Diasporic Chinese xianshi musicians: Impact of enculturation and learning on values relating to music and music-making

This qualitative study presents a group of five diasporic Chinese xianshi musicians in Hong Kong as an example, illustrating how they learnt and value their music throughout their lives, and examines the possible link between learning-practices and values. It is hoped that the lesson learnt from these xianshi musicians may alert music educators to the possible far-reaching effects of enculturation and learning-practices on forming an individual's values relating to music and music-making. The data were drawn from semi-structured in-depth interviews, non-participant observations and a trip to the musicians' homeland. It revealed that they value music for aesthetic and personal enjoyment, and for the purposes of bonding and identity building, as well as for building an imagined community. It appears that their musical enculturation (from homeland) and informal learning-practices (from both homeland and Hong Kong) may have contributed to their lifelong devotion to making music and to how they value their music and music-making on both personal and collective levels. Copyright © 2011 Arizona State University.