traditional Taiwanese music as an example, a lot of traditional music is subordinate to Xi-que (戲曲), (traditional opera). The music scales are varied along the different genres, as the seven-note diatonic scales are used, but differently in Nanguan10 (南管) and Beiguan (北管)11, the usage of the intervallic leap of fourth is 10 A vocal and instrumental ensemble that is originated in Quanzhou area in Fujian province in mainland China. The Quanzhou localism can be heard in its seven-note scales. Four scales used in Nanguan : wu-k'ung kuan, ssu-k'ung kung, wu-liu-ssu-ch'ih kuan, pei-ssu kuan. The intervallic combinations in the scales are all different. often seen though differently in Hakka folk songs (客家山歌) compared to Ge-zai opera (歌仔戲). Thus to elementarily define the music language -- the scales and intervallic schemes of the Taiwanese folk songs -- may not be agreed with by all linguisticians and musicologists. However, the research on the relation between spoken language and the melodic structure in Taiwanese music is not mature and systematic yet, and neither are the theoretic studies on the music melody per se.12 It does require further study and discussion. Yet, the observation on the pitch structures of the twelve Taiwanese folk songs selected in Splendor may illustrate the usefulness of the definitions offered by the writer. The songs selected in this album may be originally sung with special intonations, but the current melodies transcribed and arranged – and also the version that are familiar by people -- have been modified to fit well in the categories of diatonic and pentatonic scales in different modes. The scales of the twelve songs are mostly pentatonic in mode Gong, Yu, and Zhi (see the chart A). But the 4th, 9th, and 11th songs are exceptions. 11 Beiguan uses seven notes scales: siong, yit, wu, liok, huan, gong, ce, siong. It almost resembles to do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, si, the scale degrees in western seven notes diatonic scales. Surveying the books written by the Taiwanese musicologists (ex., Hsiu Chang-Hei 許常惠, Liu Chuen-Kuen 呂錘寬, and Jien Shang-Jen 簡上仁,), the researches on Taiwanese music mainly focus on the historical documentary analyses. Only the dissertation written in 1974 by Liu Wen-Liu (劉文六) attempts to categorize Taiwanese music and to theorize about the structures of Taiwanese melodies (available on Electronic Theses and Dissertation System). 12 Chart A. The scales and modes of the twelve songs The song in the album 1. Dark Sky before the Downpour Scales (Notated in Gien-Pu, the numbers indicate the scale degrees) 5 6 (7) 1 2 3 5 6 [Final=6] . . 2. Jasmine in June 2356123 Modes (Encoded with the name of Chinese modes or Church modes) Yu (羽) with an added note (7) for the nuances [Final=5] Zhi (徵) . . . . 3. Melody Reminiscent of An-Ping 3 5 6 1 2 3 5 6 1 [Final=6] Yu (羽) . . . 4. Moonlight Sorrow 5. Tao Hwa Crosses the River 3 5 6 1 2 3 4 5 6 [Final=1] Quasi Ionian lacking 7 . . . / quasi Gong 561235 [Final=1] Gong (宮) [Final=6] Yu (羽) [Final=1] Gong (宮) [Final=6] Yu (羽) . . 6. The Cricket Teases the Rooster 6123561 . 7. Egret 5612356 . . 8. Cattle Plowing Songs 3561235 . . . 9. Rainy Night in the Port City 3 #5 6 7 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1 Minor / Aeolian with raised 5. . . . . The setting of the tendency [Final=6] (leading) tone makes the tonal flavor of minor. 10. The Tune of Taidung 356123 [Final=6] Yu (羽) . . . 11. When the Farewell Gongs Sound 12. Lullaby 35671235671 Quasi Aeolian (lacking 4) . . . . [Final=6] /quasi Yu (羽) 12356123 [Final=1] Gong (宮) . . . . . The Taiwanese folk songs from Splendor in fact should be further divided into two categories. One category contains the anonymous natural folk songs. The 1st, 2nd, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, and the 10th songs are belonged to this category. They mostly originate from nursery rhymes or recite intonations, and are simple and short in one or two part form. Since the melodies follow the intonation of Taiwanese spoken language, the intervals of the transcribed melodies tend to be major second, third, and fifth. The Chinese pentatonic scales provide suitable intervals for the spoken-like melodies. The other category contains the popular songs written by well-known song writers between 1930 and 1960. Many of the writers received music education overseas and were influenced by Japanese or Western music. The 3rd, 4th, 9th, 11th and the 12th songs are in this category. Some of these melodies tend to be less simple: the range of melodies is bigger, the change of the melodic motion is quicker, the combinations of intervals are more complicated, and the scales are possibly a mix of different systems. An