Description
The integration of China’s oceanic routes into global music history pedagogy offers a compelling framework to illuminate transregional cultural exchanges and their musical legacies. This paper investigates the Maritime Silk Road’s role in fostering dynamic interactions between China, Southeast Asia, South Asia, and beyond, highlighting how these connections enriched global musical traditions. China’s maritime networks served as conduits for the dissemination of instruments, scales, and genres that shaped musical landscapes across continents. For example, Nanyin—a traditional musical form from Quanzhou—illuminates how port cities acted as hubs of cultural synthesis. Nanyin’s preservation and transmission through Chinese diasporic communities demonstrate the enduring influence of maritime trade on musical heritage. Furthermore, the exchange of metallophone instruments, pentatonic scales, and rhythmic patterns between China and Southeast Asia underscores the transregional nature of these interactions.
This pedagogical framework emphasizes how oceanic routes can serve as lenses to analyze the global flow of musical ideas, transcending conventional geographic boundaries. Incorporating archaeological discoveries, ethnographic studies, and historical artifacts into music curricula can enrich students’ understanding of cultural hybridity and connectivity. Additionally, the paper argues for integrating Southeast Asian perspectives into the narrative, highlighting mutual influences rather than one-directional diffusion.
By situating China’s maritime history within a global music context, this approach not only broadens the scope of music history pedagogy but also fosters a more nuanced appreciation of cultural diversity and interconnectedness. The proposed framework aims to inspire educators to reimagine music history as a shared global narrative shaped by dynamic exchanges across oceanic routes.
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