Music of China - Chinese Music | 中国音乐

Introduction⠀

The music of china is directly linked to the people of china, their lifestyle, the culture of china and their ethnic minorities in general. Each territory has its own style of music from the mainland of China and varies in between traditionalism and  modernism.⠀

History & Evolution of Chinese Music⠀

The music history of China has seen to be a great phase of evolution from ancient times till the current era. Ling Lun has been awarded as a Godfather of chinese music mythology, who created the several tones at initial stages on the special demand of the Yellow Emperor. The uniqueness was added to some other level as when the bamboo sticks were used as a musical instrument and the first sound created was the chirping of birds. Since then the baseline for the chinese music was set to be the source of peace and also as close to nature as possible.⠀

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Years later, 8000 years from now to be precise, the music instruments were created to some better level. Such as flutes were made out of bones. Then in the same time, while the zhou dynasty was in run, elegant music was introduced which was called ´yayue´ in chinese language and it is said to be the formal system of court and ceremonial music.⠀

Traditional & Regional Music of China⠀

The Traditional Music of china includes 4 kinds, among which are Instrumental, Music of Han culture, Chinese opera and Folk music. ⠀

The Instrumental Music was the solo and soft tunes made using 8 kinds of instruments that include plucked and bowed strings, woodwind, percussion, flutes, and various cymbals, gongs, and drums and bone flutes. The Music of Han Culture which was created by the people of Han including their dance, talks, discussions, poetry and emotional feelings. The tone is kept just like a poetry is said and the aim is to build the sentimental connection with the audience.⠀

The Chinese opera was as close to the peking opera of today and is said to be the great source of entertainment which is played using suona and junghu. Folk music dating back 7000 years from now was all about the chinese culture which is colourful and this  music is more sorrowful and typically deals with a love-stricken woman.⠀

                                        

The Regional Music of China totally differs from that of Han´s music and from each other as well. It was individually created by the regions. ⠀

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The regions that introduced its own music are Guangxi, Hong Kong, Huaer, Inner Mongolia, Korean, Kuaiban, Northeast China, Sichuan, Tibet, Xinjiang and Yannan and each has its own specifications. ⠀

Evolution & modern changes⠀

In recent times, chinese music has evolved a lot. It has always had its uniqueness like every other country however in the world of music no nation can stick to just one style and because of the same reason Chinese music has also changed with modernism. The changes have been observed in either ways of in terms of Orchestra, Instruments, tuning, notation and performance. Most of it has adopted the culture of western music  due to high demand and now it includes pop music, Rock and heavy metal, western classical music, revolutionary and patriotic music. Yet they still value their music created in initial times but they also pay heed to the new music created in the recent times.