Classification of instruments
The Chinese talent for musical organization was by no means limited to pitches. Another important ancient system called the eight sounds (ba yin) was used to classify the many kinds of instruments played in imperial orchestras. This system was based upon the material used in the construction of the instruments, the eight being stone, earth (pottery), bamboo, metal, skin, silk, wood, and gourd. Stone chimes, vessel flutes, and tubular flutes are examples from the first three categories. The zhong bronze bells are obvious metal examples. Another ancient member of the metal category is a large, so-called bronze drum (tonggu), which is of special interest because of its widespread archaeological distribution throughout Southeast Asia. The sounds of the drum are also intriguing, as are the designs inscribed on its bronze head and the frog figurines that often grace the head’s rim. Han dynasty military expeditions to the south report that bronze drums among southern peoples represented the spirit of rain and water and rumbled like bullfrogs. The possession of such bronze drums or, later, gongs was, and still is, prestigious among peoples of Southeast Asia.
Stringed instruments of ancient China belong to the silk class because their strings were never made of gut or metal but were made of twisted silk. Drums are skin instruments, whereas percussive clappers are wood. One of the most enjoyable members of the wooden family is the yu, a model of a crouching tiger with a serrated ridge or set of slats along its back that were scratched by a bamboo whisk in a manner recalling the various scratched gourds of Latin American dance bands. The Chinese category of gourd is reserved for one of the ancient instruments, the sheng mouth organ. Seventeen bamboo pipes are set in a gourd or sometimes in a wooden wind chest. Each pipe has a free metal reed at the end encased in the wind chest. Blowing through a mouth tube into the wind chest and closing a hole in a pipe with a finger will cause the reed to sound, and melodies or chord structures may be played. Many variants of this instrumental principle can be found in Southeast Asia, and it is not possible to know with assurance where this wind instrument first appeared. Western imitations of its sound are found in the reed organ and, later, in the harmonica and the accordion.
Han dynasty (3rd century bce–3rd century ce): musical events and foreign influences
The extensive work in music theory and classification in ancient times implies that there must have been an equally large amount of material addressing performance practice (the technicalities of proper performance). Modern information on all these elements of music has suffered because of the destruction of many books and musical instruments under the order of Shihuangdi, the last emperor of the Qin dynasty, which was the immediate predecessor of the Han. Nevertheless, there are several survivals from the Han dynasty that give some insight into how the musical events took place. In the court and the Confucian temples there were two basic musical divisions: banquet music (yanyue) and ritual music (yayue). Dances in the Confucian rituals were divided into military (wuwu) and civil (wenwu) forms. The ensembles of musicians and dancers could be quite large, and ancient listings of their content were often printed in formation patterns in a manner analogous in principle to those of marching bands at gridiron football games in the United States today. Rubbings from Han tomb tiles show more informal and apparently very lively music and dance presentations at social affairs. The early Chinese character for dance (wu) implies movement by the upper body more than by the legs and feet. The folk sources of many of the songs from the Shijing and later books show that courtly musical life was not without its joyful and more personal and secular moments. The stringed instruments, notably the seven-stringed qin zither, apparently were popular as vehicles for solo music.
The Han dynasty’s empire expanded and at the same time built walls between its national core and western Asia. But these actions were paralleled by an increasing influx of foreign ideas and materials. Buddhism entered China from India in the 1st century ce, whereas goods (often in the form of booty) and ideas came predominantly from Central Asian Gandharan, Yuezhi, and Scythian cultures along the various desert trade routes via the cities of Hotan (Khotan) to the south, Kucha (Kuqa) in the centre, and Turfan (Turpan) to the north. Desert ruins and Buddhist caves from this period and later reveal a host of new musical ensembles and solo instruments. Two stringed instruments of particular interest are the angle harp (konghu) and the pear-shaped plucked lute (pipa). The harp can be traced back across Central Asia to the ancient bas-reliefs of Assyria, an ancient kingdom located in what is now southeastern Turkey and northern Iraq. The lute, which also seems to have West Asian ancestors, is a more “contemporary” instrument, variants of which have continued to enter or be redesigned in China down to the present day. A delightful symbol of the long-term musical and commercial value of such a plucked lute is found on a 10th-century clay statue of a caravan Bactrian camel with two different styles of pipa tied to the saddle post on top of the rest of the cargo.
