Talk:Oriental riff

message: There are a number of unanswered questions that need to be addressed:
:1.  Who originally wrote this riff?  
:2.  What's its earlier use that we can find?  Currently the earliest PROVEN instance are two popular songs from 1974:  Kung Fu Fighting and Bad Detective.  There must be earlier uses.
:3.  Was this motif originally used in actual Asian music, or is it strictly a product of western orientalism.
-Alecmconroy 23:07, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: This article needs help

message: * If it's ever established that the riff is a purely western invention, the page title should probably be changed to 'Oriental Riff', on the grounds that "Orientalism can refer to the imitation or depiction of aspects of Eastern cultures in the West by writers, designers and artists."  But preserveing the idea that it may in fact have an Asian origin, I'll go with the less-offensive-sounding title. 
* There's be speculation that the riff was from Charlie Chan film, so... I emailed some of the webmasters of Charlie Chan sites, but no luck.  One replies:
:"I have watched all the Charlie Chan films many, many times and cannot recall ever hearing 'The Asian Riff' melody in any of them...I do not think that the Chan films originated the melody.
* Amazingly, the earliest known (to us) usage of the riff is in 1974. However, many many people remember having heard it earlier.  Hopefully we'll find some earlier examples later.
-Alecmconroy 22:05, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I have seen Japanese TV shows that play this tune when they are showing something in China. BillyTFried (talk) 21:35, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: For future reference

message: The Asian Riff is quite old. I've heard it in several '30s cartoons. One of the linked pages states it definitely occurs in 1900-era Tin Pan Alley songs. I've been wondering myself about the stereotypical Indian Riff. You can hear an egregious example of this in Mark Lindsay's (of Paul Revere and The Raiders) hit "Indian Reservation." Anyone know? There should also be a page on that. Twalls 15:24, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You mean the song's bass line, or what?  —Tamfang (talk) 04:10, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The organ part, bass line, and of course the strings. Twalls (talk) 19:43, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: "Indian" Riff?

message: Not a direct copy of the Asian Riff, but clearly very similar. I'm listening to it now. Worth mentioning along with the others? Psyklax 01:08, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Aneka - Japanese Boy 

message: A version of the "riff" occurs on the October 8, 1960 episode of the Lawrence Welk Show (recently rebroadcast on PBS), when the word "Chinatown" occurred in an excerpt from Minnie the Moocher (see http://welknotes.com/showlistings/tributetothebigbands.htm for song listing). AnonMoos (talk) 03:37, 26 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Another occurrence

message: "I watched this cheerleading team win this competition, and it was so racist. First of all, before they even came on, it started with a DUNNA-NUNNA-NAH-NAH-DUN-DUN-DAH gonngggggggg... if you're Asian and you hear that, you know you're f*cked." - Margaret Cho -- 74.58.77.31 (talk) 15:50, 14 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: quote

message: While "Kung Fu Fighting"  is a widely known song, it's hard to find info and clips about prior usages of the riff. I wish it was clearer to me what prior usages were like. If they were riffs that sound the same, were they  also used in a way to evoke oriental imagery to the listener or not? --Bxj (talk) 23:41, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Before "Kung Fu Fighting" 

message: If it ever becomes avalable again, there was a BBC Radio Four documentary about the riff called "Chopsticks at Dawn."  I'm afraid I didn't take notes when I heard it originally and now that I want to reference it , it isn't available.  The program has a page on the BBC website but it doesn't provide much information. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 23:26, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Chopsticks at Dawn 

message: I haven't got time to go through it in detail at the moment, but the post on Metafilter has a large number of links to resources that may be useful in finding reliable sources for this article. It also cites a 2004 academic paper on this ("Chinatown: Whose Chinatown? Defining America's Borders with Musical Orientalism", see here), full citation: 
* 
and Googling for the name of the paper finds lots of other interesting leads to sources on this and related topics.
-- The Anome (talk) 11:39, 29 August 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: ...to the point where I think there's probably enough material for an article on musical orientalism / orientalism in music. -- The Anome (talk) 12:41, 29 August 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Link-filled Metafilter posting, and citation to academic paper 

message: https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/16n5b4l/where_did_the_chinese_jingle_come_from/ 77.124.15.196 (talk) 21:41, 23 September 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  AskHistorians thread about the riff