According to historical records, Qin appeared no later than the Yao and Shun period. Archaeological findings are not so early. 1978 The ten-stringed piano unearthed from the tomb of Zeng Houyi at Leigudun in Suizhou belongs to the early Warring States period. However, an early Zhang Chunqiu Qin about 2700 years ago was unearthed from the tomb of Caomenwan in Guojiamiao, Zaoyang, Hubei. Qin Fang, director of Hubei Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, said that as the earliest known piano with physical evidence, the history of piano in China was about 300 years ahead of schedule.
The music score of Guqin was first recorded in words, that is, the music score of words. Character notation is a notation that uses words to describe the fingering, string order and phoneme of guqin. China's only existing music score is "Jieshi Diao You Lan", which was handed down in the Six Dynasties, Liang Dynasty, Qiu Ming Dynasty, and the original score was a piece of paper written by the Tang people. Because the character spectrum is too complicated and inconvenient to use, it was simplified by Tang pianist Cao Rou and developed into a simplified character spectrum.