Sounds Of The Silk Road: Musical Instruments Of Asia
By Mitchell Clark
From the cymbals and gongs used by Chinese priests use to invoke deities to the oboes and drums of Turkish weddings, music and its related instruments are an integral part of life throughout Asia.
An exceptional contribution to academic library Multi-Cultural Music History reference collections & supplemental reading lists
Informed and informative, Sounds Of The Silk Road: Musical Instruments Of Asia by Mitchell Clark (Research Fellow, Department of Musical Instruments, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston) focuses upon the diverse musical instruments used in Asia from cultures ranging from the Turkish empire to the Tibetan mountain ranges. Clark draws upon the extensive collections of Asian musical instruments held by Boston's Museum of Fine Arts to illustrate and showcase the beauty, diversity, and application of some fifty instruments that range from sil-stringed zithers and shell trumpets, to double-headed drums made from human sculls and the Javanese gamelan. Superbly enhanced with more than one hundred full color photographs of these often rare and sometimes obscure instruments, Sounds Of The Silk Road introduces the use, history, sounds, playing techniques, decorations, and symbolism of these instruments that were so integral a part of Asian cultures from the warding off of evil spirits to the celebrations of life's milestones including marriages, births, and funerary rites. Accessible organized with each individual chapter dedicated to a particular instrument, Sounds Of The Silk Road is enthusiastically recommended reading for non-specialist general readers with an interest in Asian cultural history, and an exceptional contribution to academic library Multi-Cultural Music History reference collections and supplemental reading lists.
a good book for a good price, unique topic not found in other books
As far as I know, there are no other books out there that cover the musical instruments of asia at a reasonable price. This book has descriptions with color pictures of many of the musical instruments of asia. I was specifically interested in Japanese instruments that I had seen in prints, and I was able to find pictures of all these instruments. If you have an interest in this topic and don't want to pay a lot of money this book is worth getting.
A Beautiful Book of Treasures
Thailand, Burma, and Indonesia are not normally considered when speaking of the Silk Road, and Japan and Korea are regarded as only Eastern extensions to the Chinese hub. However, marine shortcuts around the Indian Ocean to the Near East were historic but more hazardous alternatives to the typical caravan routes across Central Asia; thus, we can give license to the title of this splendid illustrated edition to the exhibit, Sounds of the Silk Road. The couple of illustrated encyclopedias of musical instruments mainly depend on drawings, but this book is of beautiful colored photographs of the instruments within the collection of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, and it includes views of details and historic artistic depictions of the instruments from the various lands. The full history of the evolution, variation, and spread of musical instruments across the Silk Road is yet to be discerned and popularly presented. This book indicates how rich a history it would be; meanwhile, we can appreciate the fine art and craft involved in their design and production. This a wonderful book of treasures that would delight any musician or fan of world music.