example is the mixture of pentatonic and diatonic scales in Moonlight Sorrow13. The mixture of Gong and Ionian in Moonlight Sorrow is caused by the use of the scale degree 4. The melodic movement in minor second several times from the scale degree 3 to 4 makes the song sounds more Western. This is also seen in When the Farewell Gongs Sound. The half step motion between the scale degree 7 and 1 causes the language to sound be quasi in Western modal and quasi Chinese. As to Rainy Night in the Port City, the note below the tonic (the final, the key center) is raised one half step. This is typically tonal music idiom. It strengthens the melodic tendency toward the tonic, also implies the tonal cadential movement from Dominant to Tonic. Nevertheless, the succession of 13 Moonlight Sorrow was composed in 1933 by Deng Yu-Hsien (1906-1944). Dang Yu-Hsien studied composition at the Tokyo Music Conservatory in 1928. descending melodic motion (Fig. 4) stresses the diminish 5th and gives the flavor of Japanese mode. The song writer’s background14 is already revealed from the mixture of the language even in this single melody. [Fig. 4] Rainy Night at Port City 14 Rainy Night in the Port City was composed by Yang San-Lang (1919-1989). Yang San-Lang studied music composition and arrangement in Japan between 1937-1940. He ever worked in the club bands in several cities in China as a trumpet player. II. The music languages, techniques, and the mixture in the arrangements in Splendor and Taiwan Four Seasons To extend a short monody into an instrumental ensemble piece that is at least three minutes long, an arranger’s task is first to determine the ways of harmonization, as well as the formal design for the whole piece. Hayakawa’s Four Seasons of Taiwan also consists of twelve Taiwanese songs. However, the whole structure of his album is arranged by relying on Vivaldi’s Four Seasons Violin Concerto, unlike that of Splendor which models no specific exemplar. The form of each piece in his album basically emulates the form of the corresponding pieces in Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. Even so, according to the author’s assumptions presented above, the formal design is not the key to influencing the music language. Therefore, the reason the arrangements in Splendor preserve more Taiwanese flavor is mainly due to the harmonization. How to choose the intervals and chords to find a good counterpoint with Taiwanese flavor has to be deeply thought about by the arranger while composing. Based upon close observation of the original materials, the chords that go along with the pentatonic scales are constructed as a third, a fourth or a fifth with an added major second. Thus, although the triad is still the major choice in Splendor due to the Baroque context, the arranger used many modal chords when she intended to emphasize the modal characteristics of Taiwanese or Chinese [Fig.5]. [Fig. 5] Jasmine in June, mm.1-15. As a matter of fact, these kinds of chords are commonly heard in Chinese music. Traditional Chinese music is usually considered monophonic. However, some instruments still play harmony, especially the plucked string instruments. The intervals between the open strings of Pipa (mostly A-D-E-A), Guchin (mostly C-D-F-G-A-C-D), and Guzhang all have the quality of generating the sonority of modal chords. The arranger used the chords not only for the locality of the music, but also to emulate the sonority of Chinese or Taiwanese instruments [Fig. 6]. Neither of these kinds of devices are seen in Hayakawa’s arrangements, nor is the frequency of use of modal chords. The harpsichord in Hayakawa’s arrangements only played the role of realizing figured bass, strictly typical Baroque. Hayakawa used triads and tonal cadences throughout; in contrast, the language of Splendor is fusion, depending upon how much originality of the songs the arranger wished to preserve. [Fig. 6] The Cricket Teases the Rooster, mm.83-93. This fusion can be seen in other aspects as well. Basically, the arranger kept the surface design -- the uniqueness of the sound, and the texture in the historical impression of Baroque. In addition, she kept the orchestral design to emulate concerto gross (Fig7); the fugatal techniques for the thickness and complexity of polyphony (Fig. 8); the fast moving bass lines that support the quick alternated chords (Fig. 9); and the use of Dominant-Tonic progression in sequence to connect sections (Fig. 10). Yet, the techniques borrowed from other languages or historical styles were used to reveal the hidden pictures expressed in the original text of the songs, for instance, for revealing the design of the texture. Although the texture is mostly in contrapuntal