Chinese Music I INTRODUCTION Classical Peking Opera Of the many major forms of regional theater in China, Peking opera is by far the most famous.

Chinese Music I INTRODUCTION Classical Peking Opera Of the many major forms of regional theater in China, Peking opera is by far the most famous. It is a dramatic form that blends dance, theater, music, and acrobatics. Character types are associated with vocal styles. For example, main male characters sing in the baritone range; secondary male characters (usually unbearded scholars or lovers) sing in falsetto; and virtuous female characters sing in high falsetto. Performers wear dramatic makeup or masks. Accompanying instruments include bowed and plucked lutes, drums, clappers, gongs, cymbals, bamboo flutes, and oboes. The example heard here is an excerpt from the Chaozhou regional opera Bai Lixi Reunites with His Wife. UPI/THE BETTMANN ARCHIVE/Courtesy of Mercedes Dujunco Chinese Music, music created by Chinese people of different regions, linguistic areas, ethnic groups, and sociocultural backgrounds, in a wide variety of vocal, instrumental, and theatrical genres. Chinese music has both ancient and modern traditions. The Jiahu bone flutes, found in China in 1999 and which date to 7000 BC, are known to be the oldest surviving playable instruments in the world. The stunning collection of bronze bells, chime stones, drums, and wind and stringed instruments found in the 5th-century-BC tomb of a man known as the Marquis Yi of Zeng revealed ancient China's rich musical heritage and remarkable achievements in music theory. Today, traditional Chinese repertories are performed alongside modern compositions. Contemporary Chinese popular music, hybrids of indigenous tastes and American popular culture, dominates the mass market in the mainland, Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan. II MUSICAL TRADITION Chinese Temple Blocks Chinese temple blocks are often called mu yüs ("wooden fish") because they are shaped like fish. Mu yüs are slit drums, percussion instruments carved from pieces of camphor wood hollowed out through a slit on one side and lacquered in red and gold. The blocks, which produce different tones depending upon their size, are played by striking them with beaters. Mu yüs are usually played during temple ceremonies. Dorling Kindersley Traditionally, the Chinese have believed that sound influences the harmony of the universe. For more than 2,000 years Chinese culture was dominated by the teachings of the 6th-century-BC philosopher Confucius, who believed music to be one of the two defining sociocultural pillars of a properly ordered society, along with proper observance of ritual. In this view, music encompassed a total way of learning, thinking, behaving, and governing. It was also the indispensable knowledge required of a learned individual to function properly in society. The Confucian notion of music finds particular expression in the Chinese traditions of court ritual and the ceremonial music of imperial China, and in the music of the qin, a seven-stringed zither. Significantly, one of the most important duties of the first emperor of each new dynasty was to search out and establish that dynasty's true standard of pitch. World Music Tour Click on the instruments to hear music from around the world. © Microsoft Corporation. All Rights Reserved. However, the Confucian beliefs about music were constantly eroded throughout Chinese history by a long tradition of popular entertainment music, favored both at the court and by the common folk. Although excluded from official ritual performances for several thousand years, Chinese women musicians and entertainers had a central and formative role in this entertainment music as singers, dancers, instrumentalists, actors, composers, lyricists, and teachers in both the public and private spheres. There is rich archaeological evidence that women mastered every kind of percussion, wind, and string instrument in imperial China until the late 17th century, when women were excluded from public performances. III MUSICAL CHARACTERISTICS Classical Qin Music of China With a repertoire over one thousand years old, the Chinese qin (seven-stringed zither) is one of the most cherished classical instruments in China. The instrument played an especially influential role during the Ming dynasty (1368-1644) as an expressive solo instrument for ritual and ceremonial music. Qin music is traditionally intended more as an avenue to spiritual purification than as a mode of entertainment. Formerly a court instrument, the qin was taken up by 19th-century classically-trained musicians and played to a wider audience. "Liushui" from China:The Art of the Qin (Cat.# Ocora C 560001) (p)1990 Ocora-Radio France. All rights reserved./Dorling Kindersley Through the lyrics and linguistic tones, Chinese language has been the foundation for most traditional Chinese music, including folk song, singing narrative, and opera. More than 400 local opera types and more than 300 local singing-narrative types exist, many influenced by the numerous regional dialects. In addition, a significant amount of tunes played by traditional instrumental ensembles, including those for Buddhist and Daoist rituals, originate in vocal music. In ancient times, Chinese musical instruments were classified according to the materials used in their construction: metal, stone, silk, bamboo, gourd, clay, skin, and wood. The older instruments include long zithers (qin, zheng, se), straight-necked lutes (ruan, qin pipa, sanxian), flutes (dizi), panpipes (paixiao), mouth organs (sheng), and percussion instruments such as bells (zhong), chimes (qin), clappers (ban), drums (gu), and gongs (luo). Of later origin are various fiddles (erhu, jinghu, gaohu, banhu), bent-necked lutes (pipa), hammered dulcimers (yangqin), reed pipes (bili), and shawms (suona), most of which resulted from cultural contacts with Central Asia and India. Melody and timbre are prominent expressive features of Chinese instrumental music, and great emphasis is given to the proper articulation and inflection of