Jay Chou and his Chinese Pop Style Essay - 1082 Words

Jay Chou and his Chinese Pop Style Stepping into the new century, a name came into people’s ears in mainland China, Jay Chou. Jay is a famous Taiwan musician, whose songs impact the new generation in the recent twelve years all over the world significantly. From young to old, a lot of people can sing his popular songs, or they can hum, whistle some parts of Jay’s songs at least. According to the official statistics, Jay produced his eleven albums that sold an amazing record of 28746167 copies in ten years, which must attribute this success to his millions of fans (Fung). This paper thus illustrates three arguments, the new Chinese element, or Chou style that Jay creates in his pop songs, the fusion of traditional Chinese instruments and†¦show more content†¦In another song Juhuatai, or Chrysanthemum Stage, Jay even tries the major scale to implement Chinese traditional music style, but it gives a sad and depressed sense to the listeners. People treat the melody to be the soul of pop music as the rhythm of jazz music. Jay coordinates Chinese classic folk music into his Chinese style music, displaying a romantic perception. Far more than it, his use of major scale shows the simulation of Chinese style doesn’t require the pentatonic scale restrictively. But people believe his professional musical skill and the understanding of Chinese folk music are two important facts that contribute to his creative Chinese pop music style, or what is called Chou style. Although Jay is not the first musician to use Chinese traditional instruments in the pop style music, he combines Chinese instruments, such as zheng and pipa, with western piano and violin harmoniously, in some of his works. The sounds of Chinese folk instruments pipa, flute and castanet are easily recognizable from the main melody. Musicians can perform the songs with the same melody and rhythm with different instruments, but timber is usually hard to simulate by another instrument from basic music theory. Therefore, Jay employs traditional Chinese instruments to establish the Chinese pop style in the song. But the Chinese folk instruments are not the only ones used in the performance. The combination of non-western instruments and western violin and piano, makes itShow MoreRelatedThe Development Of Chinese Popular Music And The Legend Pop Star Jay Chou1627 Words   |  7 PagesDevelopment of Chinese Popular Music and the Legend Pop Star-Jay Chou Name: Zichao Lan Instructor: Erica Jones Teaching Assistant: Dhiren Panikker Course Title: Popular Music of the World Date: 7/24 /2015 Introduction When talking about China, people from other countries associate China with the Great Wall, the Terracotta Warriors, the Summer Palace, other landmarks. Chinese music is as an important part of Chinese historyRead MoreMarketing Mistakes and Successes175322 Words   |  702 Pageshe taught at the University of Minnesota and George Washington University. His MBA and Ph.D. are from the University of Minnesota, with a BBA from Drake University. Before coming into academia, he spent thirteen years in retailing with the predecessor of Kmart (S. S. Kresge), JCPenney, and Dayton-Hudson and its Target subsidiary. He held positions in store management, central buying, and merchandise management. His first textbook, Marketing: Management and Social Change, was published in 1972