The Difference Of Music Taste In China

’Taste’ literally means the characteristics and sentiments one holds, and further refers to the embodiments of internalized choices and preferences. As a cultural symbol, taste represents not only people’s identity, but also the pursuit of life. The ’taste’ and the ’consume’ is complementary, they are mutually reinforcing. People consume (both materially and mentally) in divergent pattern based on the various tastes they have. Meanwhile, the choice of consumption pattern changes with the self-identification, i.e. understanding of the self-identification partially embodied in the tastes. Thus, tastes can be reflected in the consumption, and the pattern of consumption is not independent from one’s life habit as well as his/her life background. One’s taste is best represented in the way he/she spend his/her free time. Therefore, this study examines music appreciation which people spend a lot of time to engage, and emphasize on how music tastes varies in different groups.This study adopts the data from China General Social Survey 2008 (CGSS 2008). This dataset contained 6,000 cases, and after filtered those who did not answer ’how you like or dislike following forms of music’,2,969 valid cases were included in the data analysis. Previous studies conducted in Western society have found that the pattern of personal musical preference based on the social status hierarchy up to down move from omnivorous to univore. I further introduced a new hypothesis of westerness and easterness from the fact of the meet and collision of Chinese traditional and western culture.Tested by factor analysis, multi-regression, and ANOVA, I confirmed the two hypotheses mention above. First of all, higher occupational status, higher level of education and higher self-reported social status are correlated with more tolerance and broader tastes on various forms of music, i.e. elite groups are more omnivorous on musical tastes. Yet the gap of ’univore’ and ’omnivorous’ tastes between lay public and elites is not as wide as what reported in foreign countries. And after ranging the stratification by education and social status, only the highest and lowest groups have statistical significant difference, while people in other groups did not report obvious univore preference. Secondly, people with higher level of education, higher occupational status, and higher social status tend to have higher acceptance of western music; however, all social groups reported similar level of easterness that the proportion of reported’ like traditional music’ all exceeded 50%, although the measurement error of easterness cannot be tested in this study. Thirdly, music taste as a kind of culture, the collision of western and tradition happens in different cohort that elder people prefer traditional Chinese drama and music more, while younger people are more westernized. On musical tastes, the dichotomy of westerness and easterness exists between urban and rural area, although such gap is not as wide as expected. Finally, pop music are prevalent in Chinese music market that the proportions of those who likes pop music among all social groups exceed more than half.