The Three Major Sources of Ethnic Music

The music of the Central Plains, the music of the four domains, and the music of foreign countries are the three major sources of traditional Chinese music.

1. The music of the Central Plains

refers to the music developed in the Yellow River Valley. During the long process of historical development, the music culture of the Yellow River Valley, with the Han people as the main body, was formed. Among them, the music culture of the Yin Shang and Western Zhou periods is of representative significance. In addition to the development and organization of the six generations of music and dance and other kinds of music and dance, the classification and hierarchization of the ritual and music system, the setting up of the Da Shi Le institution, and the application of the three-part law of gain and loss, etc., which had an important influence, especially in the classification of the "eight tones" musical instruments, the emergence of the qin (a seven-stringed zither) and its music, which laid down the basic pattern of traditional Chinese musical instruments and instrumental music.

2. Music of the Four Regions

This refers to the music and culture of various ethnic groups in China, except for the music and culture of the Yellow River Valley, which was created mainly by the Chinese people in the Central Plains. Among them, areas such as the Yangtze River basin and the Pearl River basin are the cultural birthplace of the Chinese nation, along with the Yellow River basin. The music culture of Chu culture in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River is colorful and unique, and it is a model of traditional music in ancient China with the music of the Central Plains, reflecting each other, competing with each other, blending, and then deriving and developing. The Cantonese culture of the Pearl River Basin, the music culture of the ethnic minorities in the southwest, the role of the Northwest as the ancient Silk Road through the route of the spread of music culture, and the role of intermingling, as well as the music culture of the ethnic minorities in the Northeast, have all made an important contribution to the formation and development of Chinese traditional music. Among them, in terms of musical instruments, as a representative example of the mingling of Han musical culture with that of ethnic minorities, various forms of stringed instruments from the Xiqin to the Huqin can be cited.

3. The exchange of Chinese music with foreign music has a long history. According to the biography of Mu Tian Zi, it is said that at the beginning of the Western Zhou Dynasty, King Mu of Zhou once traveled to the western countries with a rather large-scale band and carried out musical exchanges.

After that, in the Han Dynasty, along with the introduction of Buddhism, Hindu music and Tianzhu music also came into China; in the Sui and Tang dynasties, the importation of a large amount of foreign music brought not only foreign musical compositions, but also the introduction of musical instruments, musical laws and scales.

The pipa, which was introduced to China as a foreign musical instrument and later transformed into a traditional Chinese musical instrument, is one of the representative instruments.