Jay Chou and his Chinese Pop Style
Stepping into the new century, a name came into people’s ears in mainland China, Jay Chou. Jay is a famous Taiwan musician, whose songs impact the new generation in the recent twelve years all over the world significantly. From young to old, a lot of people can sing his popular songs, or they can hum, whistle some parts of Jay’s songs at least. According to the official statistics, Jay produced his eleven albums that sold an amazing record of 28746167 copies in ten years, which must attribute this success to his millions of fans (Fung). This paper thus illustrates three arguments, the new Chinese element, or Chou style that Jay creates in his pop songs, the fusion of traditional Chinese instruments and piano, imagery and emotional lyrics in his pop songs. These three factors establish his Chou style of music, and influence the works of other musicians in the recent years. The new theme also leads the modern world to think about the best way to fuse Chinese traditional music and western classical music, such that gives a great impression of the scene in poetries.
As a pioneer, Jay is the first musician fuse the Chinese traditional style with western classic and pop music successfully, and this unique Chou style influences the future works of other musicians profoundly. Qinghuaci, or Blue and White Porcelain, must be the peak of all his songs that synthesize Chinese music elements. In this song, Jay applies pentatonic scale which has five notes per octave only. Ancient Chinese musicians compose their folk music in the pentatonic scale, while Jay makes Qinghuaci involve distinct Chinese characteristics. The fundamental tones provide the audiences with elegant, natural and hazy prospects. At the cl...
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...e employment of poetic lyrics. Jay’s creative Chinese style pop music attracts millions of people all over the world, because a lot of audiences appreciate a simpler and more graceful music in modern time, such that more musicians emerge out who favor in applying Chinese elements in their songs. This new Chinese theme, created by Jay Chou, will develop and fuse into the western music in the future.
Works Cited
Fung, Anthony. "Western Style, Chinese Pop: Jay Chou's Rap And Hip-Hop In China." Asian Music: Journal Of The Society For Asian Music 39.1 (2008): 69-80. MLA International Bibliography. Web. 13 July 2012.
"Hulusi." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hulusi. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Jul 2012.
"Jay Chou." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay_Chou. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Jul 2012.
Willoughby, David. The World of Music. 7th. McGraw-Hill Higher Education, 2010. Print.
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