Chinese traditional music was formed and developed through the exchange and integration of Central Plains music, Four Regions music and foreign music centered in the Dian River Basin. Therefore, it can be said that Central Plains music, music from the four regions, and foreign music are the three major sources of Chinese traditional music.

Central Plains music refers to music developed around the Yellow River Basin. In the long historical development process, the music culture of the Yellow River Basin, with the Han nationality as the main body, was formed. Among them, the music culture of the Yin, Shang and Western Zhou dynasties is of representative significance. In addition to the development and arrangement of music and dance and other kinds of music and dance in the Six Dynasties, the stratification and hierarchization of the ritual and music system, the establishment of the Dasi music organization, the application of the law of profit and loss, etc., have an important impact on the entire generation, especially in the The emergence of "qin" (lyre) and its music in the "eight-tone" musical instrument classification established the basic model of Chinese traditional musical instruments and instrumental music.

The music of the four regions refers to the music culture of all ethnic groups in China, except for the music culture of the Yellow River Basin, which was mainly created by the Chinese people in the Central Plains. Among them, the Yangtze River Basin, Pearl River Basin and other areas are the cultural birthplace of the Chinese nation, together with the Yellow River Basin. The music culture of the Chu culture in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River is colorful and unique. Together with the music of the Central Plains, it is an example of ancient Chinese traditional music. They reflect each other, compete with each other, blend with each other, and then derive and develop. The Cantonese culture in the Pearl River Basin, the music culture of the ethnic minorities in the southwest, the role of the northwest as the ancient Silk Road in the spread and integration of music culture in many places, and the music culture of the ethnic minorities in the northeast all contributed to the formation and development of traditional Chinese music. development has made important contributions. Among them, in terms of musical instruments, as a representative example of the integration of Han music culture and ethnic minority music culture, various stringed instruments from Xiqin to Huqin can be cited.

The exchanges between Chinese music and Chinese music have a long history. According to the "Biography of Emperor Mu", it is said that in the early Western Zhou Dynasty, King Mu of Zhou once brought a large-scale band to various Western countries to perform and conduct music exchanges. Later, in the Han Dynasty, along with the introduction of Buddhism, Hindu music and Indian music were also introduced into China; during the Sui and Tang Dynasties, a large amount of foreign music was imported, not only bringing foreign music, but also introducing musical instruments, rhythms, and scales. The pipa was introduced to China as a foreign musical instrument and was later transformed into a traditional Chinese musical instrument, which is quite representative.

Three periods of the development of Chinese folk music

1. The formation period of Chinese traditional music (about 21st century BC to 3rd century AD)

This period includes From Xia, Shang, and Western Zhou Dynasties to the Spring and Autumn Period, Warring States Period, and Han Dynasty. In terms of music genre, it has experienced the evolution from primitive music and dance to palace music and dance. In terms of melody tone and scale form, it has gone through the process from the original period music that emphasized the minor third interval to the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods that emphasized the upper and lower major thirds of Gong, Shang, Zheng, and Yu. The "three-point profit and loss method" generates five tones, seven tones, and twelve tones, and initially establishes the pentatonic characteristics of traditional Chinese music melody. In terms of music aesthetics, the debates between hundreds of schools of thought in the pre-Qin period established the theoretical endpoints of various theories in the future. During this period, the most representative musical art form was the bell and drum band.

2. The New Sound Period of Chinese Traditional Music (about the 4th century to the 10th century AD)

This period includes the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties to the Sui and Tang Dynasties. The political turmoil during the Wei, Jin, and Southern and Northern Dynasties, as well as the migration of northern people to the south and the inward migration of ethnic minorities, constituted an impact on traditional Chinese music: First, the impact of metaphysics on Confucianism caused changes in musical thought; second, the impact of ethnic minority music and foreign countries The introduction of music introduced new factors in terms of instruments, rhythms, compositions and music theory. The result of its impact was to change China's traditional music and create a new generation of music internationalization. On the one hand, it is the Chineseization of world music, including the Chineseization of foreign music, the use of foreign instruments, the introduction of foreign tunes, the nationalization of foreign bands, and the contributions made by foreign musicians to the development of Chinese music. On the other hand, it is the globalization of Chinese music, that is, Chinese music has exerted an important influence on many countries in the world (especially bad countries, such as North Korea, Japan, etc.) with its brilliant achievements.

3. The period of compilation of traditional Chinese music (approximately 10th century to 19th century AD)

Including Liao, Song, Jin, Ming and Qing.

