Journal articles on the topic 'Qin music Qin music'

This paper examines the area of erhu pedagogy, looking at the two different styles of Northern and Southern China: Qin pai and Jiangnan pai. The development of Qin pai erhu since the 1950s has resulted in a regional style that reflects a strong Shaanxi local folk and traditional music genre. On the other hand, Jiangnan music is widely developed in Shanghai, Jiangsu province, and Zhejiang province in the area of folk music. The musical style of Jiangnan is melodious, with simplicity as its main character. Past literatures reveals some insights into the different styles of erhu playing, however, a detailed performance practice of two major repertoires Qinfeng and Jiangnan Chunse is absent. This paper discusses the unique playing style and techniques of Qin pai and Jiangnan pai. The differences between the two are analysed based on two representative repertoires, Qinfeng and Jiangnan Chunse. Methodology includes observation, score analysis, transcription and a discussion that includes a self-reflexive account on the performance of the two pieces. The outcome highlights various pedagogical concerns regarding playing techniques, stylistic features and interpretation that provide a reference for future scholars and erhu players. Keywords: Erhu, Qin Pai, Jiangnan Pai, music;

This article initiates a dialogue between Chinese “ Gu Qin” art and curriculum theory. “ Gu Qin” is the ancient Chinese musical instrument which best embodies Chinese aesthetic notions. The ancient Chinese never regarded Gu Qin as only an instrument; they thought that performing on it was a process of experiencing life and self-cultivation. Therefore, the value of pursuing Gu Qin study is not only the skill that is mastered, but also the growth of the spirit. This orientation makes the teaching of Gu Qin a fight against instrumental rationalism and materialism. It highlights lived experience based on the unity of the subjective and the objective, and breaks the closed, predetermined teaching process to create openness and possibilities. All of these characteristics have much in common with the new perspectives on curriculum and can help us better understand what a curriculum and a music curriculum are.

In the pre-Qin period, Confucius proposed six subjects namely the etiquette, music, archery, driving, literacy, and calculation. Among the six subjects, music was ranked the second. Among them, traditional education in China can fully reflect the importance of music education, and the essence and core of music education can be reflected from the requirements of aesthetic education. In recent years, with the continuous development and improvement of production and life, the theme of education in today's society has changed, and quality education is the center and focus of education today. Moreover, people begin to focus on how to inherit and publicize the traditional music culture. As the music culture is of great importance, many people are encouraged to continue to practice and publicize the traditional music. The main point of this article is Confucian theory of music education.

During the Spring and Autumn Period and Warring States Period, the ideology environment was severe. Hundreds of scholars competed and argued, and they all used their own musical concepts and aesthetic consciousness to influence social life. Confucius was one of them. As we all know, Confucius was the great pre-Qin period thinker, politician, and educator of etiquette and music. His achievements in music aesthetics are different from other schools of “contend of a hundred schools of thought”. Confucius’s aesthetic thoughts are actually the aesthetic thoughts he formed in the practice of ritual and music education. This article discusses his musical spirit, the aesthetic propositions of “benevolence”, “perfect perfection”, “neutrality”, and music education.

Music diversity is valued in theory, but the extent to which it is efficiently presented in music class remains limited. Within this article, I aim to bridge this gap by introducing four genres of Chinese classical ensembles—Qin and Xiao duets, Jiang Nan bamboo and silk ensembles, Cantonese ensembles, and contemporary Chinese orchestras—into the general music classroom. The explanations of original cultural contexts, representative repertoire, and cultural elements embedded in each ensemble can be incorporated in a classroom as part of an exploration of classical music from China. No Chinese instruments are required in the class, since it would focus on listening and related music activities. Drawing on attentive and engaged listening, sample lessons demonstrate the use of these Chinese classic ensembles at all levels to relate the National Core Arts Standards to encourage students to perform, create, respond to, and connect with the music.

Abstract This article draws on historical linguistic evidence, archeological finds, and written accounts of ancient practices to argue that, in the pre-Qin and Han periods of Chinese history, an important stratum of knowledge related to earthly energies, vibrations, pitch, tonality, music, memory, and recitation existed in conceptual parallel to systems of visual knowledge of heavenly bodies, light, color, and the written record. Masters of the former set of skills were frequently blind and entrusted with a distinct set of ritual and advisory functions, including ushering in the seasons, pronouncing on elements of the calendar, predicting military fortunes, and performing official policy admonishments. Of particular importance to this group of experts was the concept of “winds” or “airs” (fēng) and a closely related verb for “sing,” “chant,” or “remonstrate” (fĕng). The etymological relationship of these words, along with words for listening, smell, sounds, and fragrance, led to a conceptual blending whereby the “energy” (qi) of wise words and “fragrant” virtue could carry on “winds” of oral transmission to correct public morality and governance. This led to an etiological hierarchy, in some ways inverted by current standards, in which the purpose of studying pitch and tonality was not, first and foremost, analysis of music qua art but, rather, the encoding, transmission, and influence of natural energies and social harmony.

Abstract The fact that much of what the Japanese regard as part of their culture originally came to Japan from the Asian continent in ancient and medieval times is well known and has been extensively researched. For the period after 1868, however, the attention of scholars has tended to concentrate on Japan’s comprehensive importation of Western civilization. This exploratory article suggests a different perspective. Taking music in modern Japan as an example and based in part on the author’s research for her recent book Not by Love Alone: The Violin in Japan, 1850-2010, the author will argue that music is a particularly rewarding fi eld for examining transnational fl ows. Research on music in modern Japan has tended to privilege the introduction of European art music from the West and this was undoubtedly one of the most important developments in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. There are, however, aspects to this development that merit more attention than they have received so far, including the relationship between Western music and other musics practised in Japan in the nineteenth century and the interactions between Japan and non-Western countries and in particular its East Asian neighbours. In this article, four general themes for further enquiry are introduced: 1. The possible relation between Meiji statesmen’s and intellectuals’ kangaku education and their views on the role of music in the modern state. 2. The Chinese origins and the place of minshingaku (Ming and Qing music) in the musical culture of nineteenthcentury Japan. 3. Japan’s role in the dissemination of Western Music in East Asia. 4. The role of the East Asian continent (particularly the cities of Shanghai and Harbin) as a place of encounter between Asia and Europe.

ABSTRAKPenelitian ini mengembangkan teknik Compressive Sensing (CS) untuk audio watermarking dengan metode Lifting Wavelet Transform (LWT) dan Quantization Index Modulation (QIM). LWT adalah salah satu teknik mendekomposisi sinyal menjadi 2 sub-band, yaitu sub-band low dan high. QIM adalah suatu metode yang efisien secara komputasi atau perhitungan watermarking dengan menggunakan informasi tambahan. Audio watermarking dilakukan menggunakan file audio dengan format *.wav berdurasi 10 detik dan menggunakan 4 genre musik, yaitu pop, classic, rock, dan metal. Watermark yang disisipkan berupa citra hitam putih dengan format *.bmp yang masing-masing berukuran 32x32 dan 64x64 pixel. Pengujian dilakukan dengan mengukur nilai SNR, ODG, BER, dan PSNR. Audio yang telah disisipkan watermark, diuji ketahanannya dengan diberikan 7 macam serangan berupa LPF, BPF, HPF, MP3 compression, noise, dan echo. Penelitian ini memiliki hasil optimal dengan nilai SNR 85,32 dB, ODG -8,34x10-11, BER 0, dan PSNR ∞.Kata kunci: Audio watermarking, QIM, LWT, Compressive Sensing. ABSTRACTThis research developed Compressive Sensing (CS) technique for audio watermarking using Wavelet Transform (LWT) and Quantization Index Modulation (QIM) methods. LWT is one technique to decompose the signal into 2 sub-bands, namely sub-band low and high. QIM is a computationally efficient method or watermarking calculation using additional information. Audio watermarking was done using audio files with *.wav format duration of 10 seconds and used 4 genres of music, namely pop, classic, rock, and metal. Watermark was inserted in the form of black and white image with *.bmp format each measuring 32x32 and 64x64 pixels. The test was done by measuring the value of SNR, ODG, BER, and PSNR. Audio that had been inserted watermark was tested its durability with given 7 kinds of attacks such as LPF, BPF, HPF, MP3 Compression, Noise, and Echo. This research had optimal result with SNR value of 85.32 dB, ODG value of -8.34x10-11, BER value of 0, and PSNR value of ∞.Keywords: Audio watermarking, QIM, LWT, Compressive Sensing.

In this paper, with Collection of Chinese Works by Matteo Ricci written by Zhu Weizheng and A summary Interpretation of Chinese literature of Matteo Ricci in Ming and Qing Dynasties written by Tang Kaijian as major research texts and historical basis, as well as intercultural communication as the major research method, the aesthetic adaptation of native music of traditional Chinese music, etiquette, sacrifice and religious customs under the description of Matteo Ricci is discussed and interpreted from the perspective of the spread of musical culture of the Maritime Silk Road, four stages of field investigation are planned, and related musical activities and local musical phenomena appearing in his literature have an on-site visit. In this way, the vital position and historical significance of Matteo Ricci’s cultural missionary activities in the music communication on the Maritime Silk Road are obtained.