polyphonic, the arranger actually borrowed idioms that do not belong to Baroque. Heterophony15 is used in Tao Hwa Crosses the River, to present the “whir” of the original function of the song 15 Heterophony is the texture where the various voice or parts are differentiated in character. This can refer to a kind of complex monophony in which there is only one basic melody, but realized simultaneously by multiple voices, each of which play the melody differently, either in a different rhythm or tempo, with different embellishments and figures, or idiomatically different. (Fig. 11).16 In preserving this texture, the parallel motion that is forbidden in Baroque contrapuntal writing was an effective choice to reveal the locality of Taiwanese. [Fig 7] Dark Sky before the Downpour, mm. 13-25. 16 Tao Hwa Crosses the River is music from a kind of street folk show played in early farmers’ festivities. This melody is sung with dance and an act in the show. The main characters in the show are Miss Tao Hwa and a zany old sailor on a ferry. Because of the entertaining function and the characteristics of farce and humor in the melody, the arranger used un-Baroque scales (Pentatonic) and textures (heterophony) to illustrate the whir of the parade and colorful carnival. [Fig 8] When the Farewell Gongs Sound, mm.64-7. [Fig 9] The Tune of Taidung, mm. 65-80. [Fig 10] Dark Sky before the Downpour, mm. 81-99. [Fig. 11] Tao Hwa Crosses the River, mm. 13-24. Sound and the historical style are also mixed in certain pieces. In Melody Reminiscent of An-Ping, the arranger created the expression of dark and sentimental. Thus the intervals, the unresolved enharmonic tones, the range and the density of the orchestration, and the layering complexity all create strong harmonic tension. The sound and the style are rather Romantic. As to the formal design, the arranger feels the western ways of modulation are great to facilitate extending the short songs into much longer ones, even if just through repetition. Therefore, the arrangements are all unfolded with shifting and alternating keys, the central tones. Besides, the fixed forms in western music are treasured vehicles to help extend the song length and into a specific historical sense of Baroque. Thus some of the songs were arranged in forms that have association with historical Baroque style, though the modulation of keys of these songs remains relatively simpler than Baroque (see Chart B). As can be seen from the chart, the arranger was not addicted to the Baroque way of modulation. First of all, it is not necessary to go back to the original key areas. As the example, in Egret a modulation in the secession of thirds is used. This is rather an idiom of the Classical era, but bravely chosen to create the image of the egrets’ graceful motion of flying. Something worth noting is that the brevity is not only seen on the modulations. Whole tone scales shortly appear in Egret, and the Jazz blue note sounded in Rainy Night in the Port City. The mixtures in the arrangements are seen from its music language, forms, historical styles, and results in the flavor of fusion that goes beyond Baroque or Taiwanese. Chart B. The forms of the twelve arrangements The songs in the album Forms The alternation of the key areas 1. Dark Sky before the Downpour Song; With long prelude in e-b-e concerto style 2. Jasmine in June Song; with a fugato prelude G-A (Zhi on D-Zhi on E) 3. Melody Reminiscent of An-Ping Through-composed a-#f-b 4. Moonlight Sorrow Song C-D 5. Tao Hwa Crosses the River Ternary C-G-A (a)-C 6. The Cricket Teases the Rooster Binary, with long prelude and c-e-#c interlude 7. Egret Song A-C-bE-G 8. Cattle Plowing Songs Minuet and Trio a-A-a 9. Rainy Night in the Port City Continuous Binary form in the g-e-g style of Gigue , with the additional opening and coda in the style of French Overture 10. The Tune of Taidung Binary, with additional prelude a-b and coda. 11. When the Farewell Gongs Sound Binary, with Fugue in the second g-a part. 12. Lullaby Song C-bD-C In comparison, Hayakawa’s language is more typically tonal. The triads, the tonal harmonic progression and the cadences are used throughout in the album. As to the texture, emulating Vivarldi’s Four Seasons, his arrangements are less fugatal. However, his ways of modulation between sections, and the mature skills of using motivic elements of sequential harmonic progressions to prolong the modulation, make him a brilliant arranger who could retain the flavor of Baroque successfully. His great skill also helped the twelve Taiwanese songs to be woven in the order of the forms of those of Four Seasons. In some sense, he quotes the sound, the texture, and the harmony from Four Seasons literally. The