Chinese Music

Formal historical written records of Chinese music began in the Zhou Dynasty.

Chinese music has mastered the heptatonic scale from a long time ago, but has always preferred the more harmonious pentatonic scale. It focuses on developing music in the pentatonic scale, while focusing on the pursuit of melody and rhythm changes, and despising harmony. role. The development direction of Chinese music is different from that of Western music. Western music gradually developed from the pentatonic scale of ancient Greece to the heptatonic scale to the twelve equal temperament; it developed from monophonic to the use of harmony. So if Western music is like a thick wall, the outline on it is like the melody, and the bricks and stones are like the wall. Even if the outline is straight, as long as there is harmony, it is still a wall, just like some of Handel's works. Chinese music is different. It is like a Chinese painting drawn with lines. If there is no outline (melody), it is not music, but harmony is dispensable. Therefore, Westerners listen to Chinese music "like threads floating in the air", while Chinese people who have never been exposed to Western music feel that Western music is like "mixed noise."

<1>Prehistoric Ancient Music

The ignorant period of Chinese national music predates the ancestor of the Chinese people, Xuanyuan Huangdi, by more than two thousand years. According to the Neolithic Bone Flute Age, which lasted from 6,700 to 7,000 years ago, the ancestors may have been able to bake pottery xuns and dig bone whistles. These primitive musical instruments undoubtedly tell people that humans at that time already had the ability to appreciate music. Ancient music culture is characterized by the combination of song, dance and music according to ancient documents. The so-called music and dance of the Getian clan, "Three people are playing the oxtail, and they are singing eight songs" is the best explanation. At that time, the contents of people's songs, such as "respecting the heavens forever", "strengthening the five grains", and "the best of all animals" reflected the ancestors' understanding of agriculture, animal husbandry and the natural laws of heaven and earth. These primitive music and dances that integrate song, dance and music are also related to the totem worship of primitive clans. For example, the Huangdi clan once used clouds as their totem, and his music and dance were called "Cloud Gate". As for the original form of songs, we can see the "Song of Waiting for People" written by the daughter of Tu Shan in "Lu's Spring and Autumn Annals". The lyrics of this song only include the sentence "waiting for people Xiyi", and only the word "waiting for people" has real meaning. This is the germ of music, a language that has not yet been transformed. The bone flute at the Jiahu site in Wuyang County, Henan Province dates back to about 8,000 BC and is the oldest wind instrument in the world. One of the seven-hole bone flutes was very well preserved. Experts conducted experiments and found that the bone flute could still be used to play music and produce a seven-tone scale. But ancient China basically only used the pentatonic scale.

<2>Ancient Music

In ancient China, "poetry" is indistinguishable, that is, literature and music are closely related. The poems in the Book of Songs, the earliest existing collection of Chinese poetry, were all set to tunes and sung orally by the people. This tradition has continued. For example, the official poetry collection of the Han Dynasty was called "Han Yuefu". Tang poetry and Song lyrics could also be sung at that time. Even today, there are popular musicians composing and singing ancient poems, such as Su Shi's "Shui Tiao Ge Tou" which describes the Mid-Autumn Festival and Li Bai's "Silent Night Thoughts".

Musicians were looked down upon in ancient China, unlike painters, because Chinese painting and calligraphy were closely linked, and painters belonged to the class of literati and officials. In the Song Dynasty, they could even "examine officials by their paintings" (in fact, this was also because of Song Huizong's personal Extreme love for painting). Musicians have a lower status and are just "actors" for the entertainment of the nobles. Li Guinian, a famous singer in the Tang Dynasty, had no political status. People today know him because he often appears in Tang poetry and is praised.

The "literary-official" class in ancient China believed that a cultured person should be proficient in "Qin, chess, calligraphy and painting". The so-called "Qin" is the guqin that has been passed down to this day. However, the guqin could only be enjoyed by scholar-bureaucrats alone and could not be performed to the public. The guqin has a smaller volume and is the only instrument with a higher status.

Summary: The development of ancient Chinese music theory was slow, its status in the "official history" was not high, and no more written information was left. But music, like literature, was a compulsory course for the ancient intellectual class, and undoubtedly played an important role in the daily life of ancient Chinese people; folk music is full of colorful melodies.

