Chinese Music

The different dynasties saw the development of the different styles of Chinese music. In Tang
dynasty music moved from royalty to the plebeians. Folk songs was largely composed by peasants
where they would speak of daily life farming etc.

 The Chinese traditionally believe that sound influences the harmony in the
universe.
 Until very recently, music was not to be appreciated or used as
entertainment, and Chinese musicians were faced with a very low status in
the world.
 For several thousands of years Chinese Culture was dominated by the
teachings of the philosopher Confucius, who conceived of music in the
highest sense as a means of calming the passions and of dispelling unrest
and lust, rather than as a form of amusement. The ancient Chinese belief is
that music is meant not to amuse but to purify one’s thoughts.
 Melody and tone are of great importance in Chinese music, and there is
always great care taken to ensure that each note has the proper tone.
 Musical instruments in China are classified by their composition: metal,
stone, silk, bamboo, gourd, clay, skin and wood.
 The older instruments include long zithers, flutes, panpipes, the sheng, or
mouth organ and percussion instruments, such as clappers, drums and
gongs. Later instruments include various lutes and fiddles introduced to
China from Central Asia.

 two kinds of music traditions – classical and folk.
 Music from the “classical tradition” refers to art
music or “sophisticated” music composed by scholars
and literati in China’s historical past.
 Chinese classical music often has thematic, poetic
or philosophical associations and is typically played
solo, on instruments such as the qin (commonly
known as guqin), 7-string zither with over 3000 years
of well-documented history, or the pipa, a lute with
over 2000 years of history.
 Traditional music in the classical sense is intimately
linked to poetry and to various forms of lyric drama,
and is more or less poetry without words. In the same
manner as poetry, music sets out to express human
 feelings, soothe suffering and bring spiritual
elevation.
 The instruments demand not only a mastery of
technique but a high degree of sensitivity (and inner
power) to evoke the subtle sonorities and deep
emotional expression that rely very much on the left
hand techniques (such as sliding, bending, pushing or
crossing of the strings to produce typical singing
effects and extreme dynamic ranges)
 This type of music has come down to us as an oral
tradition from masters to students, although written
scores that combine numbers and symbols
representing pitch and finger techniques respectively
have been in use for nearly two thousand years
 In traditional China, most well–educated people and
monks could play classical music as a means of self-
cultivation, meditation, soul purification and spiritual
elevation, union with nature, identification with the
values of past sages, and communication with divine
beings or with friends and lovers
 it is still rare to hear classical music in concert halls
due to the influence of the so-called “Cultural
Revolution” (1966-1976), when all classical music was
deemed to be “bourgeois” and outlawed, and the
spiritual side of traditional arts was "washed out"
through the "revolutionary" ideology
 While the classical tradition was more associated
with elite society throughout Chinese history, the
resources for folk traditions are many and varied.
 Unlike classical music, folk traditions are often vocal
(such as love songs and story telling etc), or for
instrumental ensembles (such as the “silk and
bamboo” ensembles, and music for folk dances, and
regional operas).
 Some folk melodies are now being adapted to contemporary compositions.
 The destruction of the traditional values and the spiritual side of the
traditional music through the overwhelming propaganda of the
"revolutionary" ideology during the Cultural Revolution (1966-76) has led to
 several consequences as far as music playing is concerned, particularly for
those who grew up during that pathetic period

Instruments

Traditional Musical Instruments

 Traditional Chinese musical instruments can be divided into four categories:

stringed instruments, percussion instruments, plucked instruments, and wind
instruments. The following are just a few of them:

