Chinese Music

I

Introduction

Chinese Music, music created by Chinese people of different regions, linguistic areas, ethnic groups, and sociocultural backgrounds, in a wide variety of vocal, instrumental, and theatrical genres.

Chinese music has both ancient and modern traditions. The Jiahu bone flutes, found in China in 1999 and which date to 7000 bc, are known to be the oldest surviving playable instruments in the world. The stunning collection of bronze bells, chime stones, drums, and wind and stringed instruments found in the 5th-century-bc tomb of a man known as the Marquis Yi of Zeng revealed ancient China’s rich musical heritage and remarkable achievements in music theory. Today, traditional Chinese repertories are performed alongside modern compositions. Contemporary Chinese popular music, hybrids of indigenous tastes and American popular culture, dominates the mass market in the mainland, Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan.

II

Musical Tradition

Traditionally, the Chinese have believed that sound influences the harmony of the universe. For more than 2,000 years Chinese culture was dominated by the teachings of the 6th-century-bc philosopher Confucius, who believed music to be one of the two defining sociocultural pillars of a properly ordered society, along with proper observance of ritual. In this view, music encompassed a total way of learning, thinking, behaving, and governing. It was also the indispensable knowledge required of a learned individual to function properly in society. The Confucian notion of music finds particular expression in the Chinese traditions of court ritual and the ceremonial music of imperial China, and in the music of the qin, a seven-stringed zither. Significantly, one of the most important duties of the first emperor of each new dynasty was to search out and establish that dynasty’s true standard of pitch.

However, the Confucian beliefs about music were constantly eroded throughout Chinese history by a long tradition of popular entertainment music, favored both at the court and by the common folk. Although excluded from official ritual performances for several thousand years, Chinese women musicians and entertainers had a central and formative role in this entertainment music as singers, dancers, instrumentalists, actors, composers, lyricists, and teachers in both the public and private spheres. There is rich archaeological evidence that women mastered every kind of percussion, wind, and string instrument in imperial China until the late 17th century, when women were excluded from public performances.

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III

Musical Characteristics

Through the lyrics and linguistic tones, Chinese language has been the foundation for most traditional Chinese music, including folk song, singing narrative, and opera. More than 400 local opera types and more than 300 local singing-narrative types exist, many influenced by the numerous regional dialects. In addition, a significant amount of tunes played by traditional instrumental ensembles, including those for Buddhist and Daoist rituals, originate in vocal music.

In ancient times, Chinese musical instruments were classified according to the materials used in their construction: metal, stone, silk, bamboo, gourd, clay, skin, and wood. The older instruments include long zithers (qin, zheng, se), straight-necked lutes (ruan, qin pipa, sanxian), flutes (dizi), panpipes (paixiao), mouth organs (sheng), and percussion instruments such as bells (zhong), chimes (qin), clappers (ban), drums (gu), and gongs (luo). Of later origin are various fiddles (erhu, jinghu, gaohu, banhu), bent-necked lutes (pipa), hammered dulcimers (yangqin), reed pipes (bili), and shawms (suona), most of which resulted from cultural contacts with Central Asia and India.

Melody and timbre are prominent expressive features of Chinese instrumental music, and great emphasis is given to the proper articulation and inflection of each musical tone. Most traditional Chinese music is based on the pentatonic (five-tone) scale, but the heptatonic (seven-tone) scale is also used, often as an expansion of a basically pentatonic core. Heterophonic texture—several instruments simultaneously playing the same melody with different embellishments—is an important performance style for traditional Chinese instrumental ensembles, which often consist of three to ten people. Many different kinds of bands and ensembles can be found in China’s vast rural areas, where they often play at weddings, funerals, and other social events.

IV

Musical History

Chinese music has never stopped evolving and changing throughout the history of Chinese civilization. In the Shang dynasty (1570? bc-1045? bc), both female and male shamans (wu) led sacrificial rituals: singing, dancing, and acting as mediators between the world of the gods and that of humans. The Western Zhou dynasty (1045? bc-771 bc) was the golden age of court ritual music (yayue). From the Eastern Zhou through the Tang dynasty, a period which lasted from 771 bc to 907 ad, the most significant musical achievement was the varied entertainment music, combining singing, dancing, and instruments. Court entertainment music (yanyue) had its most splendid period during the Tang (618 ad-907 ad). During this period one Chinese emperor, Taizong (626-649), had ten different orchestras, eight of which were made up of members of various foreign countries and ethnic groups. Vocal music became the dominant entertainment form during the Song dynasty (960-1279); ci songs (songs set to poetry with strict tonal patterns and rhyme schemes, in fixed numbers of lines and words) and other singing narratives were the most popular musical genres. They were performed in markets, teahouses, restaurants, and the homes of officials by courtesans and singing girls.

Music theater has been the focal point of Chinese musical life since the 13th century. Its highest expression is Chinese opera, which has been performed for ritual and ceremonial functions and for secular entertainment, in both urban and rural areas, and enjoyed by both the elite groups and commoners. Zaju, the first fully developed form of Chinese opera, emerged during the Yuan dynasty (1279-1368). Kunqu (Kun opera), the most influential and most highly esteemed Chinese classical theater, flourished and underwent much stylistic development during the Ming dynasty (1368-1644). Peking opera (jingxi), the best-known Chinese opera genre, was developed during the Qing dynasty (1644-1911) under the imperial patronage. Since the mid-20th century it has been considered China’s national opera. See Asian Theater.