An Overview of the Forms of Chinese Music Throughout the Ages

History of Chinese Music

I. The Ancient Period

The period of musical obscurity of the Chinese people was more than 2,000 years earlier than that of Xuan Yuan Huangdi, the founder god of the Chinese race. According to the present 6,700 to 7,000 years of the Neolithic era, the ancestors may have been able to burn pottery ocarina, digging and making bone whistles. These primitive musical instruments undoubtedly tell people that human beings at that time already had the ability to aesthetize music. According to ancient documents, ancient music culture was characterized by the combination of song, dance and music. The so-called "three people manipulate the tail of an ox, throwing enough to sing eight songs" music and dance of the Gertian Clan is the best illustration. At that time, the content of people's songs, such as "respect for the sky", "to fight for the five grains", "the total beasts and animals," reflecting the ancestors of agriculture, animal husbandry, and the understanding of the natural laws of heaven and earth. These songs, dances, music as one of the primitive music and dance also want to link with the original clan totem worship. For example, the Yellow Emperor's clan used clouds as a totem, and his music and dance was called "Cloud Gate". The primitive song form can be found in the "Song of the Waiting Man" written by the daughter of the Tushan clan as recorded in the "Spring and Autumn Annals of Lu Shi". The lyrics of this song consisted only of the phrase "Waiting for people", and only the word "waiting for people" had any real meaning. This is the germ of music, a kind of language that has not yet been crystallized.

The Xia and Shang Dynasties

The Xia and Shang Dynasties were a period of slavery. From the classical literature, the music and dance at this time has gradually detached from the original clan music and dance for the clan **** have the characteristics, they are more for the possession of the slave owner. In terms of content, they gradually left the primitive totem worship and turned into the ode to the people who conquered nature. For example, when Xia Yu ruled over the water and benefited the people, the music and dance "Daxia" appeared to glorify him. When Xia Jie was a ruthless ruler, the Shang Tang attacked him, and the dance "Dazhou Ge" was sung in praise of the Shang Tang's attack on Jie. During the Shang Dynasty, witchcraft was prevalent, so there were wizards (witches) and wizards (male wizards) specializing in rituals. They were kept by the slave masters and danced and sang during the rituals, and were the first people to make music their profession. Slave owners used music and dance to worship the emperor and ancestors, and at the same time, they used music and dance to indulge in their own enjoyment. After their death, they had to be martyred with musicians, and this cruel martyrdom system exposed the cruel rule of the slave masters on the one hand, and objectively reflected the progress of the productivity compared with the primitive era, thus making the music culture equipped with the conditions for rapid development. According to historical records, in the Xia Dynasty has been used in the crocodile skin made of alligator drum. In the Shang Dynasty, there were already found wooden python drums and bronze drums with double birds and taotie motifs, as well as well-made stone pans derived from stone birch plows. As a result of the influence of the Bronze Age, the Shang Dynasty also saw the emergence of chimes and cymbals, most of which were made in groups of three. The emergence of various types of percussion instruments reflects the history of musical instruments in the development of percussion instruments in front of the characteristics. Beginning in more than five thousand years B.C., the body sound instrument pottery ocarina from the time of the single tone hole, two tone hole development to five tone hole, it has been able to send out twelve semitone tone column. According to the pottery ocarina pronunciation deduction, China's national music thinking based on the five-tone scale appeared in the late Neolithic period, while the seven-tone at least in the Shang, Yin time has appeared.

