At this time of year I like to rearrange the deckchairs on the Titanic by organising some of my more notable posts from the past year under particular themes. As ever, many belong under multiple tags, so below I make some whimsical choices.

Keeping company with my film on the Li family Daoists, most important is my *new film* on the 1995 New Year’s rituals in Gaoluo (Chinese review here). It also prompted me to devise a new Menu, and even a YouTube channel (with playlists reflecting my diverse tastes as well as my own films). For now I still resign myself to Twitter, but I’m posting on BlueSky too, so let’s all migrate there!

• Homages to the genius of three friends who greatly inspired me:
  • Bernard Lortat-Jacob at 80
  • In memory of Nicolas Robertson
  • In memoriam Klaus Voswinckel

China:

• • China Unofficial Archives
  • Precious scrolls: some background
  • Narrative-singing in Chinese society: a roundup
  • Qiao Jianzhong: Chinese folk music studies since the reform era
  • In memory of Du Yaxiong
  • Chinese notation: a new anthology
  • Writing in the air
  • The changing ritual scene of Xiongxian
  • Ritual life around Xi’an: an update
  • My work on Gaoluo: recent Chinese attention
  • Chinese folk religion: “belief”
  • A Miao Christian community in Yunnan
  • The Ghost festival
  • A blind bard in Hong Kong
  • Daoist temples in California, 1849–1920
  • Fujian: instrumental groups as a gateway to the study of ritual
  • Folk ritual of Tianjin, and its soundscapes
  • Hunan: ritual and expressive cultures
  • Henan: folk instrumental traditions
  • A Buddhist centre in Peckham
  • Yanggao: a distant Daoist connection
  • The Chinese shawm: changing rural and urban images
  • The language of dropping out
  • Images of Zen
  • Daoism, society, and women in the Tang
  • More Chinese crime fiction
  • A film on the qin zither
  • Chinese espresso

• Under TUT (Tibet, Uyghur, Taiwan):
  • Music-ritual cultures of Taiwan
  • Daoist ritual in north Taiwan: an ethnography
  • Tibetan resistance to Heritage fever
  • Tibet: ritual singing in an Amdo community

• World music, general themes:
  • The hidden musicians
  • Old and new musics
  • The sound of early singing
  • On “learning the wrong music”
  • The male dominance of public performing
  • Ways of playing the violin
  • Cem Mansur and Western Art Music in Turkey
  • Java to jazz

• World music, regional topics:
  • • Folk cultures of Europe (mini-series inspired by Euro 24!)
    • Portugal: folk traditions
    • America over the water
    • Pibroch
    • Sarangi site updated!
    • We are Lady Parts
    • Voice of Baceprot
    • Bella ciao
  

  
• West/Central Asia (roundup):
  • • Dinner of herbs
    • Following Miss Bell
    • A bijou mosque in Kuzguncuk
    • Blindman Ali of Kuzguncuk
    • Sherlock Holmes and Ottoman Istanbul
    • “Alevi music” in Turkey
    • Central Asia: shashmoqom at SOAS
    • Chamber music of Iran 2
    • Art music of Iran 3
    • Soundscapes of Dunhuang
    • More Silk Road soundscapes

  

• Jazz (roundup):
  • Billie Holiday, a sequel
  • Nina Simone
  • Django Bates
  • Kali Malone
  • Words (the Real Group!)
  • Got my mojo working
  • Yazz Ahmed at the LJF
  • Jazz Club on the Fast Show

• WAM (see main Menu, and under The art of conducting):
  • Selected readings
  • Perfect pitch
  • More Mahler (roundup):
    • Maestro: Bernstein and Mahler
    • Another Mahler 6!
    • Mahler 3 with MTT
    • Mahler 2 with MTT
  • A German Requiem
  • Berlioz: a love scene
  • A radiant Mozart Andante!
  • In memory of Seiji Ozawa
  • More musical chinoiserie
  • Zen in the art of the baroque lute
  • Adding to Proms series:
    • Another Turangalîla!
    • French music
    • Mahler, Brahms, Schoenberg
    • Zemlinsky and Schoenberg
    • Bach from Japan

• Language, drôlerie:
  • Some global idioms
  • Dabbling in Turkish
  • Some German tongue-twisters
  • The idiot’s apostrophe
  • Buttering parsnips
  • Palaver, Kerfuffle, and Faff
  • Yet more drumming
  • Another fine riposte

  • 

• Modern Europe:
  • Empireland
  • Bloody foreigners
  • Football in Stalinist Albania

• Film, fiction, sport:
  • Barbie
  • Green book
  • Drunken angel
  • The Turkish detective
  • Madonna in a fur coat
  • The purgatory of the tennis circuit
  • Some niche Olympic sports
  • Curse of the Ninth.

You can find any posts I’ve neglected in the monthly Archive as you scroll waaay down in the sidebar. All this suggests that it would be a sensible New Year’s resolution for me to burden you with fewer of these ramblings—but first I plan a major series inspired by the Gaoluo film…