<3>Music of the Xia and Shang Dynasties

The Xia and Shang dynasties were a period of slave society. Judging from classical literature records, the music and dance at this time had gradually separated from the unique characteristics of the original clan music and dance, which were more owned by slave owners.

Judging from the content, they gradually left primitive totem worship and turned into odes to those who conquered nature. For example, Xia Yu controlled floods and benefited the people, so the music and dance "Da Xia" appeared to praise Xia Yu. Xia Jie was unruly, but Shang Tang attacked him, so there was a music and dance "The Big Lobster" to praise Shang Tang's attack on Jie. Witchcraft was prevalent in the Shang Dynasty, so Wu (witches) and Jin (wizards) appeared who were specialized in performing sacrifices. They were raised by slave owners and danced and sang during sacrifices. They were the first people to take up music as a profession. Slave owners used music and dance to worship the emperor and ancestors, and at the same time, they used music and dance to indulge in their own enjoyment. After their death, they had to be buried as musicians. This cruel killing system exposed the cruel rule of slave owners on the one hand, and objectively reflected the progress of productivity compared with the primitive era, thus giving music culture the ability to develop rapidly. condition. According to historical records, drums made of crocodile skin were already used in the Xia Dynasty. In the Shang Dynasty, wooden-tuned python-skin drums and bronze drums with double-bird gluttonous patterns have been discovered, as well as well-made stone pans derived from birch plows. Influenced by the Bronze Age, chimes and cymbals also appeared in the Shang Dynasty, most of which were in groups of three. The emergence of various types of percussion instruments reflects the characteristics of the development of percussion instruments in the history of musical instruments. The body-sounding instrument Tao Xun, which began in more than 5,000 BC, has developed from a single tone hole and a two-tone hole to a five-tone hole. It can produce a sequence of twelve semitones. Based on the pronunciation of Tao Xun, it can be inferred that the pentatonic scale, the basis of Chinese national music thinking, appeared in the late Neolithic Age, while the seven-tone scale had appeared at least in the Shang and Yin Dynasties.

<4>Music in the Western Zhou and Eastern Zhou dynasties

The Western Zhou and Eastern Zhou were historical periods in which the slave society was in decline and the feudal social factors were increasing day by day. During the Western Zhou Dynasty, the court first established a complete ritual and music system. Officials with different statuses in the banquet and entertainment are required to have different statuses and dance team formations. Summarizing the epic music and dance of the previous dynasties, we can see the so-called "Six Dynasties of Music and Dance", namely "Yunmen" in the Yellow Emperor's reign, "Xianchi" in the Yao Dynasty, "Shao" in the Shun Dynasty, and "Daxia" in the Yu Dynasty. , "Da Wei" in the Shang Dynasty, and "Da Wu" in the Zhou Dynasty. In the Zhou Dynasty, there was also a system of collecting folk songs to observe customs and observe the sentiments of the people. Due to this, a large number of folk songs have been preserved. After Confucius deleted them in the Spring and Autumn Period, they formed China's first poetry collection - "The Book of Songs". It contains 305 pieces of Yue poems from the beginning of the Western Zhou Dynasty to the middle of the Spring and Autumn Period over 500 years. The best part of "The Book of Songs" is "wind". They are fifteen folk songs that are popular in Henan Province and include several nearby provinces. In addition, there are "Daya", "Xiaoya" created by literati, and epic sacrificial songs "Ode". Based on the analysis of the text that has been handed down, the songs in The Book of Songs can be summarized into ten musical structures. As the climax at the end of the song, it has a special name "Chaos". Before and after the "Book of Songs" was written, the famous patriotic poet Qu Yuan compiled "Nine Songs" based on the sacrificial songs of the Chu region, which has strong characteristics of Chu culture. At this point, two works of different musical styles complement each other.

Folk music life during the Zhou Dynasty involved more than a dozen aspects of social life and was very active. Legend has it that Boya played the harp, and the story of Zhong Ziqi's bosom friend began at this time. This reflects the improvement of performance technology, composition technology and people's appreciation level. When playing the guqin, the guqin player also summed up the psychological feeling of playing "only when you get it from the heart can you apply it to the instrument." The famous singer Qin Qing's singing is recorded to be able to "vibrate the forest trees and contain the flying clouds". There is also the folk singer Han E. After singing, "the lingering sound will last for three days." These are high achievements in vocal technique.