Three, Western Zhou, Eastern Zhou period

Western Zhou and Eastern Zhou is the slavery society from prosperity to decline, the feudal society factors growing historical period. The court of the Western Zhou period first established a complete system of rituals and music. In the feast entertainment in different status of the officials provided for different status, dance team establishment. Summarizing the canonical music and dance of epic nature of the previous generations, we can see the so-called "six generations of music and dance", i.e., the "Cloud Gate" of the Yellow Emperor, the "Salt Pond" of Yao, the "Shao" of Shun, the "Daxia" of Yu, the "Dajing" of Shang, and the "Dawu" of the Zhou. During the Zhou Dynasty, there was also a system of collecting folk songs to observe customs and public sentiment. The first collection of poems in China, the Book of Songs (Shijing), was formed by Confucius in the Spring and Autumn Period. It contains more than 500 years of poetry from the beginning of the Western Zhou Dynasty to the middle of the Spring and Autumn Period, including 1***3015 poems. The best part of the Book of Songs is the "Winds". They are the folk songs of fifteen countries, centered in Henan Province and including several nearby provinces. In addition, there are the "Daya" and "Xiao Ya" composed by the literati, and the "Ode", an epic ritual song. According to the analysis of the texts handed down to us, the songs in the Book of Songs can be summarized into ten types of song structures. As the climax of the song, there is a special name "Chaos". Before and after the book of "The Book of Songs", the famous patriotic poet Qu Yuan compiled the "Nine Songs" based on the ritual songs of Chu, which has strong characteristics of Chu culture. Up to this point, two different styles of music works in the north and south of the interplay of interest. During the Zhou Dynasty, folk music involved more than ten aspects of social life and was very active. The story of Bo Ya playing the zither and Zhong Ziqi knowing his soulmate began at this time. This reflects the improvement of playing techniques, composing techniques and people's appreciation level. In the performance of the guqin, the qin player also summarized the psychological feeling of "getting it from the heart so as to be able to respond to the instrument". The famous singing musician Qin Qing's singing was recorded to be able to "vibrate the sound of the forest and the trees, and to ring out the flying clouds". There is even a folk singer, Han E, after the song, "the sound of the afterglow, three days". These are the high achievements in vocal music technology. Zhou dynasty music culture highly developed achievements can also be 1978, Hubei Suixian unearthed in the warring states Zeng Hou Yi tomb in the ancient musical instruments as an important symbol. This can be comparable to the Egyptian pyramids of the underground music treasure trove provides a model of the court ritual music system at that time, where eight kinds of 124 pieces of musical instruments unearthed in accordance with the Zhou dynasty "eight tone" instrument classification (gold, stone, silk, bamboo, Lagenaria, soil, leather, wood) almost all kinds of musical instruments have all kinds of musical instruments. One of the most important sixty-four pieces of chime instruments, divided into the upper, middle and lower three layers, with a total weight of more than 5,000 kilograms, the total range of up to five octaves. Because of this set of bells with the Shang Zhou chimes a bell hair two tone characteristics, its part of the tone area of twelve semitones complete, can rotate the Palace of the tune, thus confirming the pre-Qin literature on the rotation of the Palace of the records of the reliable. Zenghouyi tomb bells, rock musical instruments on the inscription, the content of the vassal states between the music theory, reflecting the high degree of achievement of the Zhou dynasty music theory. In the Zhou Dynasty, the theory of twelve rhythms has been established. The five sounds of the name of the scale (Gong, Shang, Horn, Zheng, Feather) has also been established. At this time, people already knew that the five or seven tone scale is dominated by the Gong tone, and the change of the Gong tone position is called the rotary Gong, so that the effect of transposition can be achieved. An outstanding achievement in legal science is the "three-point loss and gain method" recorded in "Guanzi - Di Duan Chuan". It is to take the string length of the Gong tone as the basis, add one-third (gain one) to get the pure fourth degree of the Leung tone below the Gong tone; subtract one-third (loss one) from the string length of the Leung tone to get the pure fifth degree of the Shang tone above the Leung tone; and continue to extrapolate in the following manner to get the string lengths of the tones of the pentatonic scale. According to this method, the string lengths of the twelve half-tones (dodecatonic) in the whole octave constitute the "three-part loss and gain system". This system is due to the natural intervals of five degrees from each other, each born into the sound of the twelve equal temperament of the five degrees higher than the average, so that the twelve times not get the beginning of the high octave of the law, resulting in the so-called "yellow bells can not be restored", to the palace of the rotary transfer inconvenience. But this fully embodies the monophonic music melodic beauty of the law system has continued to this day.

