Under a blossoming veranda as the sun sets over a lake, four musicians play together by a stone balustrade: a woman with a pipa, a man in red on a fiddle, one on flute and one at a long zither.
Music made mainly on instruments. It runs from Neolithic bone flutes and clay ocarinas, through the guqin played by scholars and the gong-and-drum, shengguan, silk-and-bamboo and wind bands of town and village, to the modern Chinese orchestra of the twentieth century, and includes solo traditions such as pipa, erhu and suona and regional genres such as Nanyin and Jiangnan sizhu.
7000 BCE · OriginCrane-bone flutes from Jiahu in Wuyang, Henan, still playable over several notes, are the earliest material evidence of Chinese instrumental music.500 BCE · EvolutionBy the Spring and Autumn period the qin and se were part of ritual music and gentlemanly cultivation; Confucius studied the qin with Shi Xiang, and the qin became the scholar's instrument.1425 · ImpactIn the Ming, Zhu Quan published the Shenqi mipu, the earliest surviving qin handbook, allowing qin repertoire to be transmitted systematically.
Chinese instruments were classified by material from early on. The Rites of Zhou sorts them into the "eight sounds": metal, stone, earth, skin, silk, wood, gourd and bamboo. Bells are metal, chimes stone, the xun earth, drums skin, the qin and se silk, the zhu and yu wood, the sheng gourd, and flutes bamboo. Later, "silk and bamboo" (sizhu) came to mean strings and winds, and "blowing and beating" (chuida) winds with gongs and drums. Today the usual division is into wind, bowed, plucked and percussion instruments.
Instrumental music grew along two broad paths. One is the scholar's solo, led by the guqin: usually played alone, valued for tone and mood, written in a special tablature and handed down from teacher to pupil. The other is the folk ensemble: gong-and-drum, wind-band and silk-and-bamboo groups played at weddings and funerals, festivals, temple fairs and Buddhist or Daoist services, copied their music in gongche notation and relied above all on teaching by ear. The pipa, zheng, dizi and xiao appear on both paths.
Many instruments now seen as "national" came from elsewhere. The pipa, the huqin fiddles, the suona and the yangqin arrived at different times from Central Asia, the northern steppe, West Asia and by sea, and over long use gained their own local repertoires and schools. Most traditional pieces are pentatonic, and one parent tune, such as Baban (Eight Beats), can be ornamented and varied in many regional genres, leaving players much room of their own.
Today the art of the guqin (2003), Xi'an wind and percussion music and Nanyin (2009) are on the UNESCO list of the intangible heritage of humanity, and gong-and-drum music, shengguan, suona, Jiangnan sizhu, Cantonese music and others are on the national heritage list; local music clubs and Chinese orchestras still play them.
Chinese instrumental music is the traditional music of China that is made mainly on instruments rather than carried by sung words. It includes solo traditions such as the guqin, pipa, erhu, dizi and xiao, and suona; regional ensemble genres such as gong-and-drum music, shengguan, Jiangnan sizhu, Nanyin and Chaozhou music; the instrumental traditions of the ethnic minorities; and the modern Chinese orchestra formed in the twentieth century. The bell-and-chime music of state rites belongs to Ritual Music and Dance, and folk song and opera accompaniment have their own entries.
The line begins in the Neolithic. The red-crowned-crane bone flutes from Jiahu in Wuyang, Henan, date to about 7000-5700 BCE, and a well-preserved one can still play a scale. The clay xun from Banpo near Xi'an could already sound four notes. By the Zhou, the Book of Songs names the qin, se, sheng, xun and chi. The tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng in Suizhou, Hubei (c. 433 BCE), held more than 120 instruments, among them a set of bells, a ten-string qin, chi flutes, sheng and se, showing how complete the range of instruments was by the early Warring States.
In the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods the qin became part of a gentleman's cultivation. The Records of the Grand Historian says Confucius studied the qin with Shi Xiang, and the Lüshi chunqiu and the Liezi tell how Zhong Ziqi understood Bo Ya's playing. Cai Yong of the Eastern Han and Ji Kang of the Wei-Jin were famous qin players, and the story of Ji Kang playing Guangling san before his execution is still told. From the Northern and Southern Dynasties to the Sui and Tang, the bent-neck pipa and other instruments came in from Central Asia; the pipa was the rage at the Tang court and in the cities, and Bai Juyi's Song of the Pipa (816) describes one woman's playing in detail. The Tang manuscript of Jieshi diao: Youlan writes out a qin piece in words.
After the Song, instrumental music moved more and more into common life. Chen Yang's Yueshu of the Northern Song records the xiqin, sounded by a strip of bamboo drawn between two strings; the suona arrived in the Jin-Yuan period and by the Ming was common in the army and among the people. In the Ming, Zhu Quan compiled the Shenqi mipu (1425), the earliest surviving printed qin handbook. Over the Ming and Qing, regional genres such as shengguan, Jiangnan sizhu, Nanyin, shifan and Chaozhou music took shape, and scores began to appear in book form, such as Rongzhai's Xiansuo beikao (1814) and Hua Qiuping's pipa collection (1819).