Background. The mindset of people who inhabit one or the other country determines the process of formation and fixation of intonational vocabulary, which reflects and in the music culture, including songs. In such a case, phonetic and syntax particular qualities of verbal language intersect with national musical language. The proof of that is a vocal art, whose essential parameters (from intonational scale to the aspects of voice staging) present originality of national worldview. However, in recent decades, the preservation of the uniqueness of the artistic expression of peoples and ethnic groups is under threat. Culture integration increasingly unifies musical thinking of representatives of different countries. The striking instance of this is an art of modern China. Here, vocalists work either based on national traditions of singing, or developing the achievements of leading European schools. Moreover, choice, made once, determines a singer’s creative fate – his technique and repertoire. As a result, there is a gradual transformation of the entire system of musical culture in China, a rethinking of the basic intonation complexes, including those that embody the national image of the world. These facts define the purpose of given research – uncovering specificity of Motherland image presentation in modern China vocalists’ interpretation. The methodology of the research is determined by its objective, it is integrative and based on a combination of general scientific approaches and musicological methods. The leading research methods are historical, genre-stylistic and interpretative analyzes. Results. Themes related to Motherland image are an integral part of China musical art. In folk art, these are songs that sing about China, about people living in this country, about love for the Motherland. Authors often recourse to allegories using synonymic emblematic row: dragon, red color, Yin and Yan signs, Beijing opera. These kinds of songs are gradually beginning to be accepted as the symbol of the country, where they were created. Exactly this way happened with one of the most famous in the world Chinese folksong «Jasmine Flower», which words for the first time were written down in the time of Ming dynasty. The version of «Jasmine Flower», which nowadays is the most times performed, is credited with composer He Fang. He Fang made some changes both in lyrics and in verbal text of the folksong. One of the greatest interpreters of «Jasmine Flower» is Song Zuying singing in the folk manner. It is revealing that song «Jasmine Flower» at her concert sounds exactly like a symbol of China, what characterize a lot of performing interpretation aspects. The song is construed by the singer not as a lyrical utterance, but as an “aria di sortita”. One more variant of Song Zuying’s «Jasmine Flower» interpretation was performed to the public together with Celine Dion at the «Spring Festival» in China (2013). According to the director design, the singers performing one song together appear as the embodiment of the images of their peoples that is reflected in the visual row. On deeper layers of understanding, this performance shows musical thinking specificity of representatives of different cultures. Consequently, ancient Chinese song «Jasmine Flower» appears in modern art as open text, which transformation process, obviously, will continue. One more composition, which became the symbol of China, is the song «Me and my Motherland» composed in 1985 by Qin Youngcheng (on Zhang Li lyrics). In our thinking, the song «Me and my Motherland» is illustrative of intonational transformation of music characterizing the Motherland image in the China art. Written in the last third of the twentieth century, the song is a vivid example of the refraction of European musical traditions, there is continuity with ideologically biased, but artistically distinctive and highly professional the Soviet pop. In this song, a person appears as a part of more important wholeness: nature, nation, a family. It is felt also in Liao Changyong’s performing version. His interpretation is characterized by happy combination of Chinese and West European traditions; bel canto singing and musical texture of song smooth out those Chinese language phonetic properties that usually demonstrate national arts specificity. Conclusions. Songs, presenting the image of China, are an integral part in Chinese vocalists’ work. These compositions inspired by love for their native land withstood the test of time, spread in sing repertoire and reflect that huge way that Chinese vocal school has passed over the past hundred years. Today, both the national tradition and the stylistics borrowed from a number of European countries organically coexist there. The demand for such compositions in concert world space testifies to the action of a centripetal force aimed at preserving national identity in conditions of cultural globalization.

In 1685, the Portuguese Jesuit Thomas Pereira was ordered by the Qing Kangxi emperor to write books on Western music theory in Chinese. Presented in the books were seventeenth-century practical and speculative music theories, including the coincidence theory of consonance. Invoking the concept of ‘boundary object’, this article shows that the cultural exchange, which gave rise to new knowledge by means of selection, synthesis and reinterpretation, was characterised by a lack of consensus between the transmitter and the receivers over the functions of the imported theories. Although the coincidence theory of consonance could potentially effect the transition from a pure numerical to a physical understanding of pitch, as in the European scientific revolution, it failed to flourish in China not only because of different theoretical concerns between European and Chinese musical traditions, but also because of its limited dissemination caused by Chinese print culture.

Zhuli xiaojie (adapted from Strindberg's Miss Julie) and Xin bi tian gao (from Ibsen's Hedda Gabler) are two works in a recent series of intercultural xiqu productions by playwrights William Huizhu Sun and Faye Chunfang Fei. In these works, the xiqu body serves as a medium for theatrical expression, where music, costume, movement, and props come together in a super-expressive acting technique that foregrounds qing (情), or sentiment. In these adaptations, the xiqu body compensates for what is necessarily cut from the text in the transformation from spoken drama to xiqu performance.

Abstract This study aims to revisit the creation of opera, symphonic versions of opera and ballet (yangbanxi) during the period of the Cultural Revolution of Mao's China. Beginning with the Kwok Collection (Fundação Oriente, Portugal), I aim to establish a new vision of the yangbanxi (production and reception) by means of an analysis of sources with musical iconography. The focus of the study is on questions of gender and the way in which the feminine was an indispensable tool for the construction and dissemination of the idea of a new nation-state. This study thus aims to make a new contribution to the area, showing how the construction of new opera heroines, communist and of the proletariat, is built on the image of the first “heroine-villain” constructed by the regime, Jiang Qing, the fourth wife of Mao Zedong. The title chosen demonstrates the paradox of the importance of woman in opera and in politics at a time when the only image to be left to posterity was that of a dominant male hero, Mao Zedong.

Circus in China until the 1760s was primarily regarded as an equestrian court performance to entertain nobles of the Qing Dynasty at the inauguration of the Chinese New Year, or to amuse foreign dignitaries bringing tributes. Since that time, circus has transformed into a popular entertainment art, featuring the integration of human, animal, dance, acrobatics, music, vocal, multi-media, and new technologies. In this article Susan Jia revisits the history of circus in China, and then focuses on its latest form of presentation in Shanghai Circus World (SCW), the premier circus establishment in China. The two core pieces in the SCW repertoire – ‘ERA: Intersection of Time’ and ‘Happy Circus’ – are examined to construct a representative miniature of modern Chinese circus, and from audiences’ perspective, the many comments written for online communities are analyzed to explore their understanding of modern circus. Susan Jia is an assistant professor in the School of Business and Management, Shanghai International Studies University. She researches means of developing the leisure and entertainment services industries.

Introduction. The given paper is devoted to questions, which make up the dissertation research section upon the genre semantics of the Chinese composers’ solo piano creations. The general theoretic background for the vast amount of the musical artifacts studying is specified in the current section. Theoretical background. In his studying of the Chinese composers’ piano creative work the author follows the research trend, originated by G. Schneerson, Lui Ji, Wei Tinge, Liu Fuan, Zhang Xiaohu, Zhang Qian and others. In particular, the current research is based upon the works by Bu Li, Bian Meng, Wang Ango, Wang Yuhe, Cheng Xu and other authors, devoted to the problem of the European and national music traditions interaction in the Chinese composers’ piano artifacts. The insufficient readiness of this thesis is mentioned. Namely, it is still the point of discussion and analyzing, to what extend and in what quality the genre system of European piano music is mastered by the Chinese composers. It is another point of investigation if their compositions are the result of the surface signs borrowing, taken from the most widely spread European genres or the Chinese composers were able to comprehend the genre semantics profoundly and develop some genres creatively, basing on the national musical tradition. Objectives. The main objective of the current article is the essential theoretical background specification for the Chinese composers’ piano creations genre peculiarities research; in particular, the polygenicity, the borrowed material usage principle, the composer’s genre stylization method. Methods. The task setting and developing is based upon the functional and morphological approaches to the musical genre comprehension, on the terminological analysis of the musical genres and styles understanding, on the upto-date philological and musicological conceptions of composition poetics, artistic genre and stylization method. Results and discussion. The concept of musical genre is defined as the type of the creation or the musical creative activity. Here the category of genre involves not only the formal but also the substantial musical compositions properties, their typical semantics. The musical genre genesis is specified by three factors: 1) the functional creations similarity, the identity of their assignment; 2) the similarity of the conditions of the composition creating and performing; 3) artistic and contextual affinity. The given factors specify the occurance of common musical form properties among several compositions, and these properties are defined as genre style. The composition style properties quite definitely “indicate” some kind of genre “prototype”, and in this sense they are the sign-index of the genre. The typical artisticcontent properties of musical creations and performing are also the index of the genre. These typical properties and designated as genre image (or genre semantics). The genre style and the corresponding images reflect the real type relations of the musical practice phenomena. It enables the composers to use the formal signs of a certain genre as an artistic attribute well recognized by the audience. In the musical genres system, the areas of interactive and independent music are conventionally separated. The first group includes the numerous kinds of every day musical performing, where music interacts with the riot, dance, poetic verbal speech, theatre performance and other types of a person’s artistic activity. Meanwhile, the main and specific function of the independent music is its being the object of artistic perception. The independent music artifacts don’t need any interaction with the expressive means of other arts. The piano music can belong to both spheres. A lot of independent sphere piano music compositions are bear the names of the genres belonging to the folklore, theatre music, church rituals, urban life. We mean such as piano “lullabies”, “ballads”, “minuets”, “waltzes”, “marches”, “arias”, ”love songs” etc. there is still another phenomenon: the piano music pieces, the name of which is not connected with the interactive music genres, are often profoundly connected with them on the levels of the language and artistic text. Quite often, the piano pieces are built on certain composition, borrowed from the sphere of folklore, popular or church music. In all the alike cases we can notice the artistically justified synchronous (non consequent) interaction of several musical genres signs and properties in the form of the definite composition. This phenomenon is characterized as polygenicity. Two main approaches to achieve the polygenre artistic expressive effect are defined: a) the use of the “exterior” (non native, another’s, alien) musical material; b) the genre style characteristic properties reproduction (genre stylization). The given work gives the definitions for the methods of different musical genres properties combination by means of borrowing and of the “exterior” material use in the frames of the original composition: quotations, arrangements, edited versions, fantasies and transcriptions. The genres, originated by these composing methods, are characterized. The essence of the genre stylization method in the Chinese composers’ creations is revealed. It is the reproduction of tonal and compositional peculiarities of the certain traditional Chinese music genre style into the composition text belonging to the European piano music genre system. The wide range of this method implementation is mentioned: from total style imitation to allusion. Conclusions. The existence of the great amount of the piano music compositions in the today’s Chinese musical culture motivates the overall and profound scientific analysis of this phenomenon, in particular, it stimulates the given sphere genre features revelation in both synchronous and diachronic (historic-evolutionary) aspects. The piano music genre sphere researcher needs the clearly formulated, capacious and non-contradictory categories of musical genre, genre style, genre system, genre semantics, as well as of the notions, derivative and connected with them. As it was mentioned by numerous specialists, the Chinese piano music distinctive feature consists in its lasting connection with the national music tradition. The task, set for the musicologists, is to define the nature, the principles, the variants of the interaction between the European piano music genres and styles and the traditional Chinese music genres and styles ( folklore, theatre, popular song). The given article states that the first artistic method, leading to the combination of the European and Chinese traditions in the frames of one composition consists of the composer’s borrowing and using some “alien” material, a fragment of the famous musical creation in his artifact. Thus, using serves as a general notion, embracing a number of certain musical text composing methods, which include quoting, arranging, creating versions, fantasies and transcription. The second artistic approach, leading to European piano music and the Chinese traditional music interaction, consists in the artistic method of stylization. This method implies the reproduction of tonal and compositional peculiarities of the certain traditional Chinese music genre style into the composition text belonging to the European piano music genre system. This method reveals the unlimited possibilities to create the bright vivid effects for genre dialogue, conflicts, interaction, as well as very delicate conceptual modus, allusions, hints, promoting the remarkable enrichment of the compositions genre figurativeness. Basing on the given theoretical background the author is going to analyze the genre-style contents of the seven-volume edition “A century of Piano Solo Works by Chinese Composers”. This content may serve as a working model for the studying of the whole thesaurus of piano music artifacts, created by the Chinese composers.