Four, Qin, Han period

Qin and Han began to appear "music". It inherited the Zhou Dynasty on the wind system, collect, organize and change the folk music, end of the performance of a large number of musicians in the feasts, suburban rituals, congratulations and other occasions to play. These lyrics, used for singing, are called music poems. Lefu, and later was extended to refer to a variety of lyrics into the music or not into the music, and even some of the opera and qiyue are also called Lefu. The main form of song in the Han Dynasty was the song of harmony. It is from the initial "one person singing, three people and" singing, gradually developed into a silk, bamboo instruments accompanied by "phase and big song", and with "colorful - tend - chaotic" structure, it is on the Sui and Tang dynasty song and dance by an important influence. Drum and Blow Music emerged in the northwestern border of Han Dynasty. It was composed of a variety of wind and percussion instruments of different compilations, such as horizontal blowing, riding blowing, yellow door drumming and so on. They were played on horses or on the march, and were used for military ceremonies, court banquets and folk entertainment. Today's surviving folk music, when the Han Dynasty drums and blowing the legacy. In the Han Dynasty, there are also "hundred plays", which is a combination of song and dance, acrobatics, jousting (sumo wrestling) programs. The achievement of the Han Dynasty's jurisprudence is that Jingfang divided the octave into sixty laws by the method of three points of gain and loss. Although this theory is meaningless in music practice, it reflects the subtlety of the thinking of the rhythm. The effect of the fifty-three equal temperament was theoretically achieved.

Fifth, the Three Kingdoms, the two Jin dynasties, the North and South Dynasties period

Ching Shang music developed by the phase and song in the north by the Cao Wei regime's attention to set up the Qing Shang Department. The wars at the turn of the two Jin dynasties led to the influx of Qing Shang music into the south, where it merged with the southern Wu songs and Western songs. In the Northern Wei Dynasty, the fusion of the north and south of the Qing Shang music returned to the north, thus becoming an important type of music that spread throughout the country. Since the Han Dynasty, with the opening of the Silk Road, the songs of the western countries began to be introduced to the mainland. During the Northern Liang Dynasty, Luguang brought the music of Guzi (now Kuche in Xinjiang), which played an important role in the music of the Sui and Tang dynasties, to the mainland. This shows that musical exchanges among the various ethnic groups were already very popular at that time. At this time, the representative instrument of traditional music culture, the guqin, tended to mature, which is mainly manifested in the following: in the Han Dynasty, there was already a guqin monograph titled "Qin Maneuvers", which explains the title of the qin song. Jikang, the famous zither player in the Three Kingdoms, wrote the book "Zither Manipulation" in which there is a record of "emblems with the jade of Zhongshan". This shows that people at that time already knew the generation of overtones on the guqin. At that time, a large number of literati qin artists appeared one after another, such as Jikang, Ruanji, etc., and a number of famous compositions such as "Guangling San" ("Nie Zheng assassinated the King of Qin"), "Interlude Exercise", "Wine Madness", and so on, were released. The end of the Northern and Southern Dynasties also prevailed a storyline, characters and make-up performances, singing and dancing, while accompanied by singing and orchestral accompaniment of song and dance theater. This was already a small, embryonic form of opera. Important achievements in legal studies during this period include Xunmao's discovery of the "corrections of the mouth of the pipe" for wind instruments in the Jin Dynasty. In the Southern Song Dynasty, He Chengtian created a new law that was very close to the twelve equalized laws by adding equal differences to the three-part loss and gain method. His efforts initially solved the problem that the yellow bell of the three-point loss and gain law could not be restored.

Sixth, Sui and Tang Dynasties Sui and Tang Dynasties, the regime was unified.

