Chinese Classical Music By: Vicky Wu IB Music

Religion and Music For several thousands of 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.

Tone Most Chinese music is based on the five-tone or heptatonic scale, thee scale was much used in older music while seven- tone or the pentatonic scale is often encountered in northern Chinese folk music. The notes used in Chinese classical music of the heptatonic scale are C,D,E,G,A.

Categorization Chinese music instruments can be categorized into eight classes by the materials they are made from. There they are: metal, stone, clay, leather, silk, wood, bottle-gourd and bamboo.

Silk Silk refers to the stringed instruments. It can be further divided into three categories: the bowed strings, the plunked strings and the struck strings. Ex: pipa, guzheng, guqing, erhu and dulcimer.

The pluncked instrument: Guzheng There are many techniques used in the playing of the guzheng, including basic plucking actions at the right portion and pressing actions at the left portion (by the left hand to produce pitch ornamentations and vibrato) as well as tremolo (right hand). The bowed strings instrument: Erhu It has widely been called "Chinese violin" because its tone similar to a Western violin. While the four-string violin is played horizontally, the two-string erhu is played vertically. http://www.iqiyi.com/w_19rrc4njwx.html http://my.tv.sohu.com/us/63269378/61161427.shtml

Wood The wood type instruments includes wooden blocks and wooden boxes. These were used by Buddhist monks during religious ceremonies. They hit the wooden box with a wooden stick.

Bottle-gourd The most famous gourd type instruments are Sheng and Hulusi. Sheng is one of the oldest Chinese instrument, it imitates the sound of a phoenix. Hulusi is held vertically and has three bamboo pipes which pass through a gourd wind chest.

Clay The ocarina, a small, egg-shaped wind instrument with six holes for the finger tips is made out of clay. It is one of the oldest Chinese instruments.

Bamboo The majority of woodwind instruments are made from bamboo. Ex. Bamboo lute, panpipes and reed pipe. http://v.baidu.com/kan/MS7o/MS8J?fr=v.hao123.com/search&page=videoMultiNeed

Leather Leather refers to the beast leather instrument, which often times also means the beating drum. One example would be the waist drum.

Metal This includes bells, luo and bo.

Stone The instument that is made of stone is called: bianqing. It is a ancient percssion instrument, various size of stones hang on a wooden stand.

Performance music in China is played on solo instruments or insmall ensembles of plucked and bowed stringed instruments, flute and various cymbals, gong, and drums.

Thank you for listening The end Thank you for listening 4/23/2017