If you spend a week in Xinjiang, you will hear a great deal of music, and most of it is home-grown. The region's pop tradition developed in the twentieth century out of the classical twelve-muqam repertoire and the folk songs of the oases, and it has been amplified, arranged and recorded in every subsequent decade. What is played in shops, taxis, weddings and concerts today is a mixture: Uyghur-language pop and love songs, Kazakh and Mongolian material from the north, and mainstream Chinese pop, with a strong trade in covers and remixes.
What it sounds like
The characteristic sound puts long-necked lutes, a bowed fiddle, the hammered dulcimer and hand drums into a band with electric guitar, bass, keyboard and drum kit, with the rhythm driven by the flexible, syncopated beat of the region's dance music. Melodies move in the scales and ornaments of the muqam, and the singing is often high, open and ornamented. Traditional instruments still appear on stage alongside amplifiers, and dance is inseparable from the music: at weddings and celebrations people dance, and the dancing is a competitive social skill rather than a spectator event.
Where to hear it
The obvious places are the big song-and-dance productions staged for visitors in Urumqi and Kashgar, which give you the costumes, the dancing and the full ensemble in one evening. Beyond those, the music is everywhere: teahouses where a singer and a small band play to a local crowd, restaurants with live music, karaoke lounges on every commercial street, night markets with a sound system, and the shops, where whatever is currently popular plays on a loop. The most memorable listening is often accidental, in a taxi or over dinner.
Practical notes
Karaoke works the same way as in the rest of China: book a private room by the hour, order drinks and fruit, and sing from a screen. Uyghur-language songs, Chinese pop and English standards are all in the catalogue. Live music generally starts late, around nine or ten, and venues are busy at weekends. If you want recordings to take home, music shops and market stalls sell compact discs and memory cards by the hundreds; check the shop's own recordings rather than buying counterfeit material on the street.
