The most significant musical historical events were importation and assimilation
of nonindigenous music, expansion of Han musical style into southern China,
new instruments, recognition of solo performance, earliest survival notation,
maturity of
music
aesthetics by Xi Kang, and new conception of
tonal systems.
The banquet
music tradition for aristocracy known as yanyue had already been in practice
during the ancient zhou dynasty. This music nevertheless, was overshadowed
by the court ritual-ceremonial music, which was subquently reconstructed
during the Han dynasty and called yanyue or "elsgant and refined music".
It was not untile the Sui and Tang dynasties that uanyue or "banquet music"
became the major court musical genre for the first time. Yanyue was
a court musical performance for the nobles and gentries during a state
function and during days of festivity.
The emergence
of industry (iron,
Changes in the arts and literature of this periodled
to a new tradition in drama, music, fiction and impressionistic painting
that dominated the development in the remaining periods of modern China.
The creation of a new style in popular music, dram and literature were
mostly important.
major vocal genres: the poetic ci
song, the art song, narrtive music, the zaju variety musical drama
The ci,
ci poem therefore was the "filling in" of words to a given
musical modal sequence and rhythm scheme in irregular meter.
The Art Songs
The Narrative Songs
A lengthy historical or romantic tale was told through
the alternation of narration and song
The Ming-Qing
period was highly productive musically, resulting in developments that
are important not only in this period but as high-lights in the whole continuum
of Chinese music.
signficant musical
developments of this period occurred in the area of urban centers such
as Peking and Suyang (Suzhou and Yangzhou ) were entertainment in nature.
The source of this entertainment music was usually folk dervied, that is,
from the farms and villages, but which was polished for city/urban consumption.
the important forms of urban music included the narrative genres such as
tanci (not to be confused with southern tanchi), lianhualao ("The Falling
Lotus"), and bajiaogu ("Eight-cornered Drum Song"). These were performed
outdoors in the open areas of the marketplaces usually by travelling performing
troupes. Their earnings were donations from by-standers. These performances
of musical instruments. Loud instrumentation, such as the shifan
ten varieties of gong and drum ensemble of the fengyang flower drum dance,
was not popular in the open air.
The outdoor performances
catered to the commoners, meanwhile the indoor performances catered to
an audience made up of genry-officials and wealthy merchants.