Its political sacrifice is: from chaos and division to relative unity, and from the North-South confrontation to the establishment of a unified multi-ethnic state regime, and its relative stability for a long period of time. Music culture has secular and social characteristics. The so-called secularity means maintaining a close relationship with the ordinary civilian class. The traditional music of this period has a broader social foundation in terms of performers, audiences, and audience members. In terms of music theory, it shows a tendency to inherit and clean up the previous period. The characteristics of music form have gradually been stereotyped by Zhao Yuning. Its representative music art form is the art of opera and its music. This art form is inherited from previous generations and inherited from later generations, and has widely absorbed new achievements in contemporary music, becoming a musical treasure house that combines ancient and modern music. Traditional Chinese dance was produced in a special era and environment, so its ritual characteristics are very obvious. Dance art later became a highly aesthetic appreciation art, with entertainment, aesthetics and other artistic characteristics. However, these characteristics are from the earliest existence of dance. Gradually derived from the ritual nature.

1. Traditional Chinese dance mostly originated from the needs of ancestors’ witchcraft and religious rituals

From the perspective of the emergence of dance, it was produced to meet the needs of witchcraft and primitive religious rituals. . This can be understood from the original meaning of "dance". In early oracle bone inscriptions, the shapes of "wu" and "witch" are very similar. In early society, "dance" and "witchcraft" referred to the same thing, that is, the witchcraft rituals of witches and wizards and the gestures of wizards when praying to gods. Later, "dance" was used to refer to the posture of wizards, and "witch" was used to refer to people such as wizards, and their meanings gradually separated. It can be seen that this posture is the original form of "dance". Although the gesture of "dance" is separated from the word "witchcraft", early dance actually directly served witchcraft activities. Some traces of this can be seen from the relationship between the two characters "wu" and "雩". There is a record in the oracle bone inscriptions that "Xinsi Bu Binhu danced and it rained". This is actually a record of a sacrificial event to pray for rain, which included the ritual act of dancing. "Shuowen Jiezi" explains "雳" and says: "雳 means offering sacrifices to the Red Emperor in the summer to pray for sweet rain. From the rain, Yu Sheng. 雳 means feather dancing." Therefore, the first meaning of "wu" is "tong" "Yu" refers to the "feather dance" in the witchcraft ritual of praying for rain. "Zhou Li·Chun Guan·Musician" says: "All dances include plucking dance, feather dance, royal dance, 旄 dance, dry dance and human dance." This is the so-called six small dances of the Zhou Dynasty. These dances are all ritual dances in the Zhou Dynasty sacrificial activities. "Zhou Guan Dancer" contains: "Teach the military dance, and the handsome dance is a sacrifice to the mountains and rivers; teach the bat dance, and the handsome dance is to worship the cherry blossoms in the community; teach the feather dance, and the handsome dance is to worship in all directions; teach the pope dance, a handsome dance "Wuhanda thing." Both Yu dance and Huang dance are ritual dances for worshiping and praying for rain. Later "Yong Wu", "Zou Wu", "Dragon Dance", etc. are all witchcraft ritual dances used in drought sacrifices to pray for rain. Among them, "Dragon Dance" is still popular today.

Many of the early Chinese music and dance pictures discovered by archeology have a strong religious color and witchcraft nature, and are records of the witchcraft ritual activities of the ancestors. For example, the dance patterns on the painted pottery basins unearthed from Shangsunjiazhai in Datong County, Qinghai, the original rock paintings at Langshan Mountain in Inner Mongolia, the original rock paintings at Heishan in Jiayuguan, Gansu Province, and the dance scenes in the original murals on Huashan Cliff in Guangxi all have strong witchcraft properties and rituals according to expert research. feature.

Why did early Chinese dance have such obvious ritual features? In fact, this has something to do with the social function of dance at that time. Early dance originated from the witchcraft totem activities of early ancestors. It was a part of witchcraft ritual activities and a product of witchcraft totem culture. It must have the cultural attributes of witchcraft. From the early days of dance, its direct function was to achieve its witchcraft purposes such as communicating with humans and gods, praying for blessings and avoiding disasters, and achieving a good harvest.

In this sense, it can be said that functionality and ritual are the first attributes of early dance. The entertainment of dance is derived from the purpose of entertaining the gods in witchcraft activities, from entertaining the gods to entertaining people. Then to self-entertainment, they are several important stages in the development of dance. Although later dances may not have been used for sacrifices, the ritual traditions that have existed since the birth of Chinese dance have been accumulated and have penetrated into the movements, structures, and unique lyrical methods of dance.

2. Traditional Chinese dance is used in various ceremonial scenes

From the perspective of performance occasions, traditional Chinese dance is mostly used in various ceremonial situations. There are certain ritual contents, ranging from national sacrifices, court meetings, battles, celebrations, royal replacements, to weddings and funerals, visits, sowing and harvesting, etc. To sum up, it can be roughly divided into social rituals, religious rituals, productive rituals, life growth rituals, etc.

In ancient China, palace dances were divided into elegant dances and miscellaneous dances based on the use occasions and social functions of the dances. Ya dance was the most important dance in the courts of subsequent dynasties. Although emperors of each generation made their own dances with different names to show that they did not copy each other, only the lyrics were changed but the dance music remained unchanged. The ritual function has not changed. As the saying goes, "Since the Zhou Dynasty, only the words have been changed, but the dancers have not changed." This part of the dance is used on national sacrificial occasions and obviously has strong ritual characteristics.