This is a delightful book. It opens up a cultural arena much neglected in scholarship on China. Nine engagingly narrated chapters take us through the history of Sino-foreign musical contact since the late 19th century, with one digression, which goes back to encounters since the 16th century (chapter two). The book follows the life story of three important institutions (the Shanghai Municipal Orchestra, the Shanghai Conservatory and the Central Conservatory) and three important men: violinist Tan Shuzhen, who was the first Chinese to join the orchestra in colonial Shanghai; conductor Li Delun, who was trained in Moscow and managed to serve the government before, during and after the Cultural Revolution; and composer He Luting, one of the most outspoken protagonists in China's music world and long-time principal at the Shanghai Conservatory. The authors' approach of choosing “white elephants” to present the history of classical music in China, although unfashionable since Jauss, brings much cohesion and structural elegance to the volume.The book is at its best when using material from interviews conducted by the authors. Based on this evidence, the book comes to one important conclusion: contact between Chinese and foreign musicians in China was generally not antagonistic, either before or after 1949. Foreign musicians did not behave in a condescending manner, as “imperialists” and Chinese musicians hardly ever perceived them to do so. For obvious reasons, few Chinese (and, surprisingly, few foreign studies) on China's classical music scene have acknowledged this fact.The authors have done a beautiful job in telling their story. They must be lauded for having gone through a great variety of sources including contemporary newspaper articles, propaganda magazines, Party documents, as well as films, recordings and some of the very recent, and mostly biographical, secondary literature on the subject published in China. Since the book is conceived as a collective biography, it lacks detailed musical and historical analysis and it would have benefited from a few closer readings. For example, what precisely is the meaning of “national style” for people as different as Tcherepnin, Mao Zedong or Guo Wenjing? Musical analysis would have provided an answer. Why do the authors not make more of the fact that Jiang Qing advised the musicians writing a model symphony to watch – and, more importantly, listen – to music in Hollywood films in order to improve their compositional skills? A more explicit engagement with the technical and musical styles of the model works (the term model opera should really be reserved for the operas in the set and not all of the pieces which also comprised ballets and symphonic compositions) would have been illuminating here, for it would have shown how indebted they were to the same principles of music-making as Hollywood film music on the one hand and the Butterfly Violin Concerto on the other – both officially condemned during the Cultural Revolution. It is sad, too, that the balanced account of the Cultural Revolution years – which describes both the pain it caused to many an intellectual and the benefits it brought for Chinese musical life generally – focuses almost entirely on the first set of eight model works and leaves out the second, equally important set of ten produced later (chapter seven). There are a number of non sequiturs in this book that are inevitable in any pioneering work of this size.

This study aimed to explore the perceived barriers to physical activity among college students Study Design: Qualitative research design Eight focus group discussions on 67 college students aged 18-24 years (48 females, 19 males) was conducted on College premises. Data were analysed using inductive approach. Participants identified a number of obstacles to physical activity. Perceived barriers emerged from the analysis of the data addressed the different dimensions of the socio-ecological framework. The result indicated that the young adults perceived substantial amount of personal, social and environmental factors as barriers such as time constraint, tiredness, stress, family control, safety issues and much more. Understanding the barriers and overcoming the barriers at this stage will be valuable. Health professionals and researchers can use this information to design and implement interventions, strategies and policies to promote the participation in physical activity. This further can help the students to deal with those barriers and can help to instil the habit of regular physical activity in the later adult years.

AbstractAn ancient table zither qin, an emblematic stringed instrument of traditional Chinese music, has been rediscovered in the museum collection of the Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers (inv.4224, CNAM collection), Paris. This instrument named “Qiulai” qin, whose origin is poorly documented, can claim to be one of the oldest qin preserved in European collections; its state of conservation is exceptional. A thorough examination was carried out based on an innovative approach combining museum expertise, material characterization analyses (optical microscopy, VIS/IR/UV imaging, X-ray fluorescence, SEM–EDS, Raman) and advanced radiocarbon dating technology (MICADAS). Our results highlight the great coherence with the traditional manufacturing practices mentioned in early Qing dynasty qin treatises and poems, in particular the collection of materials with highly symbolic meanings referring to the qin sound, nature and the universe. The reuse of resinous wood of the Taxus family from a building such as a temple has been demonstrated. The ash layer contains bone black, crushed malachite and residues of silica, ochres, potassium and magnesium aluminosilicates. Our study confirms the antiquity of the "Qiulai" qin in Europe by indicating that it was most likely made in the small [1659–1699] interval of about 30 years at the turn of the eighteenth century.

