Chinese Music
Formal historical written records of Chinese music began in the Zhou Dynasty.
Chinese music has mastered the heptatonic scale from a long time ago, but has always preferred the more harmonious pentatonic scale. It focuses on developing music in the pentatonic scale, while focusing on the pursuit of melody and rhythm changes, and despising harmony. role. The development direction of Chinese music is different from that of Western music. Western music gradually developed from the pentatonic scale of ancient Greece to the heptatonic scale to the twelve equal temperament; it developed from monophonic to the use of harmony. So if Western music is like a thick wall, the outline on it is like the melody, and the bricks and stones are like the wall. Even if the outline is straight, as long as there is harmony, it is still a wall, just like some of Handel's works. Chinese music is different. It is like a Chinese painting drawn with lines. If there is no outline (melody), it is not music, but harmony is dispensable. Therefore, Westerners listen to Chinese music "like threads floating in the air", while Chinese people who have never been exposed to Western music feel that Western music is like "mixed noise."
Prehistoric Music
The ignorant period of Chinese national music predates the ancestor of the Chinese people, Xuanyuan Huangdi, by more than two thousand years. According to the Neolithic Age, which lasted from 6,700 to 7,000 years ago, our ancestors may have been able to make pottery xuns and dig bone whistles. These primitive musical instruments undoubtedly tell people that humans at that time already had the ability to appreciate music. Ancient music culture is characterized by the combination of song, dance and music according to ancient documents. The so-called music and dance of the Getian clan, "Three people are playing the oxtail, and they are singing eight songs" is the best explanation. At that time, the contents of people's songs, such as "respecting the heavens forever", "strengthening the five grains", and "the best of all animals" reflected the ancestors' understanding of agriculture, animal husbandry and the natural laws of heaven and earth. These primitive music and dances that integrate song, dance and music are also related to the totem worship of primitive clans. For example, the Huangdi clan once used clouds as their totem, and his music and dance were called "Cloud Gate". As for the original song form, we can see the "Hou Ren Song" written by the daughter of Tu Shan in "Lu Shi Chun Qiu". The lyrics of this song only have one sentence: "Waiting for people Xiyi", and only the word "waiting for people" has real meaning. This is the germ of music, a language that has not yet been transformed. The bone flute at the Jiahu site in Wuyang County, Henan Province dates back to about 8,000 BC and is the oldest wind instrument in the world. One of the seven-hole bone flutes was very well preserved. Experts conducted experiments and found that the bone flute could still be used to play music and produce a seven-tone scale. But ancient China basically only used the pentatonic scale.
Ancient Music
In ancient China, "poetry" is indistinguishable, that is, literature and music are closely related. The poems in the Book of Songs, the earliest existing collection of Chinese poetry, were all set to tunes and sung orally by the people. This tradition has continued. For example, the official poetry collection of the Han Dynasty was called "Han Yuefu". Tang poetry and Song lyrics could also be sung at that time. Even today, there are popular musicians composing and singing ancient poems, such as Su Shi's "Shui Tiao Ge Tou" which describes the Mid-Autumn Festival and Li Bai's "Silent Night Thoughts".
Musicians were looked down upon in ancient China, unlike painters, because Chinese painting and calligraphy were closely linked, and painters belonged to the class of literati and officials. In the Song Dynasty, they could even "examine officials by their paintings" (in fact, this was also because of Song Huizong's personal Extreme love for painting). Musicians have a lower status and are just "actors" for the entertainment of the nobles. Li Guinian, a famous singer in the Tang Dynasty, had no political status. People today know him because he often appears in Tang poetry and is praised.
The "literary-officials" class in ancient China believed that a cultured person should be proficient in "Qin, chess, calligraphy and painting". The so-called "Qin" is the guqin that has been passed down to this day. However, the guqin could only be enjoyed by scholar-bureaucrats alone and could not be performed to the public. The guqin has a smaller volume and is the only instrument with a higher status.
Summary: The development of music theory in ancient China was slow, its status in the "official history" was not high, and no more written information was left. But music, like literature, was a compulsory course for the ancient intellectual class, and undoubtedly played an important role in the daily life of ancient Chinese people; folk music is full of colorful melodies.