page_title: Music of China
section_title: Early history
hierarchical_section_title: Music of China / History / Early history
caption_attribution_description: English: Bone Flute
context_page_description: Music of China refers to the music of the Chinese people, which may be the music of the Han Chinese as well as other ethnic minorities within mainland China. It also includes music produced by people of Chinese origin in some territories outside mainland China using traditional Chinese instruments or in the Chinese language. It covers a highly diverse range of music from the traditional to the modern.
  Different types of music have been recorded in historical Chinese documents from the early periods of Chinese civilization which, together with archaeological artifacts discovered, provided evidence of a well-developed musical culture as early as the Zhou dynasty. These further developed into various forms of music through succeeding dynasties, producing the rich heritage of music that is part of the Chinese cultural landscape today. Chinese music continues to evolve in the modern times, and more contemporary forms of music have also emerged.
context_section_description: Archaeological evidence indicates that music culture developed in China from a very early period. Excavations in Jiahu Village in Wuyang County, Henan found bone flutes dated to 9,000 years ago, and clay music instruments called Xun thought to be 7,000 years old have been found in the Hemudu sites in Zhejiang and Banpo in Xi'an.
  During the Zhou dynasty, a formal system of court and ceremonial music later termed yayue (meaning "elegant music") was established.   Note that the word music (樂, yue) in ancient China can also refer to dance as music and dance were considered integral part of the whole, and its meaning can also be further extended to poetry as well as other art forms and rituals. The word "dance" (舞) similarly also referred to music, and every dance would have had a piece of music associated with it.  The most important set of music of the period was the Six-dynasty Music Dance (六代樂舞) performed in rituals in the royal court. Music in the Zhou Dynasty was conceived as a cosmological manifestation of the sound of nature integrated into the binary universal order of yin and yang, and this concept has enduring influence later Chinese thinking on music.  "Correct" music according to Zhou concept would involve instruments correlating to the five elements of nature and would bring harmony to nature.  Around or before the 7th century BC, a system of pitch generation and pentatonic scale was derived from a cycle-of-fifths theory.
  Chinese philosophers took varying approaches to music.  To Confucius, a correct form of music is important for the cultivation and refinement of the individual, and the Confucian system considers the formal music yayue to be morally uplifting and the symbol of a good ruler and stable government. Some popular forms of music, however, were considered corrupting in the Confucian view.  Mozi on the other hand condemned making music, and argued in  Against Music (非樂) that music is an extravagance and indulgence that serves no useful purpose and may be harmful.  According to Mencius, a powerful ruler once asked him whether it was moral if he preferred popular music to the classics. The answer was that it only mattered that the ruler loved his subjects.
  In ancient China the social status of musicians was much lower than that of painters, though music was seen as central to the harmony and longevity of the state. Almost every emperor took folk songs seriously, sending officers to collect songs to record the popular culture. One of the Confucianist Classics, The Classic of Poetry, contained many folk songs dating from 800 BC to about 400 BC.
caption: A 9,000 year-old bone flute from Henan
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