Plucked strings:
 Lutes

o Pipa ( pi-pa or p'i-p'a) - four-stringed lute with

30 frets and pear-shaped body. The instrumentalist
holds the pipa upright and play with five small plectra
attached to each finger of the right hand. The pipa
history can be dated back at least 2000 years and
developed from pentatonic to full scales. This
instrument has extremely wide dynamic range and
remarkable expressive power.
 Zithers

o Guqin ( )-
seven-stringed zither without
bridges, the most classical Chinese instrument with
over 3000 years of history. The guqin is often referred to
as the instrument of sages for the purpose of enriching the
heart and elevating human spirit. Confucius (around 600
BC) was a master of this instrument. In the Imperial
China's past, well-educated people of the elite society
were expected to master the four arts, namely, the qin
(guqin), qi (weiqi, which has somehow been known as
"Go" in the West according Japanese pronuciation), shu
(Calligraphy), and hua (painting). Being on top of the
four traditional arts, the guqin has historically been
regarded as one of the most important symbols of
Chinese high culture. Unfortunately only small number
of people in China could play the instrument, because
classical musical education of this kind has never
reached general public. Fortunately, the situation has
much been improved in recent decades, there have
been a growing number of guqin players both in and
outside China.
 o Zheng ( ) or Guzheng ( Chinese zither )-
with movable bridges and 16 - 25 strings. In the same
family there are the Japanese koto, the
Vietnamese dan tranh, the Koreankayagum, and the
Mongolian Yagta

 Eg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zh98zIvyUd8 guzheng
 Eg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QfjG9V4-zE pipa
 Eg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1iAAqQ71P8 from left to right - dizi (small flute),
yangqin (hammered dulcimer),erhu (fiddle thingy), pipa (stringed lute thing)
 Eg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cj5wWsNT06g traditional folk tune
 Eg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yqvq0s-iBFw&feature=related rolling in the deep on
yangquin
 Eg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MidT_70N7nc silk and bamboo ensemble
 Eg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TcVJViSksY&feature=related silk and bamboo
ensemble

CHINA

PRIMARY INTERPRETIVE FOCUS

The important role of music in the socio-political order; a detailed
theory of music with limited application

Components of Chinese Sound-Culture

 I. Musical Specifics
A. Pitch –
1. scales - a strong theoretical preference for the pentatonic
scale is observed in practice; the seven note diatonic scale
and the 12 note chromatic scale are also encountered
2. melodies tend to be highly ornamented with idiomatic
inflections within a hetreophonic texture
3. (harmony)? While "harmoniousness” is praised and leads
to the preference for the pentatonic scale, there is no
system of harmony in the European sense prior to the
20th-century influences.
4. Register–there is a strong preference for the high
register; even if instruments have notes in a low range,
these are rarely used.
B. Rhythm – tempos range from slow to fast and are somewhat
flexible, meter and subdivision is almost always
duple. The sense of somewhat loose rhythmic
coordination is heard in the preferred texture,
heterophony.
C. Form – melodic variations most common
D. Texture – a strong preference for HETEROPHONY - the practice of distributing the
same melody among different voice or instrument parts with different rhythmic
densities.