The highly developed musical culture of the Zhou Dynasty can also be represented by the ancient musical instruments unearthed in 1978 from the tomb of Marquis Zeng Yi of the Warring States Period in Suixian County, Hubei Province. This underground music treasure house, which is comparable to the Egyptian pyramids, provided a model for the court ritual and music system at that time. The 124 musical instruments of eight types unearthed here were classified according to the "eight-tone" musical instrument classification of the Zhou Dynasty (gold, stone, There are almost all kinds of musical instruments (silk, bamboo, gourd, earth, leather, wood). Among them, the most important sixty-four chime instruments are arranged in three layers: upper, middle and lower, with a total weight of more than 5,000 kilograms and a total sound range of up to five octaves. Because this set of chimes has the characteristics of two tones in one bell of the Shang and Zhou dynasties, the middle tone area has twelve semitones, which can be rotated in the palace, thus confirming the reliability of the records of the palace in the pre-Qin Dynasty. There are also inscriptions on the tomb bell and Pan musical instruments of Marquis Yi of Zeng, which describe the theories of music among various vassal states, reflecting the high achievements of music and music in the Zhou Dynasty. In the Zhou Dynasty, the theory of the Twelve Laws had been established. The names of the five tones (Gong, Shang, Jiao, Zheng [zhi three tones], and Yu) have also been established.

By this time, people already knew that the pentatonic or heptatonic scales were dominated by palace sounds, and the change in the position of the palace sounds was called the rotation of the palace, so that the effect of modulation could be achieved. Outstanding achievements in legal studies can be found in the "three-point profit and loss method" recorded in "Guanzi-Diyuan Chapter". That is, based on the string length of the Gongyin, add one-third (gain one) to get the pure fourth Zhengyin below the Gongyin; subtract one-third (loss one) from the string length of the Zhengyin, and get the Zhengyin The pure fifth quotient above; continue to calculate the chord length of each note of the pentatonic scale. According to this method, the chord lengths of twelve semitones (twelve temperaments) in the full octave are calculated to form the "three-point gain and loss temperament system". This kind of temperament is formed by natural intervals of fifths, and the sound produced each time is slightly higher than the fifth of the twelve equal temperaments. In this way, the sound produced twelve times cannot reach the higher octave of the starting temperament. The sound caused the so-called "Huang Zhong cannot be restored" and caused inconvenience to the rotation of the palace. But this rhythmic system that fully embodies the melody beauty of single-note music continues to this day.

<5>Music in the Qin and Han Dynasties

"Yuefu" began to appear in the Qin and Han Dynasties. It inherited the Zhou Dynasty's system of collecting folk music, collecting, organizing and changing folk music, and finally achieved a large number of musicians playing at banquets, suburban sacrifices, court greetings and other occasions. These lyrics for singing are called Yuefu poems. Yuefu was later extended to refer to various lyrics that are suitable for music or not. Even some operas and Qiyue are also called Yuefu.

The main song form in the Han Dynasty was Xianghe song. It evolved from the original acapella singing of "one person singing and three people harmonizing" to the "Xianghe Daqu" with silk and bamboo musical instruments accompaniment. It had an important influence on the songs and dances of the time. During the Han Dynasty, drumming music emerged in the northwest frontier. It uses different arrangements of wind instruments and percussion instruments to form a variety of blowing forms, such as horizontal blowing, riding blowing, Huangmen blowing and so on. They were played on horseback or on the march, and were used in military ceremonies, court banquets, and folk entertainment. The folk wind and percussion music that still exists today must have traces of the advocacy of the Han Dynasty. In the Han Dynasty, "Baixi" appeared, which was a program that combined singing, dancing, acrobatics, and sumo wrestling. The achievement of temperament in the Han Dynasty was that Jingfang divided the octave into sixty temperaments using the three-point gain and loss method. Although this theory is meaningless in musical practice, it reflects the subtlety of temperament thinking. Theoretically, the effect of the fifty-three equal law is achieved.

<6>Music in the Three Kingdoms, Two Jins, and Southern and Northern Dynasties

Qing Shang music, which developed from Xiang Hege, received the attention of the Cao Wei regime in the north, and the Qing Shang Administration was established. The war between the two Jin Dynasties caused Qing business music to flow into the south and merged with Wu songs and Western music in the south. During the Northern Wei Dynasty, this kind of Qing Shang music that merged the north and the south returned to the north and became an important type of music spread throughout the country. Since the Han Dynasty, with the smooth development of the Silk Road, songs from the countries in the Western Regions began to spread to the mainland. During the Northern Liang Dynasty, Lu Guang brought Qiuci (now Kuqa, Xinjiang) music to the mainland, which played an important role in the Yan music of the Sui and Tang Dynasties. This shows that at that time, communication between people of all ethnic groups in music had become very popular.