Particularly in the Tang Dynasty, political stability, economic prosperity, the rulers pursued a policy of openness, the courage to absorb the culture of the city, coupled with the Wei and Jin dynasty has been nurtured since the fusion of musical culture of the various ethnic groups to lay the foundation, finally sprung to the song and dance music as the main symbol of the music and art of the overall development of the peak. In the Tang Dynasty, the music of the court feast was called "Yan music". The seven-step music and nine-part music of the Sui and Tang dynasties belonged to Yan music. They are the folk music of various ethnic groups and some foreign countries, mainly Qing Shang music (Han), Xiliang (now Gansu) music, Gaochang (now Turfan) music, Guzi (now Kuqi) music, Kang Guo (now Russia Samarkand) music, An Guo (now Russia Bukhara) music, Tian (now India) music, Goryeo (now Korea) music and so on. Among them, Guzi music and Xiliang music were more important. Yan music is also divided into sitting part of the kabuki and standing part of the kabuki performance, according to Bai Juyi's "standing part of the kabuki" poem, sitting part of the kabuki player level is higher than the standing part of the kabuki. The popular Tang Dynasty Song and Dance Dagong is a unique and unique piece of Yan music. It inherited the tradition of the Sangho Daigaku, blended the essence of the music of various ethnic groups in the Nine-Part Music, and formed the structural form of the loose sequence - the middle sequence or the beat sequence - the break or the dance all over the place. See in the "Church Records" recorded in the Tang dynasty song name **** there are 46, of which the "Nishang Yuyi Dance" for the famous emperor musician Emperor Tang Xuanzong made, but also elegant style of the French song, for the world to praise. The famous poet Bai Juyi wrote a vivid poem depicting the performance of this great song, "The Dance of the Neishang Yuyi". The prosperity of music culture in the Tang Dynasty also manifested itself in a series of music education institutions, such as the Education Workshop, the Pear Garden, the Dale Department, the Drum and Blow Department, and the Pear Garden Specialized in Teaching Young Children. These institutions with strict performance appraisal, creating a number of talented musicians. Tang poetry, one of the best in literary history, could be sung in music at that time. At that time, kabuki used to enjoy singing the poems of famous artists; poets also measured their writing level by how widely their poems were circulated after being sung to music. The pipa was one of the main instruments in the Tang orchestra. It was already comparable to today's pipa in shape. Nowadays, the pipa in Fujian Nanqu and Japan still retains some features of the Tang pipa in its form and playing method. Influenced by the music theory of Guzi, the Tang Dynasty saw the emergence of the music theory of eighty-four tones and twenty-eight tones of Yan music. In the Tang Dynasty, Cao Rou also created the guqin notation method of subtractive notation, which has been used until recent times.

