Music history of China

China's music and literature can generally be traced back to the era of the Yellow Emperor. According to archaeological findings, China's music can be traced back to more than 7,000 years ago, and the Chinese nation has created a rich musical culture in the long history of thousands of years.

China's music once had a profound influence on the music around China. At the same time, China music has been enriched and developed in the process of absorbing foreign musical elements, from the spread of Confucius' Six Arts to the Huqin in the Tang Dynasty, and then to modern western music.

China is known as "the country of rites and music", and ancient music plays an important role in personality cultivation, cultural life and national etiquette. Confucius put forward the learning steps of "prospering in poetry, standing in ceremony and becoming happy".

Extended data:

China's music mastered the seven-tone scale a long time ago, but always preferred the relatively harmonious five-tone scale, paying attention to the development of music in the five-tone, and paying attention to the change of melody and rhythm while ignoring the role of harmony. The development direction of China music is different from that of western music. Western music gradually developed from the pentatonic scale in ancient Greece to the heptatonic scale until the twelve tones.

From single voice to harmony. Therefore, if western music is like a thick wall, the outline is like a melody, and masonry is like a wall. Even if the outline is straight, as long as there is harmony, it is a wall, just like some works of Handel.

China's music is different, just as Chinese painting has lines, without outline (melody), it is not music, and harmony is dispensable. Therefore, westerners who have never been exposed to China's music listen to China's music "like a thread floating in the air", while China people who have never been exposed to western music think that western music is like "noise".

Baidu Encyclopedia-China Music