augmentvb [ɔːgˈmɛnt]1. to make or become greater in number, amount, strength, etc.; increase2. Music: to increase (a major or perfect interval) by a semitone (Collins English Dictionary 107) Almost everything associated with Robert Johnson has been subject to some form of augmentation. His talent as a musician and songwriter has been embroidered by myth-making. Johnson’s few remaining artefacts—his photographic images, his grave site, other physical records of his existence—have attained the status of reliquary. Even the integrity of his forty-two surviving recordings is now challenged by audiophiles who posit they were musically and sonically augmented by speeding up—increasing the tempo and pitch. This article documents the promulgation of myth in the life and music of Robert Johnson. His disputed photographic images are cited as archetypal contested artefacts, augmented both by false claims and genuine new discoveries—some of which suggest Johnson’s cultural magnetism is so compelling that even items only tenuously connected to his work draw significant attention. Current challenges to the musical integrity of Johnson’s original recordings, that they were “augmented” in order to raise the tempo, are presented as exemplars of our on-going fascination with his life and work. Part literature review, part investigative history, it uses the phenomenon of augmentation as a prism to shed new light on this enigmatic figure. Johnson’s obscurity during his lifetime, and for twenty-three years after his demise in 1938, offered little indication of his future status as a musical legend: “As far as the evolution of black music goes, Robert Johnson was an extremely minor figure, and very little that happened in the decades following his death would have been affected if he had never played a note” (Wald, Escaping xv). Such anonymity allowed those who first wrote about his music to embrace and propagate the myths that grew around this troubled character and his apparently “supernatural” genius. Johnson’s first press notice, from a pseudonymous John Hammond writing in The New Masses in 1937, spoke of a mysterious character from “deepest Mississippi” who “makes Leadbelly sound like an accomplished poseur” (Prial 111). The following year Hammond eulogised the singer in profoundly romantic terms: “It still knocks me over when I think of how lucky it is that a talent like his ever found its way to phonograph records […] Johnson died last week at precisely the moment when Vocalion scouts finally reached him and told him that he was booked to appear at Carnegie Hall” (19). The visceral awe experienced by subsequent generations of Johnson aficionados seems inspired by the remarkable capacity of his recordings to transcend space and time, reaching far beyond their immediate intended audience. “Johnson’s music changed the way the world looked to me,” wrote Greil Marcus, “I could listen to nothing else for months.” The music’s impact originates, at least in part, from the ambiguity of its origins: “I have the feeling, at times, that the reason Johnson has remained so elusive is that no one has been willing to take him at his word” (27-8). Three decades later Bob Dylan expressed similar sentiments over seven detailed pages of Chronicles: From the first note the vibrations from the loudspeaker made my hair stand up … it felt like a ghost had come into the room, a fearsome apparition …When he sings about icicles hanging on a tree it gives me the chills, or about milk turning blue … it made me nauseous and I wondered how he did that … It’s hard to imagine sharecroppers or plantation field hands at hop joints, relating to songs like these. You have to wonder if Johnson was playing for an audience that only he could see, one off in the future. (282-4) Such ready invocation of the supernatural bears witness to the profundity and resilience of the “lost bluesman” as a romantic trope. Barry Lee Pearson and Bill McCulloch have produced a painstaking genealogy of such a-historical misrepresentation. Early contributors include Rudi Blesch, Samuel B Charters, Frank Driggs’ liner notes for Johnson’s King of the Delta Blues Singers collection, and critic Pete Welding’s prolific 1960s output. Even comparatively recent researchers who ostensibly sought to demystify the legend couldn’t help but embellish the narrative. “It is undeniable that Johnson was fascinated with and probably obsessed by supernatural imagery,” asserted Robert Palmer (127). For Peter Guralnick his best songs articulate “the debt that must be paid for art and the Faustian bargain that Johnson sees at its core” (43). Contemporary scholarship from Pearson and McCulloch, James Banninghof, Charles Ford, and Elijah Wald has scrutinised Johnson’s life and work on a more evidential basis. This process has been likened to assembling a complicated jigsaw where half the pieces are missing: The Mississippi Delta has been practically turned upside down in the search for records of Robert Johnson. So far only marriage application signatures, two photos, a death certificate, a disputed death note, a few scattered school documents and conflicting oral histories of the man exist. Nothing more. (Graves 47) Such material is scrappy and unreliable. Johnson’s marriage licenses and his school records suggest contradictory dates of birth (Freeland 49). His death certificate mistakes his age—we now know that Johnson inadvertently founded another rock myth, the “27 Club” which includes fellow guitarists Brian Jones, Jimi Hendrix and Kurt Cobain (Wolkewitz et al., Segalstad and Hunter)—and incorrectly states he was single when he was twice widowed. A second contemporary research strand focuses on the mythmaking process itself. For Eric Rothenbuhler the appeal of Johnson’s recordings lies in his unique “for-the-record” aesthetic, that foreshadowed playing and song writing standards not widely realised until the 1960s. For Patricia Schroeder Johnson’s legend reveals far more about the story-tellers than it does the source—which over time has become “an empty center around which multiple interpretations, assorted viewpoints, and a variety of discourses swirl” (3). Some accounts of Johnson’s life seem entirely coloured by their authors’ cultural preconceptions. The most enduring myth, Johnson’s “crossroads” encounter with the Devil, is commonly redrawn according to the predilections of those telling the tale. That this story really belongs to bluesman Tommy Johnson has been known for over four decades (Evans 22), yet it was mistakenly attributed to Robert as recently as 1999 in French blues magazine Soul Bag (Pearson and McCulloch 92-3). Such errors are, thankfully, becoming less common. While the movie Crossroads (1986) brazenly appropriated Tommy’s story, the young walking bluesman in Oh, Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000) faithfully proclaims his authentic identity: “Thanks for the lift, sir. My name's Tommy. Tommy Johnson […] I had to be at that crossroads last midnight. Sell my soul to the devil.” Nevertheless the “supernatural” constituent of Johnson’s legend remains an irresistible framing device. It inspired evocative footage in Peter Meyer’s Can’t You Hear the Wind Howl? The Life and Music of Robert Johnson (1998). Even the liner notes to the definitive Sony Music Robert Johnson: The Centennial Edition celebrate and reclaim his myth: nothing about this musician is more famous than the word-of-mouth accounts of him selling his soul to the devil at a midnight crossroads in exchange for his singular mastery of blues guitar. It has become fashionable to downplay or dismiss this account nowadays, but the most likely source of the tale is Johnson himself, and the best efforts of scholars to present this artist in ordinary, human terms have done little to cut through the mystique and mystery that surround him. Repackaged versions of Johnson’s recordings became available via Amazon.co.uk and Spotify when they fell out of copyright in the United Kingdom. Predictable titles such as Contracted to the Devil, Hellbound, Me and the Devil Blues, and Up Jumped the Devil along with their distinctive “crossroads” artwork continue to demonstrate the durability of this myth [1]. Ironically, Johnson’s recordings were made during an era when one-off exhibited artworks (such as his individual performances of music) first became reproducible products. Walter Benjamin famously described the impact of this development: that which withers in the age of mechanical reproduction is the aura of the work of art […] the technique of reproduction detaches the reproduced object from the domain of tradition. By making many reproductions it substitutes a plurality of copies for a unique existence. (7) Marybeth Hamilton drew on Benjamin in her exploration of white folklorists’ efforts to document authentic pre-modern blues culture. Such individuals sought to preserve the intensity of the uncorrupted and untutored black voice before its authenticity and uniqueness could be tarnished by widespread mechanical reproduction. Two artefacts central to Johnson’s myth, his photographs and his recorded output, will now be considered in that context. In 1973 researcher Stephen LaVere located two pictures in the possession of his half–sister Carrie Thompson. The first, a cheap “dime store” self portrait taken in the equivalent of a modern photo booth, shows Johnson around a year into his life as a walking bluesman. The second, taken in the Hooks Bros. studio in Beale Street, Memphis, portrays a dapper and smiling musician on the eve of his short career as a Vocalion recording artist [2]. Neither was published for over a decade after their “discovery” due to fears of litigation from a competing researcher. A third photograph remains unpublished, still owned by Johnson’s family: The man has short nappy hair; he is slight, one foot is raised, and he is up on his toes as though stretching for height. There is a sharp crease in his pants, and a handkerchief protrudes from his breast pocket […] His eyes are deep-set, reserved, and his expression forms a half-smile, there seems to be a gentleness about him, his fingers are extraordinarily long and delicate, his head is tilted to one side. (Guralnick 67) Recently a fourth portrait appeared, seemingly out of nowhere, in Vanity Fair. Vintage guitar seller Steven Schein discovered a sepia photograph labelled “Old Snapshot Blues Guitar B. B. King???” [sic] while browsing Ebay and purchased it for $2,200. Johnson’s son positively identified the image, and a Houston Police Department forensic artist employed face recognition technology to confirm that “all the features are consistent if not identical” (DiGiacomo 2008). The provenance of this photograph remains disputed, however. Johnson’s guitar appears overly distressed for what would at the time be a new model, while his clothes reflect an inappropriate style for the period (Graves). Another contested “Johnson” image found on four seconds of silent film showed a walking bluesman playing outside a small town cinema in Ruleville, Mississippi. It inspired Bob Dylan to wax lyrical in Chronicles: “You can see that really is Robert Johnson, has to be – couldn’t be anyone else. He’s playing with huge, spiderlike hands and they magically move over the strings of his guitar” (287). However it had already been proved that this figure couldn’t be Johnson, because the background movie poster shows a film released three years after the musician’s death. The temptation to wish such items genuine is clearly a difficult one to overcome: “even things that might have been Robert Johnson now leave an afterglow” (Schroeder 154, my italics). Johnson’s recordings, so carefully preserved by Hammond and other researchers, might offer tangible and inviolate primary source material. Yet these also now face a serious challenge: they run too rapidly by a factor of up to 15 per cent (Gibbens; Wilde). Speeding up music allowed early producers to increase a song’s vibrancy and fit longer takes on to their restricted media. By slowing the recording tempo, master discs provided a “mother” print that would cause all subsequent pressings to play unnaturally quickly when reproduced. Robert Johnson worked for half a decade as a walking blues musician without restrictions on the length of his songs before recording with producer Don Law and engineer Vincent Liebler in San Antonio (1936) and Dallas (1937). Longer compositions were reworked for these sessions, re-arranging and edited out verses (Wald, Escaping). It is also conceivable that they were purposefully, or even accidentally, sped up. (The tempo consistency of machines used in early field recordings across the South has often been questioned, as many played too fast or slow (Morris).) Slowed-down versions of Johnson’s songs from contributors such as Angus Blackthorne and Ron Talley now proliferate on YouTube. The debate has fuelled detailed discussion in online blogs, where some contributors to specialist audio technology forums have attempted to decode a faintly detectable background hum using spectrum analysers. If the frequency of the alternating current that powered Law and Liebler’s machine could be established at 50 or 60 Hz it might provide evidence of possible tempo variation. A peak at 51.4 Hz, one contributor argues, suggests “the recordings are 2.8 per cent fast, about half a semitone” (Blischke). Such “augmentation” has yet to be fully explored in academic literature. Graves describes the discussion as “compelling and intriguing” in his endnotes, concluding “there are many pros and cons to the argument and, indeed, many recordings over the years have been speeded up to make them seem livelier” (124). Wald ("Robert Johnson") provides a compelling and detailed counter-thesis on his website, although he does acknowledge inconsistencies in pitch among alternate master takes of some recordings. No-one who actually saw Robert Johnson perform ever called attention to potential discrepancies between the pitch of his natural and recorded voice. David “Honeyboy” Edwards, Robert Lockwood Jr. and Johnny Shines were all interviewed repeatedly by documentarians and researchers, but none ever raised the issue. Conversely Johnson’s former girlfriend Willie Mae Powell was visibly affected by the familiarity in his voice on hearing his recording of the tune Johnson wrote for her, “Love in Vain”, in Chris Hunt’s The Search for Robert Johnson (1991). Clues might also lie in the natural tonality of Johnson’s instrument. Delta bluesmen who shared Johnson’s repertoire and played slide guitar in his style commonly used a tuning of open G (D-G-D-G-B-G). Colloquially known as “Spanish” (Gordon 2002, 38-42) it offers a natural home key of G major for slide guitar. We might therefore expect Johnson’s recordings to revolve around the tonic (G) or its dominant (D) -however almost all of his songs are a full tone higher, in the key of A or its dominant E. (The only exceptions are “They’re Red Hot” and “From Four Till Late” in C, and “Love in Vain” in G.) A pitch increase such as this might be consistent with an increase in the speed of these recordings. Although an alternative explanation might be that Johnson tuned his strings particularly tightly, which would benefit his slide playing but also make fingering notes and chords less comfortable. Yet another is that he used a capo to raise the key of his instrument and was capable of performing difficult lead parts in relatively high fret positions on the neck of an acoustic guitar. This is accepted by Scott Ainslie and Dave Whitehill in their authoritative volume of transcriptions At the Crossroads (11). The photo booth self portrait of Johnson also clearly shows a capo at the second fret—which would indeed raise open G to open A (in concert pitch). The most persuasive reasoning against speed tampering runs parallel to the argument laid out earlier in this piece, previous iterations