The Amateur and the Professional in Wuhan’s Park Pop

Horlor, Samuel

Abstract

Singers who present versions of Chinese pop classics at daily shows in the parks of Wuhan make good livings from cash tips offered by supporters in the audience. While this may be reason to think of them as “professional” musicians, they also derive various benefits in their relationships with patrons from insisting on “amateur” status. This chapter considers complexities behind the ideals of the amateur and the professional, revealed not only in the individual economic and ideological circumstances of musicians but also in the constitution of these park performances as wider musical occasions. The shows see a melding of amateur and professional qualities in their organizational ethos and underlying modes of communication and creativity, their spatial and orientational setups, and their integration into a system of overlapping publics. Highlighting this melding serves to challenge certain scholarship on Chinese music inclined to idealize one or other notion.

Citation

Horlor, S. (2023). The Amateur and the Professional in Wuhan’s Park Pop. In J. P. J. Stock, & Y. Hui (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Music in China and the Chinese Diaspora (431-451). New York: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190661960.013.26

• Online Publication Date: Oct 23, 2023
• Publication Date: Oct 23, 2023
• Deposit Date: Nov 14, 2023
• Publicly Available Date: Oct 24, 2025
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Pages: 431-451
• Book Title: The Oxford Handbook of Music in China and the Chinese Diaspora
• Chapter Number: 21
• ISBN: 9780190661960
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190661960.013.26
• Keywords: amateur, professional, Chinese pop, Wuhan, park performances
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1818912