Thanks to a series of case studies ranging from classical music(Giacomo Puccini's Turandot), to Modernist avant-garde (John Cage,Giacinto Scelsi),and contemporary popular music (John Zorn's Naked City, protest singer-songwriter Cui Jian, underground performer Yan Jun, techno producer Tzusing), investigated through literature review and textual analysis, as well as interviews (author and musical entrepreneur Sean White alias Zhang Changxiao), the paper aims at addressing the perception of Chinese music and its influence in Western cultures, with particular regard to the Italian context.At least four main discoursive tropes can be found: “blurriness”“derivation”“extremeness", and “technique”.