of the Johnson myth have superimposed their own circumstances and ignored the context and reality of the protagonist’s lived experience. As Wald argues, our assumptions of what we think Johnson ought to sound like have little bearing on what he actually sounded like. It is a compelling point. When Son House, Skip James, Bukka White, and other surviving bluesmen were “rediscovered” during the 1960s urban folk revival of North America and Europe they were old men with deep and resonant voices. Johnson’s falsetto vocalisations do not, therefore, accord with the commonly accepted sound of an authentic blues artist. Yet Johnson was in his mid-twenties in 1936 and 1937; a young man heavily influenced by the success of other high pitched male blues singers of his era. people argue that what is better about the sound is that the slower, lower Johnson sounds more like Son House. Now, House was a major influence on Johnson, but by the time Johnson recorded he was not trying to sound like House—an older player who had been unsuccessful on records—but rather like Leroy Carr, Casey Bill Weldon, Kokomo Arnold, Lonnie Johnson, and Peetie Wheatstraw, who were the big blues recording stars in the mid–1930s, and whose vocal styles he imitated on most of his records. (For example, the ooh-well-well falsetto yodel he often used was imitated from Wheatstraw and Weldon.) These singers tended to have higher, smoother voices than House—exactly the sound that Johnson seems to have been going for, and that the House fans dislike. So their whole argument is based on the fact that they prefer the older Delta sound to the mainstream popular blues sound of the 1930s—or, to put it differently, that their tastes are different from Johnson’s own tastes at the moment he was recording. (Wald, "Robert Johnson") Few media can capture an audible moment entirely accurately, and the idea of engineering a faithful reproduction of an original performance is also only one element of the rationale for any recording. Commercial engineers often aim to represent the emotion of a musical moment, rather than its totality. John and Alan Lomax may have worked as documentarians, preserving sound as faithfully as possible for the benefit of future generations on behalf of the Library of Congress. Law and Liebler, however, were producing exciting and profitable commercial products for a financial gain. Paradoxically, then, whatever the “real” Robert Johnson sounded like (deeper voice, no mesmeric falsetto, not such an extraordinarily adept guitar player, never met the Devil … and so on) the mythical figure who “sold his soul at the crossroads” and shipped millions of albums after his death may, on that basis, be equally as authentic as the original. Schroeder draws on Mikhail Bakhtin to comment on such vacant yet hotly contested spaces around the Johnson myth. For Bakhtin, literary texts are ascribed new meanings by consecutive generations as they absorb and respond to them. Every age re–accentuates in its own way the works of its most immediate past. The historical life of classic works is in fact the uninterrupted process of their social and ideological re–accentuation [of] ever newer aspects of meaning; their semantic content literally continues to grow, to further create out of itself. (421) In this respect Johnson’s legend is a “classic work”, entirely removed from its historical life, a free floating form re-contextualised and reinterpreted by successive generations in order to make sense of their own cultural predilections (Schroeder 57). As Graves observes, “since Robert Johnson’s death there has seemed to be a mathematical equation of sorts at play: the less truth we have, the more myth we get” (113). The threads connecting his real and mythical identity seem so comprehensively intertwined that only the most assiduous scholars are capable of disentanglement. Johnson’s life and work seem destined to remain augmented and contested for as long as people want to play guitar, and others want to listen to them. Notes[1] Actually the dominant theme of Johnson’s songs is not “the supernatural” it is his inveterate womanising. Almost all Johnson’s lyrics employ creative metaphors to depict troubled relationships. Some even include vivid images of domestic abuse. In “Stop Breakin’ Down Blues” a woman threatens him with a gun. In “32–20 Blues” he discusses the most effective calibre of weapon to shoot his partner and “cut her half in two.” In “Me and the Devil Blues” Johnson promises “to beat my woman until I get satisfied”. However in The Lady and Mrs Johnson five-time W. C. Handy award winner Rory Block re-wrote these words to befit her own cultural agenda, inverting the original sentiment as: “I got to love my baby ‘til I get satisfied”.[2] The Gibson L-1 guitar featured in Johnson’s Hooks Bros. portrait briefly became another contested artefact when it appeared in the catalogue of a New York State memorabilia dealership in 2006 with an asking price of $6,000,000. The Australian owner had apparently purchased the instrument forty years earlier under the impression it was bona fide, although photographic comparison technology showed that it couldn’t be genuine and the item was withdrawn. “Had it been real, I would have been able to sell it several times over,” Gary Zimet from MIT Memorabilia told me in an interview for Guitarist Magazine at the time, “a unique item like that will only ever increase in value” (Stewart 2010). References Ainslie, Scott, and Dave Whitehall. Robert Johnson: At the Crossroads – The Authoritative Guitar Transcriptions. Milwaukee: Hal Leonard Publishing, 1992. Bakhtin, Mikhail M. The Dialogic Imagination. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1982. Banks, Russell. “The Devil and Robert Johnson – Robert Johnson: The Complete Recordings.” The New Republic 204.17 (1991): 27-30. Banninghof, James. “Some Ramblings on Robert Johnson’s Mind: Critical Analysis and Aesthetic in Delta Blues.” American Music 15/2 (1997): 137-158. Benjamin, Walter. The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. London: Penguin, 2008. Blackthorne, Angus. “Robert Johnson Slowed Down.” YouTube.com 2011. 1 Aug. 2013 ‹http://www.youtube.com/user/ANGUSBLACKTHORN?feature=watch›. Blesh, Rudi. Shining Trumpets: A History of Jazz. New York: Knopf, 1946. Blischke, Michael. “Slowing Down Robert Johnson.” The Straight Dope 2008. 1 Aug. 2013 ‹http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=461601›. Block, Rory. The Lady and Mrs Johnson. Rykodisc 10872, 2006. Charters, Samuel. The Country Blues. New York: De Capo Press, 1959. Collins UK. Collins English Dictionary. Glasgow: Harper Collins Publishers, 2010. DiGiacomo, Frank. “A Disputed Robert Johnson Photo Gets the C.S.I. Treatment.” Vanity Fair 2008. 1 Aug. 2013 ‹http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2008/10/a-disputed-robert-johnson-photo-gets-the-csi-treatment›. DiGiacomo, Frank. “Portrait of a Phantom: Searching for Robert Johnson.” Vanity Fair 2008. 1 Aug. 2013 ‹http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2008/11/johnson200811›. Dylan, Bob. Chronicles Vol 1. London: Simon & Schuster, 2005. Evans, David. Tommy Johnson. London: November Books, 1971. Ford, Charles. “Robert Johnson’s Rhythms.” Popular Music 17.1 (1998): 71-93. Freeland, Tom. “Robert Johnson: Some Witnesses to a Short Life.” Living Blues 150 (2000): 43-49. Gibbens, John. “Steady Rollin’ Man: A Revolutionary Critique of Robert Johnson.” Touched 2004. 1 Aug. 2013 ‹http://www.touched.co.uk/press/rjnote.html›. Gioia, Ted. Delta Blues: The Life and Times of the Mississippi Masters Who Revolutionised American Music. London: W. W. Norton & Co, 2008. Gioia, Ted. "Robert Johnson: A Century, and Beyond." Robert Johnson: The Centennial Collection. Sony Music 88697859072, 2011. Gordon, Robert. Can’t Be Satisfied: The Life and Times of Muddy Waters. London: Pimlico Books, 2002. Graves, Tom. Crossroads: The Life and Afterlife of Blues Legend Robert Johnson. Spokane: Demers Books, 2008. Guralnick, Peter. Searching for Robert Johnson: The Life and Legend of the "King of the Delta Blues Singers". London: Plume, 1998. Hamilton, Marybeth. In Search of the Blues: Black Voices, White Visions. London: Jonathan Cape, 2007. Hammond, John. From Spirituals to Swing (Dedicated to Bessie Smith). New York: The New Masses, 1938. Johnson, Robert. “Hellbound.” Amazon.co.uk 2011. 1 Aug. 2013 ‹http://www.amazon.co.uk/Hellbound/dp/B0063S8Y4C/ref=sr_1_cc_2?s=aps&ie=UTF8&qid=1376605065&sr=1-2-catcorr&keywords=robert+johnson+hellbound›. ———. “Contracted to the Devil.” Amazon.co.uk 2002. 1 Aug. 2013. ‹http://www.amazon.co.uk/Contracted-The-Devil-Robert-Johnson/dp/B00006F1L4/ref=sr_1_cc_1?s=aps&ie=UTF8&qid=1376830351&sr=1-1-catcorr&keywords=Contracted+to+The+Devil›. ———. King of the Delta Blues Singers. Columbia Records CL1654, 1961. ———. “Me and the Devil Blues.” Amazon.co.uk 2003. 1 Aug. 2013 ‹http://www.amazon.co.uk/Me-Devil-Blues-Robert-Johnson/dp/B00008SH7O/ref=sr_1_16?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1376604807&sr=1-16&keywords=robert+johnson›. ———. “The High Price of Soul.” Amazon.co.uk 2007. 1 Aug. 2013 ‹http://www.amazon.co.uk/High-Price-Soul-Robert-Johnson/dp/B000LC582C/ref=sr_1_39?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1376604863&sr=1-39&keywords=robert+johnson›. ———. “Up Jumped the Devil.” Amazon.co.uk 2005. 1 Aug. 2013 ‹http://www.amazon.co.uk/Up-Jumped-Devil-Robert-Johnson/dp/B000B57SL8/ref=sr_1_2?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1376829917&sr=1-2&keywords=Up+Jumped+The+Devil›. Marcus, Greil. Mystery Train: Images of America in Rock ‘n’ Roll Music. London: Plume, 1997. Morris, Christopher. “Phonograph Blues: Robert Johnson Mastered at Wrong Speed?” Variety 2010. 1 Aug. 2013 ‹http://www.varietysoundcheck.com/2010/05/phonograph-blues-robert-johnson-mastered-at-wrong-speed.html›. Oh, Brother, Where Art Thou? DVD. Universal Pictures, 2000. Palmer, Robert. Deep Blues: A Musical and Cultural History from the Mississippi Delta to Chicago’s South Side to the World. London: Penguin Books, 1981. Pearson, Barry Lee, and Bill McCulloch. Robert Johnson: Lost and Found. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2003. Prial, Dunstan. The Producer: John Hammond and the Soul of American Music. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2006. Rothenbuhler, Eric W. “For–the–Record Aesthetics and Robert Johnson’s Blues Style as a Product of Recorded Culture.” Popular Music 26.1 (2007): 65-81. Rothenbuhler, Eric W. “Myth and Collective Memory in the Case of Robert Johnson.” Critical Studies in Media Communication 24.3 (2007): 189-205. Schroeder, Patricia. Robert Johnson, Mythmaking and Contemporary American Culture (Music in American Life). Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2004. Segalstad, Eric, and Josh Hunter. The 27s: The Greatest Myth of Rock and Roll. Berkeley: North Atlantic Books, 2009. Stewart, Jon. “Rock Climbing: Jon Stewart Concludes His Investigation of the Myths behind Robert Johnson.” Guitarist Magazine 327 (2010): 34. The Search for Robert Johnson. DVD. Sony Pictures, 1991. Talley, Ron. “Robert Johnson, 'Sweet Home Chicago', as It REALLY Sounded...” YouTube.com 2012. 1 Aug. 2013. ‹http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCHod3_yEWQ›. Wald, Elijah. Escaping the Delta: Robert Johnson and the Invention of the Blues. London: HarperCollins, 2005. ———. The Robert Johnson Speed Recording Controversy. Elijah Wald — Writer, Musician 2012. 1 Aug. 2013. ‹http://www.elijahwald.com/johnsonspeed.html›. Wilde, John . “Robert Johnson Revelation Tells Us to Put the Brakes on the Blues: We've Been Listening to the Immortal 'King of the Delta Blues' at the Wrong Speed, But Now We Can Hear Him as He Intended.” The Guardian 2010. 1 Aug. 2013 ‹http://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2010/may/27/robert-johnson-blues›. Wolkewitz, M., A. Allignol, N. Graves, and A.G. 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06–816Afful, Joseph Benjamin Archibald (National U Singapore, Singapore), Address terms among university students in Ghana: A case study. Language and International Communication (Multilingual Matters) 6.1 (2006), 76–91.06–817Bhatia, Tej K. (Syracuse U, USA; tkbhatia@syr.edu), Super-heroes to super languages: American popular culture through South Asian language comics. World Englishes (Blackwell) 25.2 (2006), 279–298.06–818Clark, Rose (U Portsmouth, UK) & S. N. Gieve, On the discursive construction of ‘the Chinese learner’. Language, Culture and Curriculum (Multilingual Matters) 19.1 (2006),06–819Coluzzi, Paolo (U Bristol, UK), Language planning for the smallest language minority in Italy: The Cimbrians of Veneto and Trentino-Alto Adige. Language Problems & Language Planning (John Benjamins) 29.3 (2005), 247–269.06–820Driessen, Geert (Radboud U, the Netherlands), In Dutch? Usage of Dutch regional languages and dialects. Language, Culture and Curriculum (Multilingual Matters) 18.3 (2005), 271–285.06–821Edwards, Rachel (U Northumbria, UK), What's in a name? Chinese learners and the practice of adopting ‘English’ names. Language, Culture and Curriculum (Multilingual Matters) 19.1 (2006), 90–103.06–822Gao, Liwei (Monterey, USA; lwgao98@yahoo.com), Language contact and convergence in computer-mediated communication. World Englishes (Blackwell) 25.2 (2006), 299–308.06–823Gu, Qing (U Nottingham, UK) & Michele Schweisfurth, Who adapts? Beyond cultural models of ‘the’ Chinese learner. Language, Culture and Curriculum (Multilingual Matters) 19.1 (2006), 74–89.06–824Hosoda, Yuri (Kanagawa U, Japan; yhosoda@kanagawa-u.ac.jp), Repair and relevance of differential language expertise in second language conversations. Applied Liguistics (Oxford University Press) 27.1 (2006), 25–50.06–825Kachru, Yamuna (U Illinois, USA; ykachru@uiuc.edu), Mixers lyricing in Hinglish: Blending and fusion in Indian pop culture. World Englishes (Blackwell) 25.2 (2006), 223–233.06–826Kenny, Colum (Dublin City U, Ireland) & Súil Eile, Another way of seeing minority language broadcasting. Language and International Communication (Multilingual Matters) 5.3&4 (2005), 264–273.06–827Moody, Andrew J. (U Macau, Macau), English in Japanese popular culture and J-Pop music. World Englishes (Blackwell) 25.2 (2006), 209–222.06–828Omoniyi, Tope (Roehampton U, UK; T.omoniyi@roehampton.ac.uk), Hip-hop through the world Englishes lens: A response to globalization. World Englishes (Blackwell) 25.2 (2006), 195–208.06–829O'Rourke, Bernadette (Dublin City U, Ireland), Expressing identity through lesser-used languages: Examples from the Irish and Galician contexts. Language and International Communication (Multilingual Matters) 5.3&4 (2005), 274–283.06–830Shi, Xingsong (U Texas, USA), Gender, identity and intercultural transformation in second language socialisation. Language and International Communication (Multilingual Matters) 6.1 (2006), 2–17.06–831Shinhee Lee, Jamie (U Michigan, USA; jamilee@umd.umich.edu), Crossing and crossersin East Asian pop music: Korea and Japan. World Englishes (Blackwell) 25.2 (2006), 235–250.06–832Spencer-Oatey, Helen (U Cambridge, UK) & Zhaoning Xiong, Chinese students' psychological and sociocultural adjustments to Britain: An empirical study. Language, Culture and Curriculum (Multilingual Matters) 19.1 (2006), 37–53.06–833Struck-Soboleva, Julia (U Birmingham, UK), Controversies surrounding language policy and the integration process of Russian Germans in Germany. Language and International Communication (Multilingual Matters) 6.1 (2006), 57–75.06–834Ushioda, Ema (U Warwick, UK), Language motivation in a reconfigured Europe: Access, identity, autonomy. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development (Multilingual Matters) 27.2 (2006), 148–161.06–835Ustinova, Irina P. (Murray State U, USA; irina.ustinova@murraystate.edu), English and emerging advertising in Russia. World Englishes (Blackwell) 25.2 (2006), 267–277.