each musical tone. Most traditional Chinese music is based on the pentatonic (five-tone) scale, but the heptatonic (seven-tone) scale is also used, often as an expansion of a basically pentatonic core. Heterophonic texture--several instruments simultaneously playing the same melody with different embellishments--is an important performance style for traditional Chinese instrumental ensembles, which often consist of three to ten people. Many different kinds of bands and ensembles can be found in China's vast rural areas, where they often play at weddings, funerals, and other social events. IV MUSICAL HISTORY Peking Opera Peking Opera combines music, acrobatic dance, and spectacular costumes to tell stories from Chinese history and folklore. Using abstract, symbolic gestures rich in dramatic meaning, actors represent personages from the heroic, divine, and animal worlds, often in martial exploits. The traditional features of the masklike makeup and elaborate costumes immediately identify the characters to a knowing audience. Hot Shots Cool Cuts Inc. Chinese music has never stopped evolving and changing throughout the history of Chinese civilization. In the Shang dynasty (1570? BC-1045? BC), both female and male shamans (wu) led sacrificial rituals: singing, dancing, and acting as mediators between the world of the gods and that of humans. The Western Zhou dynasty (1045? 771 BC) was the golden age of court ritual music (yayue). From the Eastern Zhou through the Tang dynasty, a period which lasted from 771 BC to 907 AD, the most BC- significant musical achievement was the varied entertainment music, combining singing, dancing, and instruments. Court entertainment music (yanyue) had its most splendid period during the Tang (618 AD-907 AD). During this period one Chinese emperor, Taizong (626-649), had ten different orchestras, eight of which were made up of members of various foreign countries and ethnic groups. Vocal music became the dominant entertainment form during the Song dynasty (960-1279); ci songs (songs set to poetry with strict tonal patterns and rhyme schemes, in fixed numbers of lines and words) and other singing narratives were the most popular musical genres. They were performed in markets, teahouses, restaurants, and the homes of officials by courtesans and singing girls. Music theater has been the focal point of Chinese musical life since the 13th century. Its highest expression is Chinese opera, which has been performed for ritual and ceremonial functions and for secular entertainment, in both urban and rural areas, and enjoyed by both the elite groups and commoners. Zaju, the first fully developed form of Chinese opera, emerged during the Yuan dynasty (1279-1368). Kunqu (Kun opera), the most influential and most highly esteemed Chinese classical theater, flourished and underwent much stylistic development during the Ming dynasty (1368-1644). Peking opera (jingxi), the best-known Chinese opera genre, was developed during the Qing dynasty (1644-1911) under the imperial patronage. Since the mid-20th century it has been considered China's national opera. See Asian Theater. V MUSIC OF ETHNIC MINORITIES More than 8 percent of the population of China belongs to 55 officially recognized ethnic minority groups, and their diversified music traditions are mostly distinct from that of the majority Han people. Singing--epic songs, love songs, work songs, children's songs, ritual songs--is often an indispensable part of the everyday life of these groups and is integrated into communal activities such as weddings, funerals, ancestral worship, religious ceremonies, seasonal festivals, and the celebration of new houses. Many ethnic groups in southern China have their own annual singing festivals, often associated with courtship. The most famous ones include gexu (song fairs) of the Zhuang people and sanyuejie (third-lunar-month fairs) of the Bai people. More than 500 different kinds of instruments exist among the Chinese ethnic minorities. Small instrumental ensembles often accompany communal dancing events, such as the tiaoyue of the Yi people or Nangma of the Tibetan people. Due to the growing importance of tourism since the 1990s, interest in Chinese minority music has reached a new level. Members of ethnic minority groups now regularly offer performances for tourists, and more recordings of this music are being distributed than ever before. VI CURRENT TRENDS Beginning in the late 19th century, Chinese music has been considerably influenced by European musical theories and practices on the one hand, and on the other hand by the entanglements of Chinese nationalism and ideological conflicts and by the violent processes of sociocultural transformation. Western-style conservatories have been established in China since the 1920s, providing programs in both Western music and Chinese traditional and modern music. Western instruments, symphonic orchestras, concert vocal genres, Western opera, and concert hall performances have all been introduced and taken root in China. In the meantime, much energy has been put into modernizing Chinese music, which includes improving Chinese instruments and traditional performance styles and techniques according to Western music theory and aesthetics. Harmony and orchestration have been added to traditional ensembles; large orchestras of traditional instruments, modeled after Western orchestras, have been created; and Italian opera singing techniques have been introduced into Chinese folk singing. Some scholars have criticized this approach, and beginning in the 1980s there has been new interest and efforts to preserve and revive "authentic" traditional Chinese music. Chinese musicians' century-long experiments with the synthesis of Western music and Chinese traditional music have nevertheless brought a wide range of styles and approaches in music composition and performance. This combination is likely to continue to spark musical innovation. Reviewed By: Su Zheng Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2009. © 1993-2008 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.