It is impossible to find out when the humanoid society began to have music. Before humans had language, they already knew how to use the pitch, strength, etc. of sounds to express their thoughts and feelings. With the development of human labor, chants to unify the rhythm of labor and shouts to convey information to each other gradually emerged. This is the most primitive prototype of music. When people celebrate harvests and share the fruits of labor, they often beat stone and wooden tools to express their feelings. Joy, joy, this is the prototype of the original musical instrument.

1. The origin legend of stringed instruments

Mercury is the messenger of the gods in Greek mythology. It is said that when he was walking along the Nile River, his feet touched something and it made a beautiful sound. When he picked it up and looked at it, he found that it was the sound made by a dry tendon attached to the inside of an empty turtle shell. Mercury was inspired to invent stringed instruments. Although later generations have verified that there were string instruments before Mercury, it may have been inspired by this.

2. The legend of the origin of wind instruments

Ancient Chinese history records that in the Huangdi era five thousand years ago, there was a musician named Ling Lun who entered the Western Kunhua Bamboos are picked from the mountains to make flutes. At that time, there happened to be five phoenixes flying in the sky, and he made laws according to their sounds. Although this story cannot be completely believed, it can be regarded as a mysterious legend about the origin of wind instruments.

3. Ancient Chinese Music

The first emperor of China, the Yellow Emperor, was the famous king who created the calendar and writing five thousand years ago. At that time, in addition to the aforementioned Ling Lun, there was also a musician named "Fuxi". It is said that Fuxi had the head of a human and the body of a snake. He was conceived in his mother's womb for twelve years. He played a harp with fifty strings. Because the tone was too sad, Huang Di cut off half of the harp and changed it to twenty-five strings.

In addition, in the legend of the Yellow Emperor's era, there was a musician named Shen Nong, who taught people farming and discovered medicine. It was said that he had the head of an ox and the body of a human body. He created the banjo, which is natural if one imagines that music at that time used the pentatonic scale.

Edit this section of 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."

Edit this section of 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 Age, which lasted from 6,700 to 7,000 years ago, our ancestors may have been able to make 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 song form, we can see the "Hou Ren Song" written by the daughter of Tu Shan in "Lu Shi Chun Qiu". 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 around 6000 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.