The curtain rose. The howling of desert wind filled the performance hall in the Shanghai Grand Theatre. Into the center stage, where a scenic construction of a mountain cliff and a desert landscape was dimly lit, entered the character of the Daoist priest Wang Yuanlu (1849–1931), performed by Chen Yizong. Dressed in a worn and dusty outfit of dark blue cotton, characteristic of Daoist priests, Wang began to sweep the floor. After a few moments, he discovered a hidden chambre sealed inside one of the rock sanctuaries carved into the cliff.Signaled by the quick, crystalline, stirring wave of sound from the chimes, a melodious Chinese ocarina solo joined in slowly from the background. Astonished by thousands of Buddhist sūtra scrolls, wall paintings, and sculptures he had just accidentally discovered in the caves, Priest Wang set his broom aside and began to examine these treasures. Dawn had not yet arrived, and the desert sky was pitch-black. Priest Wang held his oil lamp high, strode rhythmically in excitement, sat crossed-legged in a meditative pose, and unfolded a scroll. The sound of the ocarina became fuller and richer and the texture of the music more complex, as several other instruments joined in.Below is the opening scene of the award-winning, theatrical dance-drama Dunhuang, My Dreamland, created by China’s state-sponsored Lanzhou Song and Dance Theatre in 2000. Figure 1a: Poster Side A of Dunhuang, My Dreamland Figure 1b: Poster Side B of Dunhuang, My DreamlandThe scene locates the dance-drama in the rock sanctuaries that today are known as the Dunhuang Mogao Caves, housing Buddhist art accumulated over a period of a thousand years, one of the best well-known UNESCO heritages on the Silk Road. Historically a frontier metropolis, Dunhuang was a strategic site along the Silk Road in northwestern China, a crossroads of trade, and a locus for religious, cultural, and intellectual influences since the Han dynasty (206 B.C.E.–220 C.E.). Travellers, especially Buddhist monks from India and central Asia, passing through Dunhuang on their way to Chang’an (present day Xi’an), China’s ancient capital, would stop to meditate in the Mogao Caves and consult manuscripts in the monastery's library. At the same time, Chinese pilgrims would travel by foot from China through central Asia to Pakistan, India, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka, playing a key role in the exchanges between ancient China and the outside world. Travellers from China would stop to acquire provisions at Dunhuang before crossing the Gobi Desert to continue on their long journey abroad. Figure 2: Dunhuang Mogao CavesThis article approaches the idea of “abroad” by examining the present-day imagination of journeys along the Silk Road—specifically, staged performances of the various Silk Road journey-themed dance-dramas sponsored by the Chinese state for enhancing its cultural and foreign policies since the 1970s (Kuang).As ethnomusicologists have demonstrated, musicians, choreographers, and playwrights often utilise historical materials in their performances to construct connections between the past and the present (Bohlman; Herzfeld; Lam; Rees; Shelemay; Tuohy; Wade; Yung: Rawski; Watson). The ancient Silk Road, which linked the Mediterranean coast with central China and beyond, via oasis towns such as Samarkand, has long been associated with the concept of “journeying abroad.” Journeys to distant, foreign lands and encounters of unknown, mysterious cultures along the Silk Road have been documented in historical records, such as A Record of Buddhist Kingdoms (Faxian) and The Great Tang Records on the Western Regions (Xuanzang), and illustrated in classical literature, such as The Travels of Marco Polo (Polo) and the 16th century Chinese novel Journey to the West (Wu). These journeys—coming and going from multiple directions and to different destinations—have inspired contemporary staged performance for audiences around the globe.Home and Abroad: Dunhuang and the Silk RoadDunhuang, My Dreamland (2000), the contemporary dance-drama, staged the journey of a young pilgrim painter travelling from Chang’an to a land of the unfamiliar and beyond borders, in search for the arts that have inspired him. Figure 3: A scene from Dunhuang, My Dreamland showing the young pilgrim painter in the Gobi Desert on the ancient Silk RoadFar from his home, he ended his journey in Dunhuang, historically considered the northwestern periphery of China, well beyond Yangguan and Yumenguan, the bordering passes that separate China and foreign lands. Later scenes in Dunhuang, My Dreamland, portrayed through multiethnic music and dances, the dynamic interactions among merchants, cultural and religious envoys, warriors, and politicians that were making their own journey from abroad to China. The theatrical dance-drama presents a historically inspired, re-imagined vision of both “home” and “abroad” to its audiences as they watch the young painter travel along the Silk Road, across the Gobi Desert, arriving at his own ideal, artistic “homeland”, the Dunhuang Mogao Caves. Since his journey is ultimately a spiritual one, the conceptualisation of travelling “abroad” could also be perceived as “a journey home.”Staged more than four hundred times since it premiered in Beijing in April 2000, Dunhuang, My Dreamland is one of the top ten titles in China’s National Stage Project and one of the most successful theatrical dance-dramas ever produced in China. With revenue of more than thirty million renminbi (RMB), it ranks as the most profitable theatrical dance-drama ever produced in China, with a preproduction cost of six million RMB. The production team receives financial support from China’s Ministry of Culture for its “distinctive ethnic features,” and its “aim to promote traditional Chinese culture,” according to Xu Rong, an official in the Cultural Industry Department of the Ministry. Labeled an outstanding dance-drama of the Chinese nation, it aims to present domestic and international audiences with a vision of China as a historically multifaceted and cosmopolitan nation that has been in close contact with the outside world through the ancient Silk Road. Its production company has been on tour in selected cities throughout China and in countries abroad, including Austria, Spain, and France, literarily making the young pilgrim painter’s “journey along the Silk Road” a new journey abroad, off stage and in reality.Dunhuang, My Dreamland was not the first, nor is it the last, staged performances that portrays the Chinese re-imagination of “journeying abroad” along the ancient Silk Road. It was created as one of many versions of Dunhuang bihua yuewu, a genre of music, dance, and dramatic performances created in the early twentieth century and based primarily on artifacts excavated from the Mogao Caves (Kuang). “The Mogao Caves are the greatest repository of early Chinese art,” states Mimi Gates, who works to increase public awareness of the UNESCO site and raise funds toward its conservation. “Located on the Chinese end of the Silk Road, it also is the place where many cultures of the world intersected with one another, so you have Greek and Roman, Persian and Middle Eastern, Indian and Chinese cultures, all interacting. Given the nature of our world today, it is all very relevant” (Pollack). As an expressive art form, this genre has been thriving since the late 1970s contributing to the global imagination of China’s “Silk Road journeys abroad” long before Dunhuang, My Dreamland achieved its domestic and international fame. For instance, in 2004, The Thousand-Handed and Thousand-Eyed Avalokiteśvara—one of the most representative (and well-known) Dunhuang bihua yuewu programs—was staged as a part of the cultural program during the Paralympic Games in Athens, Greece. This performance, as well as other Dunhuang bihua yuewu dance programs was the perfect embodiment of a foreign religion that arrived in China from abroad and became Sinicized (Kuang). Figure 4: Mural from Dunhuang Mogao Cave No. 45A Brief History of Staging the Silk Road JourneysThe staging of the Silk Road journeys abroad began in the late 1970s. Historically, the Silk Road signifies a multiethnic, cosmopolitan frontier, which underwent incessant conflicts between Chinese sovereigns and nomadic peoples (as well as between other groups), but was strongly imbued with the customs and institutions of central China (Duan, Mair, Shi, Sima). In the twentieth century, when China was no longer an empire, but had become what the early 20th-century reformer Liang Qichao (1873–1929) called “a nation among nations,” the long history of the Silk Road and the colourful, legendary journeys abroad became instrumental in the formation of a modern Chinese nation of unified diversity rooted in an ancient cosmopolitan past. The staged Silk Road theme dance-dramas thus participate in this formation of the Chinese imagination of “nation” and “abroad,” as they aestheticise Chinese history and geography. History and geography—aspects commonly considered constituents of a nation as well as our conceptualisations of “abroad”—are “invariably aestheticized to a certain degree” (Bakhtin 208). Diverse historical and cultural elements from along the Silk Road come together in this performance genre, which can be considered the most representative of various possible stagings of the history and culture of the Silk Road journeys.In 1979, the Chinese state officials in Gansu Province commissioned the benchmark dance-drama Rain of Flowers along the Silk Road, a spectacular theatrical dance-drama praising the pure and noble friendship which existed between the peoples of China and other countries in the Tang dynasty (618-907 C.E.). While its plot also revolves around the Dunhuang Caves and the life of a painter, staged at one of the most critical turning points in modern Chinese history, the work as a whole aims to present the state’s intention of re-establishing diplomatic ties with the outside world after the Cultural Revolution. Unlike Dunhuang, My Dreamland, it presents a nation’s journey abroad and home. To accomplish this goal, Rain of Flowers along the Silk Road introduces the fictional character Yunus, a wealthy Persian merchant who provides the audiences a vision of the historical figure of Peroz III, the last Sassanian prince, who after the Arab conquest of Iran in 651 C.E., found refuge in China. By incorporating scenes of ethnic and folk dances, the drama then stages the journey of painter Zhang’s daughter Yingniang to Persia (present-day Iran) and later, Yunus’s journey abroad to the Tang dynasty imperial court as the Persian Empire’s envoy.Rain of Flowers along the Silk Road, since its debut at Beijing’s Great Hall of the People on the first of October 1979 and shortly after at the Theatre La Scala in Milan, has been staged in more than twenty countries and districts, including France, Italy, Japan, Thailand, Russia, Latvia, Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan, and recently, in 2013, at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York.