Kaifeng Pangu is a pure form of drum music. There are more than a dozen people in the drum team, and only three percussion instruments are used: cymbals, drums and gongs. This form of band originated from a kind of drum music popular in the ancient army-Jing Drum.

Drumming is also recorded as "drum" and "drum" in related historical materials. Its correct symbol should be "drum". Yi means "welcome" and "Yi drum" means "drum music played in the welcoming ceremony". The name of the drum has two meanings: first, this kind of drum music is mainly used for welcoming ceremonies. In the ancient army, it was used to greet distinguished guests and celebrate victory; In the Han nationality, it is used to greet the gods, send them off, pray for rain and other customs and ceremonies and festivals. Second, it means "playing on the move". Because the big flat drum used for drums is played on the shoulders or tied to the waist with a cloth belt, it can be played on the move, which is called "street drum" by the people. This is the main difference between this drum and other Han folk drum music.

Archaeological findings confirmed that drums were popular in the army in northern China as early as 1 400 years ago during the Northern Wei Dynasty. A number of foot soldiers with drum figurines were unearthed from the tombs of the Northern Wei Dynasty in Cixian County, Hebei Province. Their shapes and playing methods are very similar to those of Kaifeng drums. This form of drum music is still popular in Cixian County, and it is called "Yi Drum". During the Xining period in the Northern Song Dynasty, the drum began to be combined with the Han folk dance. People dress up all kinds of historical figures and people in myths and legends, and dance with the beat of drums, which is called "drum play" or "dancing drums". Because this form of performance is very popular with people, it soon spread widely among Han people.

In the Ming Dynasty, almost all the performances of Han folk dances were accompanied by drums, so "drums" became the general name of Han folk dances in a broad sense. The musical instruments used by Pangu in Kaifeng are mainly drums, accompanied by bronze wares such as cymbals and gongs. The drum team has no fixed establishment, and its scale can be large or small, generally according to the ratio of "two drums and one cymbal". The smallest drum team has more than a dozen, and the big drum team can have dozens or even hundreds of people. The wooden flat drums used by the drum team are all of the same shape: the drum surface is about 45 cm, and the wooden frame is about 30 cm high, which is in the shape of a chess piece. When playing, the shoulder strap of the drum is slung over the left shoulder, the drum is placed in front of the waist, the drum face is up, and the drum is played with double drumsticks. There are several ways of drumming, such as "beating the drum surface", "beating the drum surface", "beating the drum frame" and "two hammers hitting each other". Bronzes are mostly made of large pots (called "hat pots" by the people), and some are equipped with hand pots and kettles. Traditional drum teams are often equipped with four or eight gongs. When performing, gong players often throw horse gongs into the air. After the horse gong falls, it continues to play in your hands, which is called "releasing the horse gong".

Each drum team, big or small, is commanded by a pennant with the word "Ling" written on it, which is called "Ling Flag". During the training of the drum team, Ling Qi was responsible for teaching the drum score and explaining various skills to young drummers. When performing formally, use the flag in your hand to command the start, stop, strength and speed of the drum team, and also indicate the rhythm characteristics of the drum spectrum to ensure that the drums of the drum team are clear and tidy. Therefore, the role of "Lingqi" in drum team is very important. Kaifeng drums are played in unison, but the rhythm of drums and cymbals is not exactly the same. The rhythm of drums is fast and dense, while the rhythm of cymbals is sparse and concise. The combination of the two forms different acoustic colors, such as strength, full play and sub-play. In addition, there are many ways to beat drums, so the following different playing methods and corresponding drum notation characters are formed:

T: Drums and cymbals play together. The combination is recorded as "round tons".

A: The drums play together. It is marked as "that" when combined.

Kua: right drumstick and drum rack. Because the sound is much smaller than "ton" and "ge", "kua" in drum music means rest.

In addition to the basic playing methods mentioned above, there are several playing methods of drums, which are only used in some specific positions of drum music:

Kua: The double hammer hit the front edge of the drum frame.

Collision: Double hammers alternately hit the front edge of the drum frame.

Eat: The hammers cross and hit each other in the air. The basic rhythm of Kaifeng drum is called "drum string" by the people. Commonly used drum strings are

1) "Huala" drum string:

2) "Bitter edge" drum string:

3) "single ton" drum string:

A complete "drum sound" (that is, Qupai) is composed of several "drum strings" with different lengths. Different drums contain different phrases. At least there is only one sentence (such as [Old Victory]), and the longest is dozens, usually dozens. The drum strings in the drum often appear in the form of complete repetition or variation repetition, which has the typical structural characteristics of "double sentences". However, various non-repetitive drum strings are often interspersed between these "double sentences", forming the structural characteristics of "double sentences" and "single sentences" appearing alternately, making the rhythm of the drum constantly change frequently between balance and imbalance, resulting in the artistic effect of "interlocking and endless progress", which makes people feel endless.

Each drumbeat usually consists of three parts: curved head, curved belly and curved tail. Most curved heads are-and two repeated drum strings; The curved abdomen uses several slightly longer and non-repetitive drum strings. The end of the song is often a long, continuous long drum string, which is called "Banlashan" by the people, meaning that this long drum string accounts for half the weight of a drum. For example:

The number of "drum strings" (that is, basic rhythm type) used in Kaifeng drum is not too much, but the number, arrangement order and deformation mode of drum strings used in each drum are different. Therefore, these two kinds of drums have both similarities and obvious differences. In the urban and rural areas of Kaifeng, there are dozens of drum teams playing hundreds of drums, two of which are exactly the same. Even the drums with the same name are very different from team to team, forming a pattern that each team's drums are self-contained and incompatible with each other. But inch by inch: all drums are formed on the basis of some common basic drum strings. So on the whole, the rhythm style of Kaifeng drum is so unified that people who are not familiar with the internal structure of the drum can't tell the difference between the drums played by each drum team.

Kaifeng Pangu is a kind of marching drum music, which is called "street drum" by the people. However, the rhythm form of its drum music has no regular beat form. Although there are a large number of "double-beat" (2/4 or 4/4) drum strings in the drum spectrum, these drum strings are often separated by various "single-beat" (1/4 or 3/4) drum strings. So as far as the overall beat form is concerned, Kaifeng drum adopts "mixed beat".

As far as "syntax" is concerned, there are a lot of "complex sentences" (that is, repeated "complex sentences") in each drum, but at the same time there are a lot of "single sentences" mixed in it. In addition, the length of each sentence is different, and the number of sentences between drums is also different, which makes all drum music have the same structural characteristics as "free poetry"

Due to the above characteristics, the notation of Kaifeng drum must conform to the following two points: First, the spectral latent surface cannot be recorded by mixed beat with the time signs of 1/4, 2/4 and 3/4. Otherwise, not only the time signature changes frequently, it is not easy to read, but also it does not conform to the inherent law of drum rhythm. From the perspective of China's national music theory, the drum score of Kaifeng Pangu can only be recorded in the form of rhythm patterns, and the rhythm patterns such as two beats, three beats and four beats that appear repeatedly in drums are in a temporary and unstable state. Therefore, the rhythm of "one board with one eye", "one board with two eyes" and "one board with three eyes" cannot be formed. Secondly, because the drum notation of Kaifeng drum does not present a square structure, and the length of each sentence is different, therefore, the "continuous notation" cannot be adopted. Only by using the method of "sentence by sentence and line by line" can we faithfully show the syntactic structure of drum music. In Kaifeng drum spectrum, the vertical line is not a "bar line", but a dividing line between "drum strings" in each sentence to reflect the internal structure of the drum.