Chinese Traditional Music
H i s t o r y
Archaeological evidence indicates that music culture was first developed in China 9000 years ago.
The Imperial Music Bureau was first established in the Qin dynasty (221–207 BC) and charged with supervising court music and military music. In subsequent dynasties, the development of Chinese music was influenced by the musical traditions of Central Asia which also introduced elements of Indian music.
Through succeeding dynasties over thousands of years, Chinese musicians developed a large assortment of different instruments and playing styles.
A wide variety of these instruments, such as guzheng and dizi are indigenous, although many popular traditional musical instruments were introduced from Central Asia, such as the erhu and pipa.
More About Instruments
Pipa is a Chinese string instrument, called the "lute“ with a pear-shaped wooden body.
Pipa first appeared in literature 1900 years ago
Guzheng is a plucked instrument. The modern guzheng commonly has 21 strings.
The guzheng is played with different techniques.
The trapezoidal yangqin is probably derived from the Iranian santur or the European dulcimer.
It was often played in the Jiangnan sizhu and in some Cantonese music groups.
Erhu is a two-stringed bowed musical instrument,a spike fiddle.
It is sometimes known in the Western world as the Chinese violin and is common is Chinese orchestra.
Dizi is a Chinese transverse flute and is mainly made of bamboo. It's the Chinese woodwind.
Dizi produced in southern Chinese regions and it is very light to carry.
Zhongruan is a string instrument. It has a straight neck with 24 frets on the fingerboard and 4 strings.
It is usually played with a plectrum (similar to guitar pick).