“The Road”: Staging the Journey TodayWithin the contemporary context of global interdependencies, performing arts have been used as strategic devices for social mobilisation and as a means to represent and perform modern national histories and foreign policies (Davis, Rees, Tian, Tuohy, Wong, David Y. H. Wu). The Silk Road has been chosen as the basis for these state-sponsored, extravagantly produced, and internationally staged contemporary dance programs. In 2008, the welcoming ceremony and artistic presentation at the Olympic Games in Beijing featured twenty apsara dancers and a Dunhuang bihua yuewu dancer with long ribbons, whose body was suspended in mid-air on a rectangular LED extension held by hundreds of performers; on the giant LED screen was a depiction of the ancient Silk Road.In March 2013, Chinese president Xi Jinping introduced the initiatives “Silk Road Economic Belt” and “21st Century Maritime Silk Road” during his journeys abroad in Kazakhstan and Indonesia. These initiatives are now referred to as “One Belt, One Road.” The State Council lists in details the policies and implementation plans for this initiative on its official web page, www.gov.cn. In April 2013, the China Institute in New York launched a yearlong celebration, starting with "Dunhuang: Buddhist Art and the Gateway of the Silk Road" with a re-creation of one of the caves and a selection of artifacts from the site. In March 2015, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), China’s top economic planning agency, released a new action plan outlining key details of the “One Belt, One Road” initiative. Xi Jinping has made the program a centrepiece of both his foreign and domestic economic policies. One of the central economic strategies is to promote cultural industry that could enhance trades along the Silk Road.Encouraged by the “One Belt, One Road” policies, in March 2016, The Silk Princess premiered in Xi’an and was staged at the National Centre for the Performing Arts in Beijing the following July. While Dunhuang, My Dreamland and Rain of Flowers along the Silk Road were inspired by the Buddhist art found in Dunhuang, The Silk Princess, based on a story about a princess bringing silk and silkworm-breeding skills to the western regions of China in the Tang Dynasty (618-907) has a different historical origin. The princess's story was portrayed in a woodblock from the Tang Dynasty discovered by Sir Marc Aurel Stein, a British archaeologist during his expedition to Xinjiang (now Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region) in the early 19th century, and in a temple mural discovered during a 2002 Chinese-Japanese expedition in the Dandanwulike region. Figure 5: Poster of The Silk PrincessIn January 2016, the Shannxi Provincial Song and Dance Troupe staged The Silk Road, a new theatrical dance-drama. Unlike Dunhuang, My Dreamland, the newly staged dance-drama “centers around the ‘road’ and the deepening relationship merchants and travellers developed with it as they traveled along its course,” said Director Yang Wei during an interview with the author. According to her, the show uses seven archetypes—a traveler, a guard, a messenger, and so on—to present the stories that took place along this historic route. Unbounded by specific space or time, each of these archetypes embodies the foreign-travel experience of a different group of individuals, in a manner that may well be related to the social actors of globalised culture and of transnationalism today. Figure 6: Poster of The Silk RoadConclusionAs seen in Rain of Flowers along the Silk Road and Dunhuang, My Dreamland, staging the processes of Silk Road journeys has become a way of connecting the Chinese imagination of “home” with the Chinese imagination of “abroad.” Staging a nation’s heritage abroad on contemporary stages invites a new imagination of homeland, borders, and transnationalism. Once aestheticised through staged performances, such as that of the Dunhuang bihua yuewu, the historical and topological landscape of Dunhuang becomes a performed narrative, embodying the national heritage.The staging of Silk Road journeys continues, and is being developed into various forms, from theatrical dance-drama to digital exhibitions such as the Smithsonian’s Pure Land: Inside the Mogao Grottes at Dunhuang (Stromberg) and the Getty’s Cave Temples of Dunhuang: Buddhist Art on China's Silk Road (Sivak and Hood). 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Western notions of authors’ Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs), as expressed within copyright law, maintain a potentially fraught relationship with a range of philosophical and theoretical positions on writing and authorship that have developed within contemporary Western thinking. For Roland Barthes, authorship is compromised, de-identified and multiplied by the very nature of writing: ‘Writing is that neutral, composite, oblique space where our subject slips away, the negative where all identity is lost, starting with the very identity of the body writing’ (142). Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari follow a related line of thought in A Thousand Plateaus: ‘Write, form a rhizome, increase your territory by deterritorialization, extend the line of flight to the point where it becomes an abstract machine covering the entire plane of consistency’ (11). Similarly, in Of Grammatology, Jacques Derrida suggests that ‘Writing is that forgetting of the self, that exteriorization, the contrary of the interiorizing memory’ (24). To the extent that these philosophical and theoretical positions emerge within the practices of creative writers as remixes of appropriation, homage and/or pastiche, prima facie they problematize the commercial rights of writers as outlined in law. The case of Kathy Acker often comes up in such discussions. Acker’s 1984 novel Blood and Guts in High School, for example, incorporates techniques that have attracted the charge of plagiarism as this term is commonly defined. (Peter Wollen notes this in his aptly named essay ‘Death [and Life] of the Author.’) For texts like Acker’s, the comeback against charges of plagiarism usually involves underscoring the quotient of creativity involved in the re-combination or ‘remixing’ of the parts of the original texts. (Pure repetition would, it would seem, be much harder to defend.) ‘Plagiarism’, so-called, was simply one element of Acker’s writing technique; Robert Lort nuances plagiarism as it applies to Acker as ‘pseudo-plagiarism’. According to Wollen, ‘as she always argued, it wasn’t really plagiarism because she was quite open about what she did.’ As we shall demonstrate in more detail later on, however, there is another and, we suggest, more convincing reason why Acker’s work ‘wasn’t really plagiarism.’ This relates to her conscious interest in calligraphy and to her (perhaps unconscious) appropriation of a certain strand of Chinese philosophy. All the same, within the Western context, the consistent enforcement of copyright law guarantees the rights of authors to control the distribution of their own work and thus its monetised value. The author may be ‘dead’ in writing—just the faintest trace of remixed textuality—but he/she is very much ‘alive’ as in recognised at law. The model of the author as free-standing citizen (as a defined legal entity) that copyright law employs is unlikely to be significantly eroded by the textual practices of authors who tarry artistically in the ‘de-authored territories’ mapped by figures like Barthes, Deleuze and Guattari, and Derrida. Crucially, disputes concerning copyright law and the ethics of remix are resolved, within the Western context, at the intersection of relatively autonomous creative and legal domains. In the West, it is seen that these two domains are related within the one social fabric; each nuances the other (as Acker’s example shows in the simultaneity of her legal/commercial status as an author and her artistic practice as a ‘remixer’ of the original works of other authors). Legal and writing issues co-exist even as they fray each other’s boundaries. And in Western countries there is force to the law’s operations. However, the same cannot be said of the situation with respect to copyright law in China. Chinese artists are traditionally regarded as being aloof from mundane legal and commercial matters, with the consequence that the creative and the legal domains tend to ‘miss each other’ within the fabric of Chinese society. To this extent, the efficacy of the law is muted in China when it comes into contact with circumstances of authorship, writing, originality and creativity. (In saying this though, we do not wish to fall into the trap of cultural essentialism: in this article, ‘China’ and ‘The West’ are placeholders for variant cultural tendencies—clustered, perhaps, around China and its disputed territories such as Taiwan on the one hand, and around America on the other—rather than homogeneous national/cultural blocs.) Since China opened its system to Western capitalist economic activity in the 1980s, an ongoing criticism, sourced mainly out of the West, has been that the country lacks proper respect for notions of authorship and, more directly, for authorship’s derivative: copyright law. Tellingly, it took almost ten years of fierce negotiations between elements of the capitalist lobby in China and the Legislative Bureau to make the Seventh National People’s Congress pass the first Copyright Law of the People’s Republic of China on 7 September 1990. A law is one thing though, and adherence to the law is another. Jayanthi Iyengar of Asia Times Online reports that ‘the US government estimates that piracy within China [of all types of products] costs American companies $20-24 billion a year in damages…. If one includes European and Japanese firms, the losses on account of Chinese piracy is in excess of $50 billion annually.’ In 2008, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) reported that more than 99% of all music files in China are pirated. In the same year, Cara Anna wrote in The Seattle Times that, in desperation at the extent of Chinese infringement of its Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs), Microsoft has deployed an anti-piracy tactic that blacks out the screens of computers detected running a fake copy of Windows. The World Trade Organisation (WTO) has filed complaints from many countries against China over IPRs. Iyengar also reports that, under such pressure, the State Intellectual Property Office in Beijing has vowed it will continue to reinforce awareness of IPRs in order to better ensure their protection. Still, from the Western perspective at least, progress on this extremely contentious issue has been excruciatingly slow. Such a situation in respect of Chinese IPRs, however, should not lead to the conclusion that China simply needs to catch up with the more ‘morally advanced’ West. Rather, the problematic relations of the law and of creativity in China allow one to discern, and to trace through ancient Chinese history and philosophy, a different approach to remix that does not come into view so easily within Western countries. Different materialisms of writing and authorship come into play across global space, with different effects. The resistance to both the introduction and the policing of copyright law in China is, we think, the sign of a culture that retains something related to authorship and creativity that Western culture only loosely holds onto. It provides a different way of looking at remix, in the guise of what the West would tend to label plagiarism, as a practice, especially, of creativity. The ‘death’ of the author in China at law (the failure to legislate and/or police his/her rights) brings the author, as we will argue, ‘alive’ in the writing. Remix as anonymous composition (citing Barthes) becomes, in the Chinese example, remix as creative expression of singular feelings—albeit remix set adrift from the law. More concretely, our example of the Chinese writer/writing takes remix to its limit as a practice of repetition without variation—what the West would be likely to call plagiarism. Calligraphy is key to this. Of course, calligraphy is not the full extent of Chinese writing practice—not all writing is calligraphic strictly speaking. But all calligraphy is writing, and in this it influences the ethics of Chinese writing, whether character-based or otherwise, more generally. We will have more to say about the ‘pictorial’ material aspect of Chinese writing later on. In traditional Chinese culture, writing is regarded as a technical practice perfected through reproduction. Chinese calligraphy (visual writing) is learnt through exhaustively tracing and copying the style of the master calligrapher. We are tempted to say that what is at stake in Chinese remix/calligraphy is ‘the difference that cannot be helped:’ that is, the more one tries, as it were, to repeat, the more repetition becomes impossible. In part, this is explained by the interplay of Qing 情 (‘feelings’) and Yun 韵 (‘composed body movements’). Now, the order of the characters—Qing 情 (‘feelings’) before Yun 韵 (‘composed body movements’)—suggests that Qing creates and supports Yun. To this extent, what we have here is something akin to a Western understanding of creative writing (of the creativity of writing) in which individual and singular feelings are given expression in the very movement of the writing itself (through the bodily actions of the writer). In fact though, the Chinese case is more complicated than this, for the apprenticeship model of Chinese calligraphy cultivates a two-way interplay of Qing 情 (‘feelings’) and Yun 韵 (‘composed body