At this time, the guqin, a representative instrument of traditional music culture, became mature. This is mainly reflected in the fact that in the Han Dynasty, a monograph on guqin called "Qin Cao" appeared with explanations of the titles of qin music. Ji Kang, a famous qin player during the Three Kingdoms period, recorded in his book "Qin Cao" that "the jade of Zhongshan is the emblem." This shows that people at that time were already aware of the generation of Hui-bit overtones on the guqin. At that time, a large number of literati qin players appeared one after another, such as Ji Kang, Ruan Ji, etc., and a number of famous pieces such as "Guangling San" ("Nie Zheng Assassins the King of Qin"), "Yilan Cao", "Jiu Kuang" and so on came out.

In the late Southern and Northern Dynasties, a kind of song and dance drama with storyline, characters and costume performances, singing and dancing, as well as singing and orchestral accompaniment was also popular. This is already a small prototype opera.

Important achievements in temperament during this period include Xun Mao's discovery of the "tube correction number" for wind instruments in the Jin Dynasty. In the Southern Song Dynasty, He Chengtian created a new law that is very close to the law of twelve equals by using the method of arithmetic superposition on the three-point profit and loss method. His efforts initially solved the problem that Huang Zhong could not restore the three-point profit and loss law.

<7>Music of the Sui and Tang Dynasties

The Sui and Tang dynasties had unified political power, especially the Tang Dynasty, which had political stability and a prosperous economy. The rulers pursued an open policy and had the courage to absorb outer cities. Culture, coupled with the foundation of the integration of music culture of various ethnic groups that has been nurtured since the Wei and Jin Dynasties, finally sprouted the peak of the all-round development of music art with song and dance music as the main symbol.

The music played at court banquets in the Tang Dynasty was called "Yan music".

The Qibu music and Jiubu music in the Sui and Tang dynasties belong to Yan music. They are folk music of various ethnic groups and some foreign countries. They mainly include Qing Shang music (Han nationality), Xiliang (now Gansu) music, Gaochang (now Turpan) music, Qiuci (now Kuqa) music, Kangguo (now Russia) music. Samarhan) music, Anguo (now Bukhara, Russia) music, Tianzhu (now India) music, Goryeo (now North Korea) music, etc. Among them, Qiuci music and Xiliang music are more important. Yanle is also divided into Zuobuqi and Libuqi performances. According to Bai Juyi's poem "Libuqi", the performance level of Zuobuqi players is higher than that of Libuqi.

The popular song and dance songs of the Tang Dynasty are unique and wonderful works of Yan music. It inherits the tradition of Xianghe Daqu, integrates the essence of music from all ethnic groups in the nine-part music, and forms a structural form of San sequence - middle sequence or beat sequence - break or dance. There are 46 titles of Tang Daqu recorded in "Jiaofang Lu". Among them, "The Dance of Colorful Feathers" is praised by the world for its composition by the famous emperor musician Tang Xuanzong and its elegant style of French music. The famous poet Bai Juyi wrote a vivid poem "Dancing Song of Colorful Feathers" describing the performance of this opera.

The prosperity of music culture in the Tang Dynasty is also reflected in a series of music education institutions, such as Jiaofang, Liyuan, Da Le Department, Advocacy Department, and Liyuan Special Education Garden, which specializes in teaching young children. These institutions use strict performance appraisals to produce batches of talented musicians. Tang poetry, which is regarded as a masterpiece in the history of literature, could be sung to music at that time. At that time, Kabuki took pleasure in being able to sing poems by famous writers; poets also measured their writing skills by how widely their poems became popular after being put into music. In the bands of the Tang Dynasty, the pipa was one of the main instruments. It is almost the same shape as today's pipa. Today's Fujian Nanqu and Japanese pipa still retain some of the characteristics of Tang pipa in form and playing methods.

Influenced by Qiuci music theory, the music theory of eighty-four tones and twenty-eight tones of Yanle appeared in the Tang Dynasty. Cao Rou in the Tang Dynasty also created the Guqin notation method of subtracting character notation, which has been used until modern times.

