I am a Chinese in Hong Kong and I love classical music, of course, and occasionally listen to what you called "Chinese" music. I am interesting in your long discussion in Chinese Music. The followings are my opinions: 1. First of all, I have not investigate into either westen or chinese classical music. I only base on my experience in listening music. 2. What types of chinese music, what piece of chinese music have you listened to? Some types of chinese music are ancient music which may have an age of more than 1500 years. The no of pieces of ancient music is limited but they are very popular among Chinese. Most Chinese music we heard today were written by modern composers from Ching Dynasty (just before 1900 to nowadays). 3. I don't think western composer can write music that are similar to chinese ancient music. (Chinese ancient music usually were written for snigle or a couple of musical instruments, not for large orchestra.) 4. To my listening experience, some chinese music written in 1940s to 1960s are very similar to those music written by Tchaikovsky. May be due to the influence of USSR to China during these years. (eg The Butterfly Lover Violin Concerto, Yellow River Piano Concerto compared with Tchaikovsky's violin concerto, for example) I think those Chinese composer had learnt from those Russian composers because at that time, chinese composers could only learnt and listened to Russian's music. Some chinese composers or musicans had studied in USSR at around 40s to 60s.. 5. I have heard from a piano teacher that just playing the black keys on the piano can produce chinese-like music. (You may try. My experience, it is true.) There is possible for western composer occasionally write chinese-like music. (Puccini had listened to Chinese Opera before writing Tuarandot. He had use the melody of Jasmine Flower in this opera. Mahler, I believed he would have research on chinese music before writing "The song of the Earth". 6. Bach or Handel also wrote music in style of German, French and Poland. Beethoven wrote Turkish music. Why not others? 7. It is highly recommended to listen to those CDs labeled Hugo from Hong Kong. The performance and recording are rated as premium. Enjoy listening Lewis, Hong Kong <[log in to unmask]>