Song, Jin, Yuan period

Song, Jin, Yuan period of the development of music and culture to the public as an important symbol of the music of the boom, compared with the Sui and Tang Dynasty music has been more in-depth development. Along with the prosperity of the urban commodity economy, the amusement parks "Tile House" and "Gou Lan" came into being to adapt to the cultural life of the citizen class. In the "tile house", "hook bar" in people can hear the call, puri singing, small singing, singing and other art songs singing; can also see the rap class music categories cliff words, Taojin, drums words, the Gong tune, as well as miscellaneous dramas, the yard of this performance; can be described as competition, a hundred flowers blossomed. Among them, the two types of song structures, namely, Tangling Order and Tangling Da, have a certain influence on the song structures of later operas and instrumental music. And the drum lyrics influenced the later rap music drum lyrics. Zhugong tunes are large-scale rap tunes that matured during this period. Among them, singing accounted for a heavy weight. Inheriting the legacy of the development of the Sui and Tang dynasties, the Song Dynasty has seen an unprecedented development in the music of lyrics and tunes. This literary genre of singing in short and long phrases can be divided into the form of words, such as introduction, slow, near, beat, order, etc. The technique of filling in the words had already been developed. In the technique of filling in the words, there were already "spreading out", "reducing the words", "stealing the sound" and so on. Jiang Kui (姜夔) of the Southern Song Dynasty was a famous lyricist and musician who could compose lyrics as well as compose songs according to his lyrics. He had seventeen of his own compositions and one zither song "Ancient Grievances" with a reduced character score. These compositions express the author's concern for the people of his motherland and depict a tranquil and melancholic mood, such as Yangzhou Slowly, Plum Order of Lixi, and Shadow of Apricot Blossom Sky, and so on. The guqin music of the Song Dynasty was preceded by Guo Chuwang's masterpiece Xiaoxiang Shuiyun, which is the first of its kind in the guqin genre. The work expresses the author's love for the mountains and rivers of his motherland. In the development of bowed string instruments, the Song Dynasty saw the emergence of the "Horsetail Huqin". In the Yuan Dynasty, the emergence of the three-stringed folk instrument is worth noting. In the theory of music, there was a record of the Yan music scale in the Song Dynasty. At the same time, the early form of the Gongshi musical notation appeared in Zhang Yan's Etymology and Shen Kuo's Mengxi Bianan. A type of Gongshi music score that has become common in recent times is directly derived from this time. Song Dynasty is also China's opera tends to mature era. It is marked by the emergence of the Southern Song opera. South opera, also known as Wenzhou miscellaneous opera, Yongjia miscellaneous opera, its music is rich and natural. At first, some folk tunes could be sung without the limitation of the palace tunes. Later on, when it developed into the music of opera, it also organized a number of phrases of different songs to form a new song of the "set of songs" form. In the form of singing, there are solo, duet, chorus and so on. There are three kinds of Nanju Opera texts passed down to the world, such as "Zhang Xie Scholar" in "Yongle Daqu". Opera art in the Yuan Dynasty appeared in the peak represented by Yuan miscellaneous operas. Yuan miscellaneous operas flourished initially in the north, and gradually developed to the south, intermingling with southern operas. The representative writers of Yuan miscellaneous operas were Guan Hanqing, Ma Zhiyuan, Zheng Guangzu, Bai Pu, as well as Wang Shifu and Qiao Jifu, known as the Six Greats. Typical works such as Guan Hanqing's Dou'e Grievance, Single Dagger Club, and Wang Shifu's The Story of the Western Wing. Yuan miscellaneous operas have a strict structure, i.e., each work consists of four folds (acts) and one wedge (prologue or scene). A fold is limited to the same Gong tone, a rhyme to the end, often sung by a character (end or Dan), these rules, and sometimes there are breakthroughs, such as Wang Shifu's "The Western Chamber" up to five twenty fold. The influence of Yuan miscellaneous operas on southern operas resulted in the further maturation of southern operas (called legends during the Yuan and Ming dynasties). There appeared a series of typical plays, such as "Baying Moon Court", "Pipa Tale" and so on. These plays have been passed down through the generations and are still being performed today. At that time, the styles of northern and southern operas had been initially established, with the northern opera based on the seven-tone scale and the southern opera based on the five-tone scale. With the development of opera art in the Yuan Dynasty, the earliest monograph summarizing the theory of opera singing appeared, i.e. Yan Nan Zhian's Singing Theory, and Zhou Deqing's Zhongyuan Yinyun was the earliest rhyme book of the Northern Qu, in which he classified the northern language into nineteen rhyming parts and divided the characters into yinping, yangping, supersonic, and descending tones. This had a great influence on the study of phonetics and the development of opera and rap music.

