New exhibit looks back on popular music in Taiwan

Taipei City Government's Cultural Affairs Bureau yesterday began the exhibition of Museum of Sounds (聲音博物館), one of the Taipei Arts Festival activities, at the 228 Memorial Hall, the Chinese-language media reported yesterday.

The sounds at the show are focused on a variety of music that came into vogue in Taiwan during the past 100 years, the report said. They include Hakka ballads, theatrical songs, Taiwanese pop songs, Japanese music, American and European pop songs, puppet show sound tracks, Mandarin pop songs, classical music, dance music, discs of Aboriginal and patriotic songs, and music used in commercials.

The exhibition will be held from Oct. 14th to Oct. 22th, and these musical archives, records and gramophones are expected to help visitors recall the good old days, the report said.

Lung Ying-tai (龍應台), the bureau's director, delivered a speech at the exhibition's opening ceremony, saying that a visit to the show would be like a journey through "the tunnel of time" -- a means of remembering things past, the report said. In her speech, Lung drew a connection between childhood memories and the show, saying, "In old times, a gramophone was about half the height of a man, and I used to imagine that there was someone hidden inside the machine, making the voices." She added, "A look at these gramophones today brings back my recollections of episodes from childhood."

In other words, to pay a visit to the Museum of Sounds is like a historical review of Taiwan that helps citizens recall their memories from old times, the report said.

Furthermore, a musical archive of Chiang Wen-yeh (江文也), an eminent Taiwanese composer born in the early 20th century, is included in the exhibition.

In fact, this year is a special year for those who have been doing research on Chiang's achievements, as more historical documents have been recovered since last year's 921 earthquake.

Though Chiang's complete musical works reveal his strong sense of identification with China, several songs of the early and late stages in his creative career have drawn upon the themes of nationalism and aboriginal culture in Taiwan as well, the report said.