New percussion instruments are evident in the celestial orchestras seen in Buddhist iconography. One apparent accommodation between old Chinese and West Asian tradition is the fangxiang, a set of 16 iron slabs suspended in a wooden frame in the manner of the old sets of tuned stones. Gongs related to the present-day Chinese luo, with its slightly convex face, seem to have entered the Chinese musical scene before the 6th century from South Asia, while the cymbals (bo) may have come earlier from India via Central Asian groups. One of the most sonorous Buddhist additions was a bronze bell in the form of a basin (daqing) that, when placed rim-up on a cushion and struck on the rim, produces a tone of amazing richness and duration. Among the varied new instruments pictured in heavenly ensembles, one can still find occasional “old-time” instruments such as a set of narrow wooden clappers tied together on one end like ancient wooden books. The clappers were sounded by compressing them quickly between the hands. Variants of this Zhou dynasty instrument are still heard in Japan and Korea as well as in China.

Not all the new influences in China came via religious or trade activities. During the Six Dynasties period (220–589 ce), which followed the dissolution of the Han dynasty, China was rent by internal strife and border wars. The constant confrontations with the Tatars of the north caused an increased interest in the musical signals of the enemy via drums, trumpets, and double reeds. Although related instruments were equally evident to the south and west, there can be little doubt that the creation of cavalry bands with double kettledrums are direct imitations of the musical prowess of the antagonists on horseback against whom the walls of China were built. With great effort and much blood, China gradually reunified under the Sui dynasty (581–618), and older courtly music and the latest musical trends were consolidated.
Tang dynasty (7th–10th century)
Thriving of foreign styles
The few centuries of Tang dynasty existence (618–907) are supersaturated with brilliant imperial growth and cultural flourishing as well as military and natural disasters. Such a rich loam of good and bad nourished a most fascinating era of music history. The more-formal imperial ceremonies revitalized the ancient orchestras of bells, stone chimes, flutes, drums, and zithers, plus large bands of courtly dancers. In reality, imperial power was based perhaps less on the mandate of heaven (tianming)—the notion that an emperor’s right to rule was divinely conferred—than on the “liberation” of neighbouring countries, the establishment of more-thorough tax systems, and the development of more trade cities and harbours. Into all these power sources flowed foreign goods and foreign ideas. Persians, Arabs, Indians, and people from the Malay Peninsula were found in the foreign quarters of port towns, while every trade caravan brought in masses of new faces and modes of living. Perhaps it is not surprising that an 8th-century poet, Yuan Zhen, should lament about air pollution created by western horsemen, about the ladies who studied western fashions and makeup, and about the entertainers who devoted themselves to only “western” music. (One must remember that the term western in Yuan’s work refers to the land west of the Great Wall.)
There was hardly a tavern in the capital of Chang’an (now Xi’an, Shaanxi province) that could compete without the aid of a female singer or dancer from the western regions with an accompanying set of foreign musicians. Popular tunes of the period included “South India” and “Watching the Moon in Brahman Land,” while beautiful exotic dancing boys or girls were ever the rage. One set of girls from Sogdiana (centred in modern Uzbekistan) won the support of the emperor Xuanzong (712–756) because they were costumed in crimson robes, green pants, and red deerskin boots, and they twirled on top of balls. Other girls from the city today called Tashkent inspired a poet of the 9th century, Bai Juyi, with their dance, which began with their emergence from artificial lotuses and ended with the pulling down of their blouses to show their shoulders, a style not unfamiliar to old Western burlesque connoisseurs. A study of the lithe bodies and flying sleeves on Tang clay dancing figurines is even more compelling proof of the style of the era. In such a context one can understand how eventually an additional character was added sometimes to the word for dance to indicate the movement of the legs as well as of the upper body.