Eight, Ming and Qing Dynasties

Because the Ming and Qing societies already have the germ of capitalist economic factors, the growing civic class, the development of music and culture is more secularized characteristics of the Ming Dynasty folk songs are rich in content, although the good and the bad are mixed, but the impact of the wide range of people has reached the "no matter men and women," "everyone used to the" degree. As a result, the private collection of editing, publishing and engraving of songs has become a trend, and from the folk songs and songs to the book, opera, qinqu have private publications. For example, Feng Menglong edited "Mountain Songs", and Zhu Quan edited the earliest qin music "Magic Secret Record". Rap music in the Ming and Qing dynasties was colorful. Among them, the southern play lyrics, the northern drum lyrics, as well as the plaque song, qin book, Taoism type of rap music is more important. The southern beautiful play lyrics to Suzhou play lyrics have the greatest influence. In the Qing Dynasty, Suzhou appeared to Chen Yu Qian as the representative of the cool and majestic Chen tone; to Ma Rufei as the representative of the straight and hearty Ma tone; to Yu Xiushan as the representative of the beautiful and soft Yu tone of these three important schools. Later on, many new genres were developed. The drums of the north are more important than the Shandong drums, the Jizhong woodblock drums, the West River drums, and the Jingyun drums. And the brand song type of rap has a single string, Henan big tune tune, etc.; qin book type of rap has Shandong qin book, Sichuan Yangqin, etc.; Daoxiang type of rap has Zhejiang Daoxiang, Shaanxi Daoxiang, Hubei fishing drums, etc., the ethnic minorities also appeared in some rap songs such as Mongolian rap, the Bai's Dabenqu. Song and dance music in the Ming and Qing dynasties has a greater development in the people of various ethnic groups, such as the Han's various rice-planting songs, Uygur lamps Mukam, Tibetan Nangma, Zhuang copper drum dance, Dai Peacock Dance, Yi jumping moon, Miao Lusheng dance and so on. Characterized by the flow of vocal cadences, Ming and Qing opera music saw a new peak of development. At the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, there were four major acoustic cavities: Haiyan, Yuyao, Yiyang and Kunshan, among which Kunshan cavity was reformed by Wei Liangfu and others in Taicang, Jiangsu Province, and won people's favor with its delicate and fluent tunes, and its pronunciation of the words "head", "belly" and "tail". After the convergence of the Kunshan accent and the northern and southern operas, the Kun Opera was formed, which was the crown of the opera for a while. The earliest repertoire of Kun Opera is "The Story of Raccoon" by Liang Chenyu of the Ming Dynasty, and the rest of the important repertoires are "The Peony Pavilion" by Tang Xianzu of the Ming Dynasty and "The Palace of Eternal Youth" by Hong Sheng of the Qing Dynasty. With its flexible and varied characteristics, the Eagle Yang cavity had an important influence on the small plays of dialects in various places, which led to an increasing number of small plays, such as various kinds of high-cavity plays. At the end of the Ming and the beginning of the Qing dynasties, the northern Shangbangqiang, represented by the Shaanxi Western Qinqiang, developed very quickly, and it influenced the Puzhou Bangzi of Shanxi, the Tongzhou Bangzi of Shaanxi, the Hebei Bangzi, and the Henan Bangzi. This high-pitched, bold and vigorous bangkang accent has endured in the northern provinces. In the late Qing Dynasty, the Pihuang accent, consisting of the two basic tunes of Xipi and Erhuang, was initially formed in Beijing, thus giving rise to the Peking Opera, which had a nationwide influence. During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the development of instrumental music was manifested in the emergence of various forms of instrumental ensembles in folk music. For example, Beijing's Zhihua Temple Pipe Music, Hebei Blow Song, Jiangnan Silk and Bamboo, Shifan Gongs and Drums, and so on. In the Ming Dynasty, "Pingsha Falling Geese", "Flowing Water" and other qin music of the Qing Dynasty, as well as a number of rich qin songs such as "Yangguan Sanyi" and "Hujia Eighteen Beats", were widely circulated. Since the end of the Yuan Dynasty and the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, there have been famous pipa pieces such as "Haiqing Takes the Swan" and "Ambush on All Sides", and the earliest pipa score edited by Hua Qiuping appeared in the Qing Dynasty. At the end of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Zaiyu, a famous musicologist, calculated the length ratio between two neighboring rhythms (semitones) of the twelve equal temperaments to twenty-five digits, which is the first legal achievement in the world.

