Resounding Taiwan

This book vibrantly demonstrates how the study of music allows for identification and interpretation of the forces that form Taiwanese society, from politics and policy to reactions to and assertions of such policies. Contributors to this edited volume explore how music shapes life - and life shapes music - in Taiwan, focusing on subjects ranging from musical life under Japanese colonial rule (1895-1945) through to the contemporary creations of Indigenous musicians, popular music performance and production, Christian religious music, traditional ritual music and theatre, conceptions about sound and noise, and garbage truck music's role in reducing household waste. The volume's twelve chapters present diverse approaches to their sounding subjects, some deeply rooted in the methods and concerns explored by Taiwan's first generation of ethnomusicologists. Others employ current social theories. Presenting a window into the cultural lives of the residents of this multicultural, politically contested island, Resounding Taiwan will appeal to students and scholars of musicology and ethnomusicology, anthropology and Asian studies more widely.

Nancy Guy is a Professor of Music at the University of California, San Diego. Her first book, Peking Opera and Politics in Taiwan won the ASCAP Béla Bartók Award for Excellence in Ethnomusicology. Her second book, The Magic of Beverly Sills was named a "Highly Recommended Academic Title" by Choice. Guy's article, "Flowing down Taiwan's Tamsui River: Towards an Ecomusicology of the Environmental Imagination," (2009) is a foundational text in ecomusicology and was awarded the Rulan Chao Pian Publication Prize.

1. Resounding Colonial Taiwan through Historical Recordings: Some Methodological Reflections  2. Voicing Alliance and Refusal in 'Amis Popular Music  3. Highway Nine Musical Stories: Musicking of Taiwanese Aborigines at Home and in the National Concert Hall  4. A Quest for Taiwan Guoyue: Taipei Chinese Orchestra and the Making of Taiwanese Musical Identity  5. Experiencing the "Enchanting Golden Triangle" through Music and Dance in a Yunnan Diasporic Community in Taiwan  6. The Making of Hakka Hymns in Postwar Taiwan: Negotiating Identity Conflicts and Contextualizing Christian Practices  7. Voicing Gender in Pak-koán Theater: Social Contexts and Singing Mechanisms  8. What to Preserve and How to Preserve It: Taiwan's Action Plans for Safeguarding Traditional Performing Arts  9. Noisy Co-Existence: Contestations of Renao and Zaoyin Amidst Taiwan's Noise Control System  10. Listening to Taiwan's Musical Garbage Trucks: Hearing the Slow Violence of Environmental Degradation  11. From the Center of Mandopop to Indie Music Capital? The Conception of "Independence" and the Challenges for Taiwanese Musicians  12. Legacy, Agency, and the Voice(s) of Teresa Teng