What are the basic characteristics of Wang Guangqi's three major music systems?

On the development of the theory of "music system" Author: Long Miao's theory of "music system" was first put forward by Wang Guangqi, a famous Chinese musician, in his book Oriental Folk Music. The author of this book studied in Germany in the early 1920s, studied economics first, and then majored in musicology in the Music Department of Berlin University. Berlin University is the birthplace of comparative musicology, so he is deeply influenced by the discipline theory of comparative musicology. In the 1920s, he collected all kinds of materials and made a detailed analysis and comparison. Finally, in the book Music of Oriental Nationalities, he creatively divided the world's multi-ethnic music into three major music departments: China Music Department, Greek Music Department and Persian-Arabic Music Department. For the music of western countries, he thinks that the seven tones in Europe come from Greece, so it is called the Greek music department. The pentatonic scale originated in China, so all the eastern countries' music influenced by China culture belongs to China Music Department. As for Persian Arab countries, because their scales have three neutrals and six neutrals, they are called Persian Arabic Music Department. Wang Guangqi mainly classifies the world's multi-ethnic music from the perspective of musical form, and takes tone, scale and temperament as the main basis for classification. It can be seen from this that Wang Guangqi not only analyzed and summarized the traditional music of Asian countries, but also investigated and studied the music of Europe and Persian-Arab countries. What needs to be emphasized here is that the author's research also involves China minority music, such as Mongolian and Tibetan music, which few people paid attention to at that time. In the book, Wang Guangqi also drew three charts of the world's major music systems, clearly pointing out that the Persian-Arabic music system has been introduced to China, which provides an important theoretical reference for us to study the music in northwest China today. The comparative study of the theory of "Music Department" and the music of oriental nationalities originated in Wang Guangqi, which is undoubtedly a great contribution to China musicology. Because it is a new theory, it is inevitable that there are shortcomings. So the author said in the original work, "I hope that after the publication of this book, some comrades in China are interested in studying comparative musicology." If someone can study it more deeply, the value of this book can only be regarded as the three-character classic at most. " Times have changed. In the sixty or seventy years after Wang Guangqi put forward the theory of "music system", China scholars used three major music system theories to analyze China traditional music, and were surprised to find the feasibility of this theory. Based on the collection and research of local music in recent years, they once again proved many viewpoints put forward by Wang Guangqi, but also found some shortcomings. In 1980s, inspired by the theory of "three major musical systems", Du Fu, a Chinese musicologist, proposed that China's national music includes three major musical systems: China, Europe and Persia-Arabia. He regards the different musical structures and characteristics of different ethnic groups as his own classification criteria. Du Fu's application of the theory of "Music System" to the study of China folk music is indeed an important move, which will help us to re-understand China traditional music from another angle, and ultimately help us to conduct a more detailed and concrete study of different music categories of different nationalities. In addition, he listed the different branches of each music system. Du introduced the music of various music departments and branches in detail from the perspective of musical form, and attached more music examples and charts. In addition, the author puts forward the concept of "a nation with a complex music system" and emphasizes the possibility that the same nation has multiple music systems. At the same time, the author not only distinguishes different musical systems from the perspective of musical forms, but also expounds the modes of production, language families and religious beliefs of different musical branches in the "Overview" part, which will help to further improve the theory of "musical system". In the late 1990s, another musicologist in China, Tian Liantao, further elaborated the theory of "music system". The author thinks that "although the music cultures of different countries and nationalities influence each other and have different influences, the production and development of traditional music cultures of various countries and nationalities are mainly from the creation of noumenon, not from other external sources." Therefore, when naming a music department or music culture type, it is better to use the name of a region instead of a country. The author thinks that China Music Department should be renamed as East Asian Music Department or East Asian Music Culture Type; Greek music department should be renamed European music department or European music culture type; As for the Persian-Arabic music system, because Arabia is the general name of the region, the original Persian-Arabic music system or Persian-Arabic music culture type can be retained, which can also be called West Asia and North Africa music system or West Asia and North Africa music culture type. Based on the theoretical basis provided and referring to some research results of Du Fu, this paper puts forward its own division of traditional music of various ethnic groups in China. The author mainly talks about the characteristics of each music department from three aspects: musical form, musical instrument and music type. In addition, the author also raised two other noteworthy issues. First, through the comparative study of the music of many nationalities, it is often found that the language department belongs to the category of music department; Another problem is that the traditional music of a single nationality generally has the characteristics of only one music system, while the traditional music of some nationalities has the characteristics of mixed music system. In addition, the author also mentioned that the national history, language, living environment, mode of production, folk customs, religious beliefs, and even the performance characteristics of some folk instruments may have an impact on the music of this nation. Analyzing and classifying the music of a certain nation from the aspects of music form, music type, musical instrument and music category is helpful for us to further understand the traditional music of that nation. In addition, the study of folk music and music theory in other countries and regions also has certain academic reference value. In this respect, the music system theory plays an important role in the study of China national music. However, some scholars still doubt the scientific nature of the theory. For example, some scholars think that the music covered by the so-called European Music Department is mainly European art music, or mainstream music, while the China Music System mainly covers the category of folk music, so they think it is unscientific to compare and study different music systems with different contents. Some scholars also believe that the source and category of a nation's music culture cannot be judged mainly from the morphological elements such as scales and rhythms used by a nation. In order to eliminate these doubts and constantly improve the theory of music system, more researchers need to go deep into the music of more countries and nationalities, and take the music form and various factors related to music into account. Only in this way can we draw more objective and accurate conclusions and continuously improve the theory of music system. Reference: [1] Wang Guangqi. Oriental folk music [M]. Beijing: Music Publishing House, 1958. [2] Du, Sang Haibo. Introduction to China's traditional music [M]. Beijing: Capital Normal University Press, 2000. [3] Tian Liantao. An introduction to the traditional music of ethnic minorities in China [3]