Familiar-Exotic

Cecilia Liu
Music3865
CONTENTS ● Familiar

● Exotic

● The Inbetween
Familiar - Dance of ● A song near and dear to my heart as I grew up
listening to my mother practise it in my home
the Yi People, Wang and in her performances

HuiRan ● The first piece I learned on the Pipa

● Brings me back to memories with my family
● A very well-known and respected piece within
the Chinese community
Exotic - Naked ● Coming into this assignment, it was difficult for
me to find a piece that I deemed exotic
Spirit, Sainkho ○ How can we know what we don’t know?

● As I often associate pieces of music when

memories and context, I tried to listen to this
piece in places I was already familiar with to
bring it closer to myself and my musical identity
○ I played it in my home, on campus, and while
studying

● Although this piece uses musical elements that

are familiar to me (ex. The pentatonic scale),
the overall melody and tone quality of it is quite
modern and different than the music I typically
listen to
Exotic - Naked ● I would describe this piece as very euphorical in
nature
Spirit, Sainkho ● It is different than music that I typically listen to
as even though the voice is used, there are no
lyrics
● There is an interesting call-and-answer element
to this piece where the accompanying
instrument answers the call by repeating the
melody of the voice
The Inbetween ● Although to me, these two pieces are very
different in nature, there are similarities that
bring them closer together in my eyes
● They both utilize the pentatonic scale that is
popular in East-Asian music
● They both use the repetition of melodies,
effectively portraying a call-and-answer element
to the piece
● They both contain the use of quarter-tones,
which is an unfamiliar concept in most Western
classical music.