Traditional Chinese Musical Instrument

source：Teach English in china time：2018-10-15 10:29:48 read:14887

Ancient Chinese believed that the music could purify people's minds. More than 3,000 years ago, ancient China had some 70 types of musical instruments. The royal family and aristocrats had their own orchestra. For them, music was also a way to display their power, position and taste distinguished from common people. However, as music was never limited to the upper social class, the musical trend gradually turned from solemnity to entertaining. Huge and complex instruments like the bronze chimes gave way to more lively and easy-play wind and reed instruments. The Tang Dynasty, one of the strongest and most prosperous empires in Chinese history, was a golden age for musical development. Many of the Tang emperors were musicians or composers themselves. With frequent cultural exchanges with other cultures, a large number of exotic instruments were introduced, altered and finally adopted into the family of Chinese traditional instruments. Chinese traditional musical instruments can be mainly classified into three categories, string, wind and percussion. Here is a brief introduce to typical Chinese musical instruments.
The pan flute
The pan flute, known as 排箫(pinyin pái xiāo) in China, is a traditional musical instrument especially frequently used in folk songs or melodies. It is also known as panpipes or syrinx in west. In China, pan flutes are often ...
Morin Khuur
The Morin Khuur (马头琴pinyin:mǎ tóu qín), also known as the horse head fiddle, is a traditional Mongolian stringed instrument which very popular among the Mongolian people in north China. It is the most loved and iconi...
Hulus
The hulus (葫芦丝pinyin: húlúsī),known as cucurbit flute or bottle gourd silk in west, is a free reed wind traditional Chinese instrument. It is most popular among the ethnic group people living in Yunnan and the nearby...

Lu Sheng
Lu Sheng (芦笙pinyin lú shēng), is a wind instrument for Miao, Yao and Dong ethnic people living in southwest China. It has been originated in central China with a history of over 3000 years, then it went quite popular among ...
Sheng
Sheng，one of the oldest musical instrument in China, is a kind of wind instrument. And it’s the oldest musical instrument used reed in the world. It has played an active role in promoting the development of Western musical i...
Dombra
Dombra（冬不拉，Chinese dongbula），is a traditional instruments in the Kazak ethnic group people in west China. It