Chinese Music
, the body of vocal and instrumental music composed and played by the Chinese people. For several thousand years Chinese culture was dominated by the teachings of the philosopher Confucius, who conceived of music in the highest sense as a means of calming the passions and of dispelling unrest and lust, rather than as a form of amusement. The ancient Chinese belief that music is meant not to amuse but to purify one's thoughts finds particular expression in the cult of the qin (ch'in), a long zither possessing a repertory calling for great subtlety and refinement in performance and still popular among a small circle of scholar-musicians. A famous qin scholar once said, “Though the qin ...
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musical entertainers were relegated to an extremely low social status. Melody and tone color are prominent expressive features of , and great emphasis is given to the proper articulation and inflection of each musical tone. Most is based on the five-tone, or pentatonic, scale, but the seven-tone, or heptatonic, scale, is also used, often as an expansion of a basically pentatonic core. The pentatonic scale was much used in older music. The heptatonic scale is often encountered in northern Chinese folk music. al instruments traditionally have been classified according to the materials used in their construction, namely, metal, stone, silk, bamboo, gourd, clay, skin, and wood. Of these, the stone and wood instruments are obsolete. The older instruments include long zithers; flutes; panpipes; the sheng, or mouth organ; and percussion instruments, such as clappers, drums, and gongs. Of later origin are various lutes and fiddles, introduced to China from Central Asia. is as old ...
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Chinese Music. (2005, August 7). Retrieved November 22, 2024, from http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Chinese-Music/31308
"Chinese Music." Essayworld.com. Essayworld.com, 7 Aug. 2005. Web. 22 Nov. 2024. <http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Chinese-Music/31308>
"Chinese Music." Essayworld.com. August 7, 2005. Accessed November 22, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Chinese-Music/31308.
"Chinese Music." Essayworld.com. August 7, 2005. Accessed November 22, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Chinese-Music/31308.
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