Chinese Music
Chinese music has become very popular in the recent years. There was a time when
only English, French and Spanish songs were given a lot of attention by the
world. However times have changed and now Chinese music has also acquired a lot
of popularity.
Traditional Chinese music is played in small ensembles of bowed and plucked
stringed instruments, flutes, various cymbals, gongs, and drums or it is played
on solo instruments. Qin and Bamboo pipes are among the oldest known musical
instruments of Chinese music.
Instruments are broadly divided into categories which are based on their material of composition. So we have animal skins, earth/clay, silk etc. Chinese orchestras generally consist of bowed strings, plucked strings, woodwinds, and percussion. Chinese music opera has been immensely popular for centuries, Beijing opera is worth special mention in this context.
The music is guttural and has high-pitched vocals; usually it is accompanied by jinghu, suona, percussion, and other kinds of string instruments. Other types of opera include Pingju, clapper opera, Cantonese opera, Kunqu, Qinqiang, puppet opera, ritual masked opera Sichuan opera, and Huangmei xi.