A comparison using "Wild Dance of the Golden Snake"

Below is the jianpu of the “Wild Dance of the Golden Snake.”

The analysis of the music will be based on the following sound track:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkIVBtbjz1c

Starting from the beginning, string and wind instruments take the melody of the piece with a melody, which is quite similar to how melodies are emphasized in western orchestral music. However, this piece presents a much narrower tessitura and a limited harmony, which does not provide a contrasting timbre that Western music, especially in the Romantic period, embraced.

The soft plucked string instruments serves as pedals to the piece, which may be similar to the role of drums in a Western orchestra. Coincidentally, plucking string instruments is also a widely used technique in Western orchestra known as pizzicato, and is seldom used as a harmony and also a pedal. The use of trill is also very prominent, especially in the wind section, which is similar to Western music.

In some pieces like this one, ignoring the use of percussion and plucked string instruments as a base, all the instruments in a Chinese orchestra play the exact same notes. In a western orchestra, different types of instrument are in charge of playing a different part. For example, the trumpet section has a melodic line that is different from that of the violin section. This allows Western music to create a timbre that is much more contrasting with much more flexibility. Without the separation of parts, this type of Chinese orchestral music is almost free from dissonance, in which Western music embraced starting from the Romantic period.

Therefore, unlike Western orchestral music, Chinese music can be presented in both homophony and monophony.

In this particular piece, it is very hard to tell changes in dynamics, if there were any at all. First, those dynamics are not usually notated in the sheet music, and secondly, the timbre of the Chinese instruments, compared to those of Western instruments, such as a trumpet, is rather soft.

In Western music, composer strive to convey a certain mood, or many moods, by the use of many techniques, one of which being dynamics.The dynamics do not affect Chinese music the way it do to Western music. 

The duration of a piece performed by a Chinese orchestra can be very short compared to those performed by a Western orchestra. While a piece performed by a western orchestra can last for many minutes, Chinese music can last for one, as shown in the video, or even shorter. The form, also, is not as defined. Although a form is still present, Chinese music is not restricted by a format that Western music is.

Some may say that form is almost nonexistent in Chinese music, due to the short length of the music pieces. However, there is a form that most Chinese orchestral music follows. This format of this performance is somewhat similar to that of the binary form in Western music, in which a solo melody is presented, then the orchestra plays, and the solo melody is played again, and the orchestra plays again, so on and so forth.

Based on the recording provided above, there was an introductory section that ended at 0:24. A cadence was present, and then immediately a new motive played. After that, there was a “development” section, in which the entire orchestra was focused on a “call-and-response” with the percussion instruments. This “call-and-response” section temporarily ended at 0:35. The original motive that was presented in the introduction was used again, which ended at 0:53, immediately followed by another “call-and-response” section that is identical to the once before. Finally, the last section started at 1:12. The motive presented in the introductory section was play once again, but this time, sped up and finally ended with a half cadence. 

The difference between the structures of the two is that Western orchestral music almost never ends in a half cadence, as early western composers believe that the final note should always return to tonic. In Chinese music, however, there is no such restriction.