· What is Chinese MusicChinese Music
Music of China appears to date back to the dawn of Chinese civilization, and documents and artifacts provide evidence of a well-developed musical culture as early as the Zhou Dynasty (1122 BC - 256 BC).
According to Mencius, a ruler had asked Mencius whether it was moral if he preferred pop songs to the classics. The answer was that the only thing matters being whether or not he loved his subjects.
The Imperial Music Bureau, first established in the Qin Dynasty (221-207 BC), was greatly expanded under the Emperor Han Wu Di (140-87 BC) and charged with supervising court music and military music and determining what folk music would be officially recognized. In subsequent dynasties, the development of Chinese moo music was strongly influenced by foreign music, especially that of Central Asia.
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| · What is Chinese Music 2 Music in China is played on solo instruments or in small ensembles of plucked and bowed stringed instruments, flutes, and various cymbals, gongs, and drums. The scale has five notes. Bamboo pipes and qin are among the oldest known musical instruments from China; instruments are traditionally divided into categories based on their material of composition: skin, gourd, bamboo, wood, silk, earth/clay, metal and stone. Chinese orchestras traditionally consist of bowed strings, woodwinds, plucked strings and percussion. The oldest written music is Youlan or the Solitary Orchid, attributed to Confucius (see guqin article for a sample of tablature). The first major well-documented flowering of Chinese music was for the qin during the Tang Dynasty, though the qin is known to have been played since before the Han Dynasty.
In ancient China the position of musicians was much lower than that of painters (although music was seen as central to the harmony and longevity of the state). Therefore music theory was not very well developed since the Tang Dynasty. But almost every emperor took the folk songs seriously. They sent officers to collect the folk songs for inspecting the popular will. One of the Confucianist Classics, Shi Jing (poets), contained lots of folk songs during 800 BC to about 300 BC.
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