In addition to all the commercial musical enterprises of the Tang dynasty, there was another equally extensive system under government supervision. Emperor Xuanzong seemed particularly keen on music and took full advantage of the various musical “tributes” or “captives” sent to him by all the nations of Asia. This plethora of sounds was further enriched by the special area in Chang’an called the Pear Garden (Liyuan), in which hundreds of additional musicians and dancers were trained and in which the emperor himself was most active. Such trainees were often female. They followed in an earlier tradition of court girls (gongnü) whose basic duties were to entertain distinguished guests.
The mass of different foreign musical styles in the capital was too much for the government musical bureaucracy. A distinction already had been made between court music (yayue) and common music (suyue), but Tang nomenclature added a third kind—foreign music (huyue). Eventually officials organized imperial music into the 10 performing divisions, or shibu ji. Of these divisions, one represented instrumentalists from Samarkand, whereas another group came from farther west in Bukhara (in present-day Uzbekistan). Kashgar, at the mountain pass between the east and the west, sent yet a different group. Musical ensembles were also presented to the emperor from the eastern Turkistan trade centres of Kucha and Turfan. India and two recently defeated kingdoms of Korea provided still other musicians. Chinese and Kucha music were blended by different musicians. One group was supposed to maintain the old styles of Chinese folk music, and there had to be one special group for the performance of formal Chinese court music. These 10 types by no means completed the picture, for nearly every Asian culture took its chance at musical goodwill in Chang’an. Nothing from farther west appears in Tang China. Nevertheless, one can sense in Tang musical culture an internationalism not matched until the mid-20th century, when radios and phonographs provided their owners with the delights of a similarly diverse and extensive range of choices.
Courtly music
The only music that can be discussed in a survey of a repertoire so large is the more official courtly music. Ritual presentations are generally divided into two types: so-called standing music, performed without strings and apparently in the courtyard; and sitting music, for a full ensemble played inside a palace. There are lists of the names of some pieces in these categories with their authorship usually credited to the emperor or empress of the time. For example, “The Battle Line Smashing Song” was attributed to the Tang emperor Taizong (626–649). The accompanying dance is listed for 120 performers with spears and armour. A similarly grandiose piece is “Music of Grand Victory” credited to the next Tang emperor, Gaozong (649–683). Wuhou (died 705) is said to have written “The Imperial Birthday Music,” in which the dancers moved into a formation representing the characters meaning “Long Live the Emperor” in the best modern marching-band tradition. Music inside the palace includes a concert version of “The Battle Line Smashing Song” with only four dancers, “A Banquet Song,” and a piece supposedly composed by the empress Wuhou in honour of her pet parrot, who frequently called out “Long Live Her Majesty.” Those familiar with European music in the courts of Henry VIII and Louis XIV or with the songs always ending in praise of Queen Elizabeth I may recognize the cultural context of such music.
Later-dynasty copies of Tang paintings show ladies entertaining the emperor with ensembles of strings, winds, and percussion, and many of the choreographic plans of the larger pieces are also available in books. According to some sources, court orchestra pieces began with a prelude in free rhythm that set the mood and mode of the piece and introduced the instruments. This was followed by a slow section in a steady beat, and the piece ended in a faster tempo. Documents also tell much about the instrumentation and the colour and design of each costume of the musicians and dancers. No orchestral scores are to be found, however. One solo piece for qin survives, and 28 ritual melodies for pipa were discovered in the hidden library of the Buddhist caves of Dunhuang (Cave of the Thousand Buddhas), but the grand musical traditions of Tang remain frustratingly elusive. Major clues to their actual sounds are found in survivals of such traditions in Korean and Japanese music. The original traditions waned with the decline of Tang good fortune, and the conflicts of the Five Dynasties (Wudai) and Ten Kingdoms (Shiguo) period (907–960) brought the international period to an end.