<8>Music in the Song, Jin and Yuan Dynasties

The development of music culture in the Song, Jin and Yuan Dynasties was marked by the rise of citizen music, which was more in-depth than the music of the Sui and Tang Dynasties development. With the prosperity of the urban commodity economy, amusement parks "Washe" and "Goulan" adapted to the cultural life of the citizen class came into being. In "Washe" and "Goulan", people can hear the singing of art songs such as shouting, pur singing, small singing, singing and singing; they can also see rap music types such as Yaci, Taozhen, Guzici, etc. The palace tunes, as well as the performances of dramas and operas, can be said to be full of excitement and beauty, and a hundred flowers bloom. Among them, the two musical form structures of Maoling and Maangda in singing and earning have a certain influence on the musical structure of later operas and instrumental music. The drum lyrics influenced the drum lyrics of later generations of rap music. Zhugong Diao is a large-scale rap genre that matured during this period. Singing plays an important role.

Inheriting the legacy of the development of tunes and lyrics in the Sui and Tang Dynasties, tune music in the Song Dynasty achieved unprecedented development. This literary genre of singing with long and short sentences can be divided into word card forms such as lead, slow, close, pai, ling and so on. In terms of word-writing techniques, there are already "spreading", "reducing characters", "stealing sounds", etc. Jiang Kui of the Southern Song Dynasty was a famous lyricist and musician who could not only compose lyrics but also compose music based on his lyrics. He has seventeen self-written songs and one qin song "Ancient Resentment" with reduced word notation handed down to the world. Most of these works express the author's concern for the people of the motherland and depict a quiet and desolate artistic conception, such as "Yangzhou Slowness", "Mei Ling of Gexi", "Apricot Blossom Sky Shadow" and so on. The guqin music of the Song Dynasty was pioneered by Guo Chuwang's representative work "Xiaoxiang Shuiyun". The work expresses the author's love for the mountains and rivers of his motherland. In the long history of the development of bowed string instruments, records of "horsetail huqin" appeared in the Song Dynasty.

In the Yuan Dynasty, the emergence of the national musical instrument Sanxian is noteworthy. In music theory, records of Yan music scales appeared in the Song Dynasty. At the same time, early Gongchi notation patterns also appeared in Zhang Yan's "Etymology" and Shen Kuo's "Mengxi Bi Tan". A kind of Gong Chi spectrum popular in modern times was directly derived from this time. The Song Dynasty was also an era when Chinese opera matured. Its symbol is the emergence of Southern Opera in the Southern Song Dynasty. Nan Opera is also known as Wenzhou Zaju and Yongjia Zaju. Its music is rich and natural. Initially, some folk tunes could be sung without the restrictions of palace tunes. Later, when it developed into Qupai style opera music, there was also the form of "collection" that organized several phrases from different Qupai to form a new Qupai. Nan Opera has various singing forms, including solo singing, duet singing, chorus singing, etc. Three kinds of Southern opera scripts handed down from ancient times, such as "Zhang Xie Zhuangyuan" and others, can be found in "Yongle Daqu". The art of drama reached its peak in the Yuan Dynasty, represented by Yuan Zaju.

Yuan Zaju first flourished in the north, then gradually developed to the south and merged with southern opera. The representative playwrights of the Yuan Dynasty include Han Qing, Ma Zhiyuan, Zheng Guangzu, Bai Pu, Wang Shifu and Qiao Jifu, who are known as the Six Great Masters in the world. Typical works include "The Injustice of Dou E" by Guan Hanqing, "Single Sword Club", and "The Romance of the West Chamber" by Wang Shifu. Yuan dramas have a strict structure, that is, each work is composed of four folds (acts) and one wedge (prologue or cutscene). The same palace tune is used within one fold, the rhyme is the same to the end, and one character (mo or dan) is often the lead singer. These rules are sometimes broken. For example, Wang Shifu's "The Romance of the West Chamber" has five volumes and twenty folds. The influence of Yuan dramas on southern operas led to the further maturity of southern operas (called legends in the Yuan and Ming Dynasties). A series of typical plays appeared, such as "Worship the Moon", "Pipa" and so on. These plays have been passed down from generation to generation and are still performed today. At that time, the styles of northern and southern music had been initially established. Northern music was Shenxiong, which was mainly based on heptatonic scale; Southern music was soft and gentle, which was mainly based on pentatonic scale. With the development of opera art in the Yuan Dynasty, the earliest monograph summarizing the theory of opera singing appeared, namely Yan Nanzhi'an's "Singing Theory", while Zhou Deqing's "Zhongyuan Yun Yue" was the earliest rhyme book of northern opera. The language is divided into nineteen rhymes, and the tones of characters are divided into four types: Yinping, Yangping, rising tone and falling tone. This had a great impact on later phonology research and the development of opera and rap music.

