How to translate the word “composer”properly into Chinese? This is a controversial question for a long time. Incommon sense of Chinese people, the translation of the word “composer” toChinese is “a music writer”. However, I don’t think this is a propertranslation. According to this translation, both Beethoven and Lady Gaga couldbe defined as composers. However, Beethoven and Lady Gaga write music incompletely different ways. First, Beethoven creates every single note of hismusic on his own, while Lady Gaga simply create the melodies and lyrics of hersongs and other members in her group creates other elements of her songs suchas accompaniments and harmony. Second, Beethoven use many advanced professionaltechniques such as counterpoint, orchestration and musical form to manipulategreat many musical elements to huge movements so that his music is great inlength, depth and complexity and only professional musicians can perform hispieces. In contrast, Lady Gaga just creates simple 2-part short songs withoutcomplex skills and nearly everyone can sing these songs. Because of thesedifferences, most English-speaking people know that the word “composer” couldnot be used to define both Beethoven and Lady Gaga. They never say that musicwriters such as Lady Gaga are “composers”, but they will definitely say thatBeethoven-like music writers are “composers”. So what is the definition of a“composer”?
In music field, a composer refers to amusic writer who uses professional and complex crafts of musical compositionsuch as (but not limited to) harmonics, polyphonic counterpoint, orchestration,and musical form to create every single part of music on his own. The conceptof a “composer” is so specific that a person who writes classical music or jazzcan be a composer but a musician like Lady Gaga cannot be. (Instead, LadyGaga-like musicians are called “songwriters”.) I cannot find a concise Chineseword to translate the word “composer” properly. What’s more, the improperChinese translation has been confusing the concept of “composers” with otherconcepts such as “songwriters” till now and led to several negative effects.
Nie’er, a highly achieved Chinesesongwriter, wrote a great many popular songs including the national anthem ofthe People's Republic of China. Chinese people have been admiring him fordecades and the government refers him as a national-famed composer. Thisbehavior does more harm than good. First, because of Nie’er’s huge influence,Chinese people and government always consider other Nie’er-like famous talentsongwriters such as He Luting and Gu Jianfen as composers and hardly knowanything about real professional composers in China such as Wang Xilin and ZhaoJiping. This ignorance also leads to the ignorance of western classicalcomposers. Second, because of ignorance by the public and government, realprofessional composers are more socially disadvantaged than songwriters inChina. These real composers even have very few opportunities to publish theirworks because they were considered unimportant. In my opinion such condition isone of the reasons why most Chinese people are ignorant of complex music,especially classical music. They do not know who write complex music andhumiliated them involuntarily. Third, most Chinese people always think that asong is definitely completed by a songwriter (they think he or she is acomposer) independently so that they ignored song producers and accompaniesbehind a song writer. For example, most Chinese people think that the nationalanthem of the People's Republic of China was completed solely by Nie’er, butactually the harmony and orchestration accompany was completed by Professor YaoJinxian. Unfortunately, few people know this truth. Even the official copy ofthe national anthem does not write on Professor Yao’s name.
Based on the analysis and examples above, Iannounce that the word “composer” cannot be translated as simply as we Chinesepeople do now. This word is rooted from unique European tradition of classicalmusic. If we want to transplant it to China, we should let it underconsideration.
In music field, a composer refers to amusic writer who uses professional and complex crafts of musical compositionsuch as (but not limited to) harmonics, polyphonic counterpoint, orchestration,and musical form to create every single part of music on his own. The conceptof a “composer” is so specific that a person who writes classical music or jazzcan be a composer but a musician like Lady Gaga cannot be. (Instead, LadyGaga-like musicians are called “songwriters”.) I cannot find a concise Chineseword to translate the word “composer” properly. What’s more, the improperChinese translation has been confusing the concept of “composers” with otherconcepts such as “songwriters” till now and led to several negative effects.
Nie’er, a highly achieved Chinesesongwriter, wrote a great many popular songs including the national anthem ofthe People's Republic of China. Chinese people have been admiring him fordecades and the government refers him as a national-famed composer. Thisbehavior does more harm than good. First, because of Nie’er’s huge influence,Chinese people and government always consider other Nie’er-like famous talentsongwriters such as He Luting and Gu Jianfen as composers and hardly knowanything about real professional composers in China such as Wang Xilin and ZhaoJiping. This ignorance also leads to the ignorance of western classicalcomposers. Second, because of ignorance by the public and government, realprofessional composers are more socially disadvantaged than songwriters inChina. These real composers even have very few opportunities to publish theirworks because they were considered unimportant. In my opinion such condition isone of the reasons why most Chinese people are ignorant of complex music,especially classical music. They do not know who write complex music andhumiliated them involuntarily. Third, most Chinese people always think that asong is definitely completed by a songwriter (they think he or she is acomposer) independently so that they ignored song producers and accompaniesbehind a song writer. For example, most Chinese people think that the nationalanthem of the People's Republic of China was completed solely by Nie’er, butactually the harmony and orchestration accompany was completed by Professor YaoJinxian. Unfortunately, few people know this truth. Even the official copy ofthe national anthem does not write on Professor Yao’s name.
Based on the analysis and examples above, Iannounce that the word “composer” cannot be translated as simply as we Chinesepeople do now. This word is rooted from unique European tradition of classicalmusic. If we want to transplant it to China, we should let it underconsideration.