movements’). More directly, the ‘composed body movements’ that one learns from the master calligrapher help compose one’s own ‘feelings’. The very repetition of the master’s work (its remixing, as it were…) enables the creativity of the apprentice. If this model of creativity is found somewhat distasteful from a Western perspective (that is, if it is seen to be too restrictive of originality) then that is because such a view, we think, depends upon a cultural misunderstanding that we will try to clear up here. To wit, the so-called Confucian model of rote learning that is more-or-less frowned upon in the West is not, at least not in the debased form that it adopts in Western stereotypes, the philosophy active in the case of Chinese calligraphy. That philosophy is Taoism. As Wing-Tsit Chan elucidates, ‘by opposing Confucian conformity with non-conformity and Confucian worldliness with a transcendental spirit, Taoism is a severe critic of Confucianism’ (136). As we will show in a moment, Chinese calligraphy exemplifies this special kind of Taoist non-conformity (in which, as Philip J. Ivanhoe limns it, ‘one must unweave the social fabric’). Chan again: ‘As the way of life, [Taoism] denotes simplicity, spontaneity, tranquility, weakness, and most important of all, non-action (wu-wei). By the latter is not meant literally “inactivity” but rather “taking no action that is contrary to Nature”—in other words, letting Nature take its own course’ (136). Thus, this is a philosophy of ‘weakness’ that is neither ‘negativism’ nor ‘absolute quietism’ (137). Taoism’s supposed weakness is rather a certain form of strength, of (in the fullest sense) creative possibilities, which comes about through deference to the way of Nature. ‘Hold fast to the great form (Tao), / And all the world will come’ illustrates this aspect of Taoism in its major philosophical tract, The Lao Tzu (Tao-Te Ching) or The Classic of the Way and its Virtue (section 35, Chan 157). The guiding principle is one of deference to the original (way, Nature or Tao) as a strategy of an expression (of self) that goes beyond the original. The Lao Tzu is full of cryptic, metaphoric expressions of this idea: ‘The pursuit of learning is to increase day after day. / The pursuit of Tao is to decrease day after day. / It is to decrease and further decrease until one reaches the point of taking no action. / No action is undertaken, and yet nothing is left undone’ (section 48, Chan 162). Similarly, The female always overcomes the male by tranquility, / And by tranquility she is underneath. / A big state can take over a small state if it places itself below the small state; / And the small state can take over a big state if it places itself below the big state. / Thus some, by placing themselves below, take over (others), / And some, by being (naturally) low, take over (other states) (section 61, Chan 168). In Taoism, it is only by (apparent) weakness and (apparent) in-action that ‘nothing is left undone’ and ‘states’ are taken over. The two-way interplay of Qing 情 (‘feelings’) and Yun 韵 (‘composed body movements’), whereby the apprentice copies the master, aligns with this key element of Taoism. Here is the linkage between calligraphy and Taoism. The master’s work is Tao, Nature or the way: ‘Hold fast to the great form (Tao), / And all the world will come’ (section 35, Chan 157). The apprentice’s calligraphy is ‘all the world’ (‘all the world’ being, ultimately in this context, Qing 情 [‘feelings’]). Indeed, Taoism itself is a subtle philosophy of learning (of apprenticeship to a master), unlike Confucianism, which Chan characterises as a doctrine of ‘social order’ (of servitude to a master) (136). ‘“Learn not learn”’ is how Wang Pi, as quoted by Chan (note 121, 170), understands what he himself (Chan) translates as ‘He learns to be unlearned’ (section 64, 170). In unlearning one learns what cannot be taught: this is, we suggest, a remarkable definition of creativity, which also avoids falling into the trap of asserting a one-to-one equivalence between (unlearnt) originality and creativity, for there is both learning and creativity in this Taoist paradox of pedagogy. On this, Michael Meehan points out that ‘originality is an over-rated and misguided concept in many ways.’ (There is even a sense in which, through its deliberate repetition, The Lao Tzu teaches itself, traces over itself in ‘self-plagiarising’ fashion, as if it were reflecting on the re-tracings of calligraphic pedagogy. Chan notes just how deliberate this is: ‘Since in ancient times books consisted of bamboo or wooden slabs containing some twenty characters each, it was not easy for these sentences… to be added by mistake…. Repetitions are found in more than one place’ [note 102, 166].) Thinking of Kathy Acker too as a learner, Peter Wollen’s observation that she ‘incorporated calligraphy… in her books’ and ‘was deeply committed to [the] avant-garde tradition, a tradition which was much stronger in the visual arts’ creates a highly suggestive connection between Acker’s work and Taoism. The Taoist model for learning calligraphy as, precisely, visual art—in which copying subtends creativity—serves to shift Acker away from a Barthesian or Derridean framework and into a Taoist context in which adherence to another’s form (as ‘un-learnt learning’) creatively unravels so-called plagiarism from the inside. Acker’s conscious interest in calligraphy is shown by its prevalence in Blood and Guts in High School. Edward S. Robinson identifies this text as part of her ‘middle phase’, which ‘saw the introduction of illustrations and diagrams to create multimedia texts with a collage-like feel’ (154). To our knowledge, Acker never critically reflected upon her own calligraphic practices; perhaps if she had, she would have troubled what we see as a blindspot in critics’ interpretations of her work. To wit, whenever calligraphy is mentioned in criticism on Acker, it tends to be deployed merely as an example of her cut-up technique and never analysed for its effects in its own cultural, philosophical and material specificity. (Interestingly, if the words of Chinese photographer Liu Zheng are any guide, the Taoism we’re identifying in calligraphy has also worked its way into other forms of Chinese visual art: she refers to ‘loving photographic details and cameras’ with the very Taoist term, ‘lowly’ 低级 [Three Shadows Photography Art Centre 187].) Being ‘lowly’, ‘feminine’ or ‘underneath’ has power as a radical way of learning. We mentioned above that Taoism is very metaphoric. As the co-writer of this paper Cher Coad recalls from her calligraphy classes, students in China grow up with a metaphoric proverb clearly inspired by Lao Tzu’s Taoist philosophy of learning: ‘Learning shall never stop. Black comes from blue, but is more than the blue.’ ‘Black comes from blue, but is more than the blue.’ What could this mean? Before answering this question with recourse to two Western notions that, we hope, will further effect (building on Acker’s example) a rapprochement between Chinese and Western ways of thinking (be they nationally based or not), we reiterate that the infringement of Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) in China should not be viewed only as an egregious denial of universally accepted law. Rather, whatever else it may be, we see it as the shadow in the commercial realm—mixed through with all the complexities of Chinese tradition, history and cultural difference, and most particularly of the Taoist strand within Confucianism—of the never-quite-perfect copying of calligraphic writing/remixing. More generally, the re-examination of stereotypical assumptions about Chinese culture cues a re-examination of the meaning behind the copying of products and technology in contemporary, industrialised China. So, ‘Black comes from blue, but is more than the blue.’ What is this ‘more than the blue of black’? Or put differently, why is calligraphic writing, as learnt from the master, always infused with the singular feelings of the (apprentice) writer? The work of Deleuze, Guattari and Claire Parnet provides two possible responses. In On the Line, Deleuze and Guattari (and Deleuze in co-authorship with Parnet) author a number of comments that support the conception we are attempting to develop concerning the lines of Chinese calligraphy. A line, Deleuze and Guattari suggest, is always a line of lines (‘Line of chance, line of hips, line of flight’ [57]). In the section of On the Line entitled ‘Politics’, Deleuze and Parnet outline the impossibility of any line being just one line. If life is a line (as it is said, you throw someone a life line), then ‘We have as many entangled lines in our lives as there are in the palm of a hand’ (71). Of any (hypothetical) single line it can be said that other lines emerge: ‘Black comes from blue, but is more than the blue.’ The feelings of the apprentice calligrapher (his/her multiple lines) emerge through the repeated copying of the lines and composed body movements of the master. The Deleuzean notion of repetition takes this idea further. Repetitive Chinese calligraphy clearly indexes what Claire Colebrook refers to as ‘Deleuze’s concept of eternal return. The only thing that is repeated or returns is difference; no two moments of life can be the same. By virtue of the flow of time, any repeated event is necessarily different (even if different only to the extent that it has a predecessor)’ (121). Now, it might be objected that Chinese calligraphic practices, because of the substantially ideographic nature of Chinese writing (see Kristeva 72-81), allow for material mutations that can find no purchase in Western, alphabetical systems of writing. But the materiality of time that Colebrook refers to as part of her engagement with Deleuzean non-repetitious (untimely) repetition guarantees the materiality of all modes of writing. Furthermore, Julia Kristeva notes that, with any form of language, one cannot leave ‘the realm of materialism’ (6) and Adrian Miles, in his article ‘Virtual Actual: Hypertext as Material Writing,’ sees the apparently very ‘unmaterial’ writing of hypertext ‘as an embodied activity that has its own particular affordances and possibilities—its own constraints and local actualisations’ (1-2). Calligraphic repetition of the master’s model creates the apprentice’s feelings as (inevitable) difference. In this then, the learning by the Chinese apprentice of the lines of the master’s calligraphy challenges international (both Western and non-Western) artists of writing to ‘remix remix’ as a matter—as a materialisation—of the line. Not the line as a self-identical entity of writing that only goes to make up writing more generally; rather, lines as a materialisation of lines within lines within lines. More self-reflexively, even the collaborative enterprise of this article, co-authored as it is by a woman of Chinese ethnicity and a white Australian man, suggests a remixing of writing through, beneath and over each other’s lines. Yun 韵 (‘composed body movements’) expresses and maximises Qing 情 (‘feelings’). Taoist ‘un-learnt learning’ generates remix as the singular creativity of the writer. Writers get into a blue with the line—paint it, black. Of course, these ideas won’t and shouldn’t make copyright infringement (or associated legalities) redundant notions. But in exposing the cultural relativisms often buried within the deployment of this and related terms, the idea of lines of lines far exceeds a merely formalistic practice (one cut off from the materialities of culture) and rather suggests a mode of non-repetitious repetition in contact with all of the elements of culture (of history, of society, of politics, of bodies…) wherever these may be found, and whatever their state of becoming. In this way, remix re-creates the depths of culture even as it stirs up its surfaces of writing. References Acker, Kathy. Blood and Guts in High School: A Novel. New York: Grove Press, 1978. Anna, Cara. ‘Microsoft Anti-Piracy Technology Upsets Users in China.’ The Seattle Times. 28 Oct. 2008 ‹http://seattletimes.com/html/businesstechnology/2008321919_webmsftchina28.html›. Barthes, Roland. ‘The Death of the Author.’ Barthes, Roland. Image-Music-Text. London: Fontana Press, 1977. 142-148. Chan, Wing-Tsit. A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy. 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