The origin of the words "music" and "music" or the story of the origin of the words "music" and "music

The origin of Chinese music:

The traditional music of China was formed and developed through the exchanges and fusions between the music of the Central Plains, centered on the Yellow River Basin, and the music of the Four Regions, as well as foreign music. Therefore, the music of the Central Plains, the music of the Four Regions, and the music of foreign countries are the three major sources of Chinese traditional music.

Music of the Central Plains refers to the music developed in the Yellow River basin, which is a music culture mainly of the Han people, of which the music culture of the Yin-Shang and Western Zhou periods is representative.

The music of the four domains refers to the music cultures of the ethnic groups in the Chinese land other than the music culture of the Yellow River Valley, which was created mainly by the Huaxia ethnic group 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 exchanges between Chinese music and foreign music have a long history. During the Han Dynasty, along with the introduction of Buddhism, Hindu music and Tianzhu music began to be imported into China; during the Sui and Tang dynasties, the importation of large quantities of foreign music brought not only foreign musical compositions, but also musical instruments, rhythms and scales.

Development of Chinese Music

The development of Chinese music can be roughly divided into three periods:

The formative period of Chinese music (about 21st century B.C.E. to the 3rd century A.D.), which included the period from the Xia, Shang, and Western Zhou to the Spring and Autumn Periods, the Warring States Period, and the Qin and Han Dynasties. This period laid the foundation for the later development of Chinese music, and its most representative musical art form was the bell and drum orchestra.

The nascent period of Chinese music (from about the 4th century to the 10th century AD) included the period from Wei, Jin, and the Northern and Southern Dynasties to Sui and Tang. Chinese music changed significantly during this period, creating a new style of music that internationalized music. On the one hand, world music contributed to the development of Chinese music, while on the other hand Chinese music began to become globalized.

The finishing period of Chinese music (about the 10th century to the 19th century A.D.) included the Liao, Song, Jin, Ming and Qing dynasties. The music culture of this period maintained a close association with the ordinary commoners and was characterized by secularity and sociality. Its representative musical art form was the art of opera and its music.

The Qin System and Qin Making

It is still a mystery as to when the Qin was first produced. Ancient legends say that it was created by Shennong, or made by Fuxi, or made by Yao and Shun. Ancient legends are hard to believe, but they imply that the ancients believed that the qin appeared very far away, which should be consistent with the facts.

A, pre-Qin before

Currently archaeological discovery of pre-Qin to the early Western Han dynasty in kind, the number is still very small, they were unearthed in the original Chu within the scope of the Xiang, the two provinces. These zither form is basically the same, but with today's customary form is very different. It is separated from the panel and the base plate, floating together when playing; the panel is divided into half a box and is a solid wood long tail two parts, the tail end is slightly upturned, the end of the overstring notch (dragon gums); the back of the rectangular foot pool, there is a square string shaft (goose feet). There is also no logo on their panels marking the overtone position, and the effective string length (between the hidden) is obviously shorter than in later times. They can be called half-boxed one-footed zither without logo. They have strings ranging from one to ten, suggesting that a seven-string customization has not yet been formed. For example, a ten-stringed zither was excavated from the early Warring States Zenghouyi Tomb in Sui County, Hubei; a painted zither (badly mutilated) with nine or fewer strings was excavated from a late Warring States tomb in Wulipai, Changsha, Hunan; and seven-stringed zithers can be found in the mid-War Period tomb of No. 1 Guodian Village in Jingmen, Hubei, and in the early Western Han Dynasty tomb of No. 3 Mawangdui in Changsha, Hunan.

From the smaller size, the floating surface of the zither, the not-so-flat top, the lower Yue Shan, and the narrower spacing of the strings, etc., it is clear that the zither at this time had many shortcomings in terms of quality of articulation and volume, and was not suited to fast and complex fingerings.

Two, Qin and Han to Wei Jin and North and South Dynasties period

Today, we are accustomed to see the whole box type, two feet, seven strings, the face of the thirteen emblems of the guqin, its form should be in the Han, Jin and North and South Dynasties period to establish.

The Eastern Han Dynasty figurines unearthed in Mianyang, Sichuan Province, held the piano, to make up for the excavation of the pre-Qin zither and today's seven-stringed zither speaker between the important missing link, they are all long full-box zither, but also divided into the head of a wide and narrow long and with a curved neck of the long two kinds of zither.

The Eastern Jin Gu Kaizhi (about 346-407 AD) painted "carving qin map" in two ancient qin, they are also full box, although the body of the qin body appeared in the forehead, neck, shoulders and other distinctions, but the figure of the two ancient qin modeling is still with the Song and Han figurines of the qin player is largely the same. This same style of qin body is also found in the "Four Hao Figures of Shangshan" unearthed from the Northern Dynasty painted brick tombs in Deng County, Henan Province, indicating that this form of the guqin, which was first seen in the Eastern Han Dynasty, has been preserved in the Eastern Jin and Northern and Southern Dynasties periods. Shaanxi Sanyuan early Tang Li Shou tomb line carving mural Kabuki map, there are holding the qin, playing the qin image of a qin, qin style and the "carving qin map" in the qin is basically the same, you can see a traditional style of guqin will continue for a long time.