<9>Music in the Ming and Qing Dynasties

Because the society of the Ming and Qing Dynasties already had the germination of capitalist economic factors, the citizen class was growing day by day, and the development of music culture was more secular. The folk ditties of the Ming Dynasty were rich in content. Although they were both good and bad, their influence was so widespread that "everyone, regardless of male or female, practiced it". As a result, private collection, editing, and publication of ditties became a common practice, and private editions of everything from folk songs to arias, operas, and piano music were published. For example, "Folk Song" edited by Feng Menglong, the earliest Qin music "Magical Secret Score" edited by Zhu Quan, etc.

In the Ming and Qing Dynasties, rap music was very colorful. Among them, the Tanci from the South, the Drum Ci from the North, as well as Paiziqu, Qinshu, and Taoqing rap music are more important. Suzhou Tanci has the greatest influence among the beautiful southern Tanci. In the Qing Dynasty, three important schools emerged in Suzhou: the desolate and vigorous Chen tune represented by Chen Yuqian; the straightforward and hearty Ma tune represented by Ma Rufei; and the beautiful and gentle Yu tune represented by Yu Xiushan. Later, many new schools spawned. Among the drum poems in the north, Shandong drum is more important, while the wooden drum in Jizhong, Xihe drum and Jingyun drum are more important. The rap of Paizi music includes single strings, Henan major tunes, etc.; the rap of Qinshu includes Shandong Qinshu, Sichuan Yangqin, etc.; the rap of Daoqing includes Zhejiang Daoqing, Shaanxi Daoqing, Hubei Yugu, etc., and some raps of ethnic minorities also appear. The music is like a Mongolian storyteller or the Bai nationality's masterpiece. During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, song and dance music developed greatly among people of all ethnic groups, such as various yangges of the Han people, Deng Mukam of the Uyghur people, Nangma of the Tibetan people, bronze drum dance of the Zhuang people, peacock dance of the Dai people, moon dance of the Yi people, Miao Lusheng dance and so on. Characterized by the spread of vocal tunes, opera music in the Ming and Qing Dynasties reached a new peak of development. The four major tunes in the Ming Dynasty include Haiyan, Yuyao, Yiyang, and Kunshan tunes. Among them, Kunshan tune was reformed by Wei Liangfu and others in Taicang, Jiangsu Province. It has won people's favor because of its delicate and smooth tunes and its pronunciation that pays attention to the beginnings, abdomens, and endings of characters. . Kunshan opera merged with northern and southern operas, forming Kun Opera, which was the crown of opera for a time. The earliest Kun Opera repertoire is "The Story of Huansha" by Chenyu of the Ming Dynasty. Other important repertoires include "The Peony Pavilion" by Xianzu of the Ming Dynasty and "The Palace of Eternal Life" by Hongsheng of the Qing Dynasty. With its flexible and changeable characteristics, Yiyang tune has had an important influence on dialect operas in various places, resulting in an increasing number of small operas in various places, such as various high-pitched operas. At the end of the Ming Dynasty and the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, Bangzi Opera in the north, represented by Shaanxi Xiqin Opera, developed rapidly. It affected Puzhou Bangzi in Shanxi, Tongzhou Bangzi in Shaanxi, Hebei Bangzi, and Henan Bangzi. This high-pitched and bold Bangzi tune has been popular in the northern provinces for a long time. In the late Qing Dynasty, Pihuang tune, composed of two basic tunes, Xipi and Erhuang, took shape in Beijing. From this, Peking Opera had an influence all over the country. During the Ming and Qing Dynasties of Peking Opera, the development of instrumental music was reflected in the emergence of various forms of folk instrumental ensembles. For example, Beijing Zhihua Temple Wind Band, Hebei Blowing Song, Jiangnan Sizhu, Shifan Gong and Drum, etc. Qin music such as "Goose Falling on the Sand" from the Ming Dynasty and "Flowing Water" from the Qing Dynasty, as well as a rich collection of Qin songs such as "Yangguan Sandie" and "Hujie Eighteen Beats" are widely circulated. Pipa music began to appear in the late Yuan and early Ming dynasties, with famous songs such as "Haiqing Naiwan" and "Ambush from Flying Daggers" coming out. In the Qing Dynasty, the earliest "Pipa Score" edited by Hua Qiuping appeared.