The ritualistic characteristics of miscellaneous dance can be seen in the "Collection of Yuefu Poems". The book records in detail the flow of folk folk dances into the palace from the Western Zhou Dynasty to the Sui and Tang Dynasties, as well as their participation in important gatherings such as palace banquets. Historical facts of the occasion performance. It can be seen that in ancient Chinese traditional dances, although some dances did not directly serve witchcraft and national sacrificial activities from their origin, they were often used by rulers to perform in other ritual activities as an important part of ritual activities. part, thus giving it a strong ritual character.

Traditional dances that did not enter the court were spread among the people. Judging from its performances, most of them are performed at major festivals. Such as the Spring Festival, March 3rd, Torch Festival, Water Splashing Festival, Sowing Festival, etc., which constitute the strong ritual characteristics of these dances. For example, the Tujia people perform hand-waving dances and Maogus dances every year on the first lunar month of the lunar calendar to worship their ancestor, the "Babu King"; the Tibetan people dance "Qiang Mu" during the "God Dance Festival" on February 29 of the Tibetan calendar every year; The "June Meeting" worships the mountain gods and Erlang gods, dances ((Dragon Drum Dance), etc. These dances have extremely strong ritual characteristics. On the one hand, this ritual characteristic is inherent in these dances. When they were produced, Serving for rituals; on the other hand, the dances performed on these ceremonial occasions may not have strong ritual content themselves, and some are just entertainment dances. However, once they are performed in a certain ritual occasion, they will have It is very ceremonial. Therefore, it can be said that the ritual occasion of traditional Chinese dance performances is also an important aspect of its ritual characteristics.

3. The ritual content of existing folk dances of various ethnic groups

The Tanxi and Tandan dances that are still popular in many places have a strong ritual nature. Tanxi is a cultural thing closely related to human witchcraft culture, such as the Tanxi and Tuotai that exist in Guizhou, Hunan and other places. Ji, Di Opera and Tantang Opera all have strong witchcraft ritual properties. The reason why Tan Opera is Tan Opera has the meaning and meaning of "chasing the stalls" in its form of expression, including the content of expelling ghosts, gods and plagues. According to teacher Zhou Xiangui's investigation, in today's Guichi area of ??Anhui Province, stall performances are performed every year from the seventh to the eleventh day of the first lunar month. There is the content of welcoming the gods. The Yingshen Lubu (honor guard) goes to the water mouth of the river to pay tribute to Erlang God and place it in the ancestral hall. They burn incense, fire cannons, and perform sacrificial rituals. Then, the clan leader performs a ceremony for Erlang God. Then several men performed the "Rolling Lantern Dance" together with the clan leader. It has strong ritual characteristics.

Another example is the "Maogus" dance performed by Tujia people to worship their ancestors. The "New Year" activity is performed every year from the third to the seventeenth day of the first lunar month. Wubi Dance. At that time, a sacrificial venue will be set up, and the descendants of Maogusi, who represents the Tujia ancestors, will lead the dancers to dance barefoot, wearing spires, covering their faces with thatch bundles up to their necks, and five poles reaching into the sky. The whole body is covered with straw, thatch or leaves to symbolize the ancestors. The dance content includes making Yangchun (slash-and-burn cultivation), bride grabbing, hunting, fishing, torch throwing, etc., which vividly reproduces the production and life scenes of the primitive Tujia tribe. Reproductive worship is a theme throughout the dance. Each Maogus performer has a torch symbolizing the male genitals, called a "rude stick" tied around his waist. The top of the torch is smeared with red soil or wrapped in red cloth to perform hunting and hunting. When throwing torches and other content, the dancers must exaggerately perform phallic movements such as "showing male strength", "stretching the sky", "putting shoulders", "turning hips", "thrusting the abdomen and raising the crotch". When the dance reaches the climax, the hair will appear. Gusi's torch can touch the audience at will, especially the female audience, and those who are touched regard it as a gift of fertility from the ancestral god. This typically reflects the primitive hunting life and male root worship consciousness of the Tujia ancestors, and has a strong ritual. sex.

The above-mentioned ritual characteristics of folk dances are only a few cases. In fact, there are still many folk dances that retain a large amount of ritual content, which shows that the ritual characteristics of folk dances are very obvious and prominent. .

IV. Conclusion

The imprint of witchcraft content and totem belief is inevitably imprinted on the folk dance. The basic core of early dance, such as dance movements, dance structures, dance expressions and other ritual factors, were accumulated through various channels and became the basic genes and materials for later dance production to be digested and penetrated. For example, the virtuality of movements with universal significance in dance art, the stylization of plot structure, and the symbolism of lyrical methods are all more or less affected by the ritual content of early Chinese dance, and can be regarded as early dance ritual factors. Accumulation in dance. In this sense, rituality is not only the fundamental attribute of early Chinese dance, but also the root of the entire dance art