A Research On Harmony Of Composition By Sang Tong

Under the background of the introduction of western music culture,Chinese composers have been striving to explore ways to combine western multi-tone music techniques and traditional Chinese music elements,since the end of the nineteenth Century.In this times,Sang Tong,while pursuing the national style of music,also showed his interest in applying western modern composing techniques.The purpose of this paper is to study the harmonic techniques used by Chinese composer Sang Tong in his music works from the 1940 s to the early twenty-first Century.Sang Tong created numerous music works which varies in all kinds of themes and contents.In the early stage of his career,he boldly tried the modern western composition techniques in the twentieth Century,which made him the first composer to use atonality to compose music in Chinese music history.Meanwhile,he also created a great deal of musical works with Chinese characteristics.Obviously,Sang Tong’s music works have made a great contribution to the practice and development of the Chinese harmony theory system.Through the analysis of different harmonic techniques in Sang Tong’s works,the author divides his harmonic techniques into three categories: 1.The combination of pentatonic scale and pentatonic synthesis;2.The combination of pentatonic scale and third structural chord;3.The application of modern harmonic technique with atonality factors.The music works of Sang Tong not only enriched the theory system of Chinese harmony,but also expressed the music aesthetics of "the modernization of national music" and "nationalization of modern music".To some extent,it also represented the unremitting efforts of Chinese composers who combined the western multi-tone music techniques and traditional Chinese music elements in their music works.