What is the meter of the selection and how is it established? ...

[sarasara]

What is the meter of the selection and how is it established? What significant changes do you hear in the time characteristics and how do these changes relate to the overall form of the selection?
 
  What will be an ideal response?

Question 2

What is heterophony? How is it achieved in Song of Happiness?
 
  What will be an ideal response?

[scikid]

Answer to Question 1

 The meter is duple and established in the percussion part (from the tick of a woodblock and the tock from a clapper).
 The tempo (speed of the pulse) increases as each excerpt is played from slowly, to moderately to quickly. This creates a suite or cyclic form from slow expanded tunes to fast compressed versions of the same tune (This is a common technique in Chinese ensemble music.)
28. What performance practices encourage improvisation and flexibility in this music?
 There is variation during performancethe surface details of the music are not entirely fixed, with room still for spontaneous ornamentation and interplay with other musicians . . .
 Music notation is used when learning the music, but not in performance; thus increasing flexibility
 Performance is very much part of a wider social event, not a rendition to a paying audience.
Contemporary Instrumental Ensemble Music: beiguan music from Northern Taiwan

Answer to Question 2

 Heterophony is the simultaneous sounding of different versions of the same melody.
 In the example of Jiangnan sizhu each musician plays the same tune at once in a version specific to his or her instrument. The dizi can be heard clearly, as can some plucked and bowed strings.