E. Timbre --
1. the preferred instrumental timbre is bright. A few typical
instruments:
a. qin or guqin “Pronounced "chin" (stringed instrument)
or "goo chin" (old stringed instrument),
the guqin throughout its long history has been the
musical instrument most praised by China's literati.
They categorized it as one of their "four arts", collected
it as an art object, praised its beautiful music, and built
around it a complex ideology. No other instrument was
so often depicted in paintings, or so regularly
mentioned in poetry. Because of the literati's fondness
for writing things down, it also has the world's oldest
detailed written instrumental music tradition, providing
sufficient information to allow both historically informed
performance (requiring use of silk strings) of early
music, and practical exploration of the relationship
between Chinese music theory and music
practice.” From http://www.silkqin.com/
b. pipa – 4-stringed lute
c. erhu – a bowed two-stringed fiddle; one of the most
popular Chinese instruments in the Hu-qin
family,. Heard in the Jiangnan Sizhu (Silk & Bamboo)
ensemble.
d. OPERA GONG! (idiophone)
2. vocal -due to favoring a high register, the singing is often
thin and nasal, piercing or shrill
 F. Sound intensity – ranges from the very loud opera gong to the
most soft & delicate effects on a qin.
II. Social Organization of Music
A. Who can participate (play, listen, make instruments) in this
music? Who is excluded? Traditionally, it was held that “women
and foreigners” could not appreciate qin music. At times, the
Communist Party has controlled who could play and what they
could play.
B. How many musicians are appropriate for an ensemble? Generally
small groups; some large orchestras developed in the
20th century
C. There is a clear distinction between musician and audience
member for opera and virtuoso instrumentalists. One
exception to this entertainer/entertained division is the solitary
qin player who could in theory be playing solely for his own
edification and enjoyment.
D. Transmission -- how is the music learned and passed on to
others? Formal music academies in opera; “learning by doing” in
Jiangnan Sizhou.
E. Social status of musicians – not covered
III. Ideas about Music
A. Music and the belief system – proper rituals and behavior (Kung
FuZi) and harmony with the natural order (Taoism) lead to a
beneficial social order. Most titles of Chinese pieces make some
sort of reference to nature, such as “The Autumn Moon Over The
Han Palace,” “South Breeze,” “Ode To The Plum Blossom,”
“Moonlit Xunyang,” “Brilliance Of Lanterns And Moon,” “Geese
Landing On A Sandy Beach,” etc., or they refer to a story or an
emotion, such as “Along the Strategic Pass,” “The Great Ambush,”
“The Sorrow of Lady Zhao-jun,” “The Tears of the Imperial
Concubine Xiang,,” “Longing for the Homeland,” etc.)
B. Contexts for use of music -- ceremonies (religious/political),
for aesthetic enjoyment – yes!
C. History of music – with exceptions in the 20th century, there is more
awareness of continuity rather than of change
D. Composition – individual pieces are more emphasized than
composers’ identities
E. Improvisation is not emphasized; continuation and
elaboration of earlier models is the main emphasis
F. Genres covered –
1. regional opera
2. Jiangnan Sizhu (Silk & Bamboo ensemble music);
associate with tea houses and Shanghai
3. collections of pieces (repertoire) for each type of
instrument (qin, pipa, etc.)
G. Theory – tablature notation in use from ancient times, very detailed
calculation of intervals, driven by the belief that proper rituals and
behavior (Kung FuZi) and harmony with the natural order (Taoism)
lead to a beneficial social order. Another aspect of theory is a
penchant for classification. Instruments were categorized (3rd
century B.C.) according to their sounding materials: metal, stone,
silk, bamboo, gourd, pottery, leather, & wood.
IV. Allied Arts
A. Texts – not covered
 B. Movement – dance
C. Theater – opera is a spectacular integration of dance,
acrobatic movement, acting and visual splendor
D. Visual parallels – not covered

Bejing Opera
http://www.travelchinaguide.com/intro/arts/beijing_opera/

 It is a scenic art integrating music, performance, literature, aria, and

face-painting.
 Beijing Opera presents dramatic plays and figures mainly by infusing
four artistic methods: singing, dialogue, dancing and martial art.
o Singing is utilized to intensify the appeal of the art by all kinds
of tones.
o Dialogue is the complement of singing which is full of musical
and rhythm sensation.
o Dancing refers to the body movements requiring high
performing skills.
o Martial art is the combination and transformation of traditional
Chinese combat exercises with dances.

 Main Roles in Beijing Opera Performance

Sheng: It's a common name of male characters and composed of Lao
Sheng and Xiao Sheng. Lao Sheng refers to the middle-aged man with a
beard who acts as the decency figure; for example, Zhugeliang in 'Empty
City Scheme'. Xiao Sheng means young man without a beard.
Zhangsheng in 'The Story of the West Room' is a representative of Xiao
Sheng.
 Dan: The general name for female characters in Beijing Opera can be
divided into Zhengdan, Huadan, Laodan, Wudan. Zhengdan is also called
'Qingyi', who mainly plays the part of the strong-minded middle-aged woman
who behaves elegantly. Huadan refers to little girls who often live in the
bottom of society. Laodan refers to the senior woman and Wudan indicates
the female who is good at fighting.
 Jing: Painted face often refers to male characters with unique
appearance or personality, such as Baozheng and Caocao. Besides, Chou
is a comic role or villainous character or righteous person. The actor's
nose is painted by a piece of white powder, making him or her easily
recognizable.