Nanjing Xishanqiao and other places in the south dynasty qi, Liang tomb brick printing "seven sages in the bamboo forest and rongqi period" mural mountain of qin, with the characteristics of the whole box and present for the new style, that is, the speaker from the eastern jin's inner arc of the item of the long, the development of a square head, broad shoulders, close the end of the form, the style of the speaker can further improve the acoustics of the qin.

This style of speaker can further improve the acoustics of the instrument.

The zither emblem appeared a little later in the early Western Han Dynasty, in the first half of the second century BC. The Western Han Dynasty's Meixian (? -140 B.C.E.), mentioned the use of the Longmen tung for the zither, the use of silk from the wild silkworm for the strings, and the use of the "nine widow's earrings as a covenant". From the context, the covenant made of the pearl is the center of the arrow target, which is equivalent to the emblem here. More explicit reference to the emblem is the Jin Jikang (223-262 AD) "qin Fu" "emblem to Chung Shan of jade" this sentence, but the number of emblems is not known.

The earliest image material of the instrument with the emblem, found in the archaeological discovery of the Southern Dynasties of Qi, Liang mausoleum brick mural "Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove and Rong Qiqi period" in the figure of Jikang and Rong Qiqi period of the piano, the surface of the piano are listed on the outside of more than ten obvious piano emblems. It can be assumed that the customization of the full-box body and thirteen emblems, the age of the Eastern Jin Dynasty or a little before the lower limit no later than the early years of the Southern Qi Dynasty, that is, the fifth century A.D. ninety years.

Three, Sui and Tang dynasties

Tang dynasty qin-making process has made outstanding achievements, no matter the quantity, quality have unprecedented progress, folk qin-making a lot of skilled craftsmen. The most popular carving qin masters came from the Lei family in Sichuan province, the earlier of which was Lei Yan, who had worked as an imperial envoy for Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty, followed by Lei Xiao, Lei Wei, Lei Jue, Lei Wen, Lei Hui, and Lei Chi, etc. Lei Wei was especially famous for the fact that he had been awarded the title of the most famous qin maker of the Tang Dynasty. Lei Wei is especially famous, legend has it that he was instructed by a god, and legend has it that he often went to deep forests on windy and snowy days to listen to the sound of the wind blowing trees, from which he could identify the good materials for making qin. The qin they carved was called "Lei Gong Qin" in Dali (766-779 A.D.), "its Yue can't be pointed, and the strings are not first; its sound comes out of the two pools. The sound comes from between the two pools. The back of the instrument is slightly rumbled, as if it were a scallion leaf. The sound wants to come out and overflow, wandering not to go, there is a residual rhyme, and its subtlety is so" (Song Su Shi, "Miscellany of the zither"). At the time of Zhenyuan (785-804 A.D.), the qin made by Lei in Chengdu was "played by many". At that time, there were also famous zither makers in Jiangnan, such as Shen Shui and Zhang Yue, and the zither they made was also loved by the people. From the famous hands of the ancient qin, all generations of good qin people are regarded as the heirloom of the treasure, to the Song Dynasty there are a lot of people forged the Tang Dynasty Leiqin, this forgeries of the wind through the Yuan, Ming, and the Qing Dynasty and continue to the modern era. There are also a small number of Tang qin treasures preserved to this day, the Sheng Tang Lei's carving of the "nine nights ring Pei" qin (hidden in the Palace Museum in Beijing), experts believe that not only is the heirloom seven-stringed qin in the most ancient one, but also the Tang qin is the most outstanding representative.

After the establishment of the ancient zither, the details were still being improved to perfection. It is said to be the ancient qin in the "Northern Qi School Script" painted by Yan Liben in the early Tang Dynasty (in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, USA), with a rounded head and broad shoulders, the middle part is slightly narrower, and the phoenix fins are closed to the end, which is a more favorable shape to improve the sound of the qin.

Experts have identified sixteen more reliable Tang zither ****. In the basic shape of the same premise, according to their shape undulation contraction of different characteristics, can also be divided into a variety of different styles. If the qin book according to later generations of qin style classification, there are sixteen Fuxi style, Shennong style, a Feng potential style three, Lianzhu style two, ShiKuang style two, Liezi style, a ZhongNi style a. Because there is only one ZhongNi style. Because there is only one Zhongni-style zither is still the late Tang Dynasty, it seems that the Eastern Han Dynasty to the middle Tang Dynasty eight hundred years, Zhongni-style zither is not very popular. Just after the late Tang Confucius and Confucianism as a representative of the Taoist system, the Zhongni style zither is gradually popular, to the two Song dynasty is very popular, there is a fixed situation, other styles of zither in turn increasingly rare.

The Tang zhongni-style zither, compared to the later generations of similar zither, also has a more rounded surface, the waist inwardly deeper Tang qin **** the same characteristics. After the Tang zhongni-style zither, in addition to imitation of the work of the Tang, generally do not have this feature.

Since the Sui and Tang dynasties, zither music has also been the hobby of many princes and eminent officials. Yang Xiu, son of Emperor Wen of Sui Dynasty, was appointed as the king of Shu, had "made a thousand qin, scattered on the earth". Later on, there were many famous qin makers in Shu, or related to this. Twenty years in the Tang Dynasty for the phase of Li Mian, good piano, home carving hundreds of qin, which is the product of the absolute generation of "ringing spring", "rhyme chime" since the treasure in the home, has written "qin said" a volume.