In the twentieth century the music reached new kinds of stage. In 1920 Zheng Jinwen founded the Datong Music Society in Shanghai and tried large ensembles in separate sections. Liu Tianhua reformed the erhu and pipa and wrote solo pieces such as Song of Illness and Marching Towards Brightness, and Abing's The Moon Reflected on the Second Spring became widely known after it was recorded in 1950. The Central Broadcasting Chinese Orchestra, founded in 1953, settled the four-section layout of winds, plucked strings, bowed strings and percussion. From one bone flute at Jiahu to today's orchestras, the instruments have kept changing, while the tradition of voicing human feeling through them has carried on.
Pipa Player
The left-side woman in green holds the pipa vertically with clearly visible plucking fingers, the pipa performer in the ensemble.
Erhu Player
The central man in red holds the erhu soundbox on his knee and draws the vertical bow with his right hand, the erhu performer.
Flute Player
The right-center man in yellow raises the flute to his lips with clearly visible finger holes, the wind performer in the ensemble.
Guzheng Player
The long horizontal guzheng with many visible strings rests on the right-side table, played by the man in blue with both hands pressing the strings.
An ensemble of Chinese folk instruments fills a courtyard: pipa, guzheng, erhu, and bamboo flutes each take their part while listeners stand hushed, moved by the collective melody. A pure instrumentation tradition exploring five-tone aesthetics through virtual leave-spaces.
Chinese instrumental music is like a river flowing from far away. Its source is a single bone flute at Jiahu. Along the way the pipa from Central Asia, the fiddle from the steppe, the suona from West Asia and the yangqin from across the sea flowed in one after another, and all became water in the same river.
The river splits into many streams: a qin in a scholar's study, a set of gongs and drums at a temple fair, a table of silk-and-bamboo players in a teahouse. Each sounds different, but it is one river.
After school a child was practising the erhu in the courtyard, playing Liangxiao (A Fine Night). His grandfather sat nearby, listening.
The child stopped and asked, "Grandpa, is the erhu China's oldest instrument?"
"No. Its ancestor was the xiqin, an instrument of the Xi people in the north, and it first appears in books of the Song. At first people rubbed a strip of bamboo between the two strings."
"What about the pipa?"
"The bent-neck pipa came from Central Asia. The suona came even later, from the west, in the Jin and Yuan."
The child looked let down. "Then which instruments are our own?"
"Flutes of crane bone, eight or nine thousand years old, were dug up in Henan; they are the earliest material evidence of instrumental music we know of. But think: the erhu has been played on this land for several hundred years, and The Moon Reflected on the Second Spring and A Fine Night were written for it. It has long been part of Chinese music."
The child looked down at the instrument in his hands and began to play again.
Chinese instrumental music has native roots such as the Jiahu bone flutes, and it has kept taking in instruments from outside. Over long use the pipa, huqin, suona and yangqin gained local pieces, techniques and genres and became part of Chinese music. From the scholar's qin to the gongs, drums and silk-and-bamboo of the villages and on to the modern orchestra, the tradition has lived on by absorbing. (This is an illustrative story, not a historical account.)
Xun and Ancient FlutesThe Jiahu bone flutes and prehistoric clay xun, the earliest wind instruments known in China
Gong-and-Drum MusicFolk percussion ensembles of drums, gongs and cymbals
The Art of the GuqinThe seven-string zither with thirteen studs, foremost instrument of China's literati solo tradition
Shengguan EnsemblesNorthern temple and village ensembles led by the guan oboe with sheng mouth organs
Dizi and XiaoThe side-blown dizi and the end-blown xiao, China's bamboo flutes
GuzhengA long plucked zither rooted in the music of Qin, played in regional schools north and south
PipaThe pear-shaped, bent-neck lute, once played flat with a plectrum and now upright with the fingers
Ruan and SanxianThe round-bodied, straight-necked ruan and the long-necked, skin-faced sanxian
ErhuThe two-string bowed fiddle descended from the xiqin, leading voice of the huqin family
Suona and Drum-and-Wind BandsThe suona, brought in under the Jin and Yuan, and the folk wind bands it leads
Chaozhou MusicThe gong-and-drum bands and string music of eastern Guangdong, in their own notation
Jiangnan SizhuSilk-and-bamboo chamber music of southern Jiangsu, western Zhejiang and Shanghai
NanyinQuanzhou's string-and-wind ensemble of pipa, dongxiao and clappers
Shifan EnsemblesFolk ensembles of some ten silk, bamboo, drum and gong instruments, played from Jiangnan to Fujian, Guangdong and Hainan
Xiansuo String EnsemblesNorthern ensembles of plucked and bowed strings, without gongs or winds
YangqinThe trapezoid hammered dulcimer, from a foreign import to a mainstay of Chinese ensembles
Xi'an Wind and Percussion EnsembleXi'an's wind-and-drum music of the temple fairs, handed down in old manuscript notation
Cantonese MusicSilk-and-bamboo ensemble music of the Pearl River Delta, led by gaohu, yangqin and qinqin
Instrumental Music of Ethnic PeoplesMorin khuur, lusheng, dombra and bronze drums: the instrumental heritage of China's many peoples
Modern Chinese OrchestraThe modern Chinese orchestra in four sections: winds, plucked strings, bowed strings and percussion
Chinese Works for Western InstrumentsChinese melodies and stories played on piano, violin and symphony orchestra