technique of parody also is seen in Splendor. Bach’s prelude in C Major is quoted in Egret and transformed into accompaniment played by harpsichord; and the harmonic progression, recalling that of Pachbell’s Canon, is heard in Lullaby. The difference is that Four Seasons works as a plot for Hayakawa’s Taiwan Four Seasons. The Taiwanese songs are woven on Vivaldi’s plan and united with his language. In contrast, in Splendor, the segment of C Major Prelude works as a fixed quotation and was cut and pasted into Egret. Thus in Egret, the impression of Bach appeared briefly like an echo, but has no essential relationship with the song itself. These techniques use the superimposition of different languages and materials rather than recomposing new music from the materials. These techniques are often seen in composers’ works after 1950, for example George Crumb’s and Luciano Berio’s. This kind of design is defined as postmodernism by some music aestheticians. It is characteristic of the era of the music far after Baroque in the twentieth century. III. The relation between the arrangements and the composers’ background, identity and era People may consider that arranging music creates nothing original, thus it may requires less effort and creativity than freely composing a whole new piece. But in the author’s experience, re-composing with or on the existing materials may be more difficult in some ways. It requires the composer to apply different techniques, languages and styles, and relies heavily upon the arrangers’ awareness of the material and the goals of the arrangement. Therefore, the arrangements should reveals the composer’s personality and identity just as freely composed new pieces do provided the composes has a deep understanding of the original materials and is clear about what he or s/he intends to address. This awareness would have been achieved by the two composers before they created the Baroque version of Taiwanese folk songs. Their intentions were different but clear as discussed in previous paragraphs. The decisions that cause the differences are somehow related to their cultural identities and educational backgrounds. First of all, the Taiwanese arranger of Splendor is more intimate with the originality of the material. Those Taiwanese folk songs are like her mother tongue. She’s familiar with the musicality from the language, the hidden color and flavor in the folk songs, and the meaning of the original text sung in the songs, which stimulated and guided her choices in deviating from pure Baroque. If Hayakawa arranged the Japanese folk songs in Baroque style, the result might sound more Asian in flavor with a mixture of his own locality. Second, their educational and life experiences are different. Hayakawa had his music education in Japan, and studied briefly in Europe from 1978-79. The writer was educated in Taiwan, but studied music and composition in Los Angeles from 1998-2004. The multicultural atmosphere on the western coast of the United States influenced her creativity. These influences not only were included a in the mixture of western historical styles, mixtures of the Eastern and Western musical languages, but also in the mixtures of main stream music that is studied academically field and is popular with the public -- for instance, Rock and Jazz. This actually reveals not only the geographical experience of the composers, but their chronological accuracy. After the collapse of the boundaries between the Eastern and Western world after the cold war around 1950, not only the distance between countries became closer, but also the development of art and music turned from linearly progressive into that in multiple directions toward stability17, the pluralism. The interactions between the culture and styles generated more unity. The plurality of mixing styles is itself a historical style at the present time. The composers as well as the other artists have to face this stream of ever changing music styles. To create fusion is one way composers show their awareness of their chronological identity. While the influence of nationality alone can become relatively vague, the proportions of styles and languages in any mixture should just be designed to facilitating their expression, and the development of their special music language. This can be the important issue for young composers in Taiwan today. To be aware that 17 Leonard b. Meryer, Music, The Arts, and Ideas: Patterns and Predictions in Twentieth-Century Culture, (Chicago:The University of Chicago Press, 1994). Taiwanese music is as important as other languages, and that deep familiarity with this material is essential – these are the starting points for creating a fusion with other styles. 25