Compositional Analysis On Piano Suite Eight Memories In Watercolor Of Tan Dun

Tan dun is one of the most famous Chinese-American composers, who hasbeen active in the music world in recent years. His rich music interests, variedmusic styles and profound cultural connotation have gain him internationalreputation. With striking oriental culture and spirit of the times, Tan dun’s worksembody his profound culture attainment and superb talent of music creation. Onthe path of the musical creation of Tan dun, it is Xiang-Chu culture, Chinesetraditional music culture, western classical music culture and modern compositiontechniques that have a significant influence on the formation of his creative styleand ideology. And Eight Memories in Watercolor is a typical example.The piano suite Eight Memories in Watercolor is an outstanding piano workwhich perfectly combines the Chinese traditional music culture and westernmodern composition techniques. As one of the works of his early stage ofprofessional music creation, this suite laid a solid foundation of the formation forhis creative style and ideology later.To dig out the artistic values of this work, this thesis aims to studycomposition techniques and cultural connotation represented in this work by Tandun, a thorough analysis is conducted in creation background, analysis of thebody shape, the elements of traditional music, creative thinking and culturalconnotation embodied in the title and content of this suite. Specifically, theanalysis of the body shape focus on musical structure, harmony and polyphony,and the analysis of elements of traditional music on the references to folk tunesand acoustics imitation of folk instruments.