At the end of the Ming Dynasty, the famous musicologist Zhu Zaiyu calculated the length ratio between two adjacent temperaments (semitones) of the twelve equal temperaments, accurate to twenty-five digits. This achievement in temperament was the first in the world.

<10>Modern Music

At the end of the 19th century, China was forced to open up its southern coast and began to come into contact with Western music and musical instruments. Guangdong music was the first to absorb Western harmonic methods and create new The musical instruments dulcimer and xylophone developed the music of the orchestra. Today, Guangdong music still has its unique charm and is a relatively successful example of combining Chinese and Western styles.

Church music from 1838 to 1903 (that is, more than sixty years before the rise of the "school music and songs" movement in a narrow sense) also had a huge impact on modern music education in China. After the Opium War, the number of missionaries going to China increased. When Western missionaries preached in China, they often used singing hymns as an auxiliary method, so concepts such as semitones were spread. Modern instrumental folk musicians have created a new stage for the development of Chinese musical instruments. Erhu composer Liu Tianhua has created a large number of erhu solos, such as "Good Night", "Bright Journey", "River Water", etc., and performer Hua Yanjun (Blind A Bing) composed erhu and pipa songs such as "Two Springs Reflect the Moon". Despite the turmoil at that time, Chinese national music has made great progress in both solo and orchestral aspects.

During the New Culture Movement from the 1910s to the 1920s, many Chinese musicians who studied abroad began to play European classical music after returning to China, and they also began to use staff notation to record new works. New symphony orchestras were formed in big cities, mixing European classical music and jazz, which were very popular in concert halls and radios. It reached its heyday in Shanghai in the 1930s.

Although Western instruments and musical methods are used, popular music is still based on the Chinese method, that is, melody is the mainstay and the pentatonic scale is the mainstay, so that it can be loved by the most people. Zhou Xuan was one of the most popular performers at the time and a representative of popular music at the time. The theme songs "Songstress from the End of the World" and "Song of the Four Seasons" she sang for the movie "Street Angel" were extremely popular at the time and were in line with the anti-Japanese sentiment of the people at the time. , known as the "golden voice".

After the founding of the People's Republic of China, in addition to revolutionary songs, Soviet pop songs translated into Chinese were added to popular songs. Symphony troupes began to be established in various places to perform Western classical music and new works by Chinese composers. Eastern European orchestras have performed in China many times, and Chinese orchestras have also participated in many international performances. Chinese musicians have also tried to use Western musical instruments to write music with a Chinese flavor. One of the more successful ones is the violin concerto "Butterfly Lovers", which adopted part of the melody of Yue Opera.

The exchanges with third world countries are also increasing. For this reason, the Oriental Song and Dance Troupe was established, specializing in learning and singing folk songs and music from various ethnic groups in Asia, Africa and Latin America. It has been very popular in China. From then on Music from developing countries began to have an impact on Chinese music. The orchestration and ensemble methods of Chinese ethnic bands have also been basically finalized, and many successful ethnic instrumental symphonies have been produced.

In recent years, China’s national music has begun to receive widespread attention from all over the world. Every Spring Festival, it is invited to hold a Chinese New Year concert at the Golden Hall in Vienna, and the seats are packed.

The campus songs in Taiwan and the singing method pioneered by Teresa Teng in Hong Kong have brought Chinese popular music to a peak, with the unique style and charm of Chinese music. When Teresa Teng held a concert in the United States, she attracted many stages The American stage managers were watching the whole performance backstage, even though they couldn't understand the Chinese lyrics.

10-1. Revolutionary Music

During the Northern Expedition, Chinese musicians cooperated with the revolution and composed a large number of revolutionary songs, which were widely sung among the National Revolutionary Army. Some of them were used Foreign popular song melodies were directly paired with revolutionary lyrics.