9. Modern Period

This period began with the Opium War at the end of the Qing Dynasty, and continued through a series of anti-imperialist and anti-feudal peasant revolutions, the Hundred Days' Reform, the Xinhai Revolution, the May Fourth Movement, and the New Democracy Revolution under the leadership of China's Communist Party. However, the development of music culture was mainly based on the trend of democracy and science. The development of traditional music was firstly characterized by the development of revolutionary folk songs, such as "Hong Xiuquan's Uprising" reflecting the revolution of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, "The Song of Forced Relocation" protesting against the invasion of the Tsarist Russians, and "Stick to the End" and "The Bitter People" denouncing the warlords' betrayal of the motherland and the suppression of the people during the "May Fourth" period. In the red base areas, the frontier areas, and the liberation zones, there were even more excellent traditions of revolutionary songs, such as "Tianxinxun" and "Embroidered Gold Plaques". The formation of Peking Opera in the music of the opera had an impact on the whole country, with the emergence of Cheng Changgeng, Tan Xinpei, and later Mei Lanfang, Cheng Yanqiu, Zhou Xinfang, and other famous performers of the generation. Various local operas, Ping Opera, Yue Opera, Chu Opera, etc. also gained rapid development, and national instrumental music was characterized by the emergence of various instrumental societies in the folk world, such as the "Tianyun Society" and the "Daitong Music Society", etc. This reflected the development of national instrumental music, which had an impact on the whole country. This reflects that the development of folk instrumental music has a deep foundation of folk activities. The folk activities of folk music have created many outstanding folk artists, of which Hua Yanjun (Blind Bing) is an outstanding representative. In addition, there were many compilations and publications of various zither and pipa scores. Although the introduction of Western music into China can be traced back to the Yuan and Ming dynasties, the influence of Western music as a cultural form in China should be attributed to the folk song movement in the school at the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the People's Republic of China. At that time, some intellectuals who demanded to follow the example of Europe and America to enrich the country and strengthen the army advocated this movement, such as Liang Qichao, Shen Xinguang and Li Shuding. As the music teaching materials for the students, the music songs of the school propagated patriotism, anti-imperialism, support for **** and the study of European and American science and civilization as the content, such as "Chinese Men", "Gymnastics - Soldier Gymnastics", etc., and these music songs were not only circulated in the school, but also widely influenced the social circles. Most of these songs borrowed foreign tunes and lyrics, while a few of them were based on national tunes, and a few of them were composed. Under the influence of the "May Fourth" New Culture Movement, music activities began to spread Western music and improve national music, and some music societies were established, such as the "Peking University Music Research Society", the "Chinese Society for Aesthetic Education", and the "Society for the Improvement of National Music". Professional music education was initially established on the basis of these music societies. In the 1920s, Xiao Youmei founded the National Conservatory of Music in Shanghai, which was the beginning of formal professional music education. Xiao Youmei devoted his life to the cause of early professional music education in China." During the "May Fourth" period, the famous linguist and composer Zhao Yuanren was one of the representatives of China's early professional music creation. He paid attention to the combination of the tones of the national language and the tones of the songs, and absorbed the nutrients of the traditional music, and wrote "The Ballad of the Selling of the Cloths" and "Teach Me How Not to Think of Him", and other works that have been handed down to this day. Liu Tianhua, a national musician, explored the way to improve national music from studying western music, founded the "National Music Improvement Society", and wrote erhu solo pieces such as "Bright Walk", "Bird's Voice on the Empty Mountain", and "Singing in the Midst of Sickness", etc., and incorporated erhu into his professional music education curriculum. Li Jinhui created a large number of children's songs and dances, such as The Little Painter, The Sparrow and the Child, and the song-and-dance performance drama Poor Qiu Xiang, which were also early explorations of China's new opera creation. As one of the first generation of musicologists in China, Wang Guangqi made pioneering contributions to Chinese music historiography and comparative musicology. In the 1930s, the famous music educator and composer Huang Zi did a great deal to consolidate and improve professional music education. He trained a number of professional musicians such as Liu Xuean, Jiang Dingxian, He Luting, etc. His compositions such as "Three Wishes of the Rose" and "Nanxiangzi" still resonate on today's concert stage. He also wrote China's first oratorio, The Song of Long Hate. During this period, the development of professional music was dominated by songs as the main genre, and instrumental pieces were relatively weak. However, there were some better works in the nationalization of instrumental works, such as He Luting's piano piece Piccolo for Shepherd Boys, Qu Wei's piano piece Flower Drums, Ma Sicong's violin piece Inner Mongolia Suite, Marco's orchestral piece Shaan Bei Suite, and national instrumental pieces such as Moonlit Night of the Spring River and Huayanjun's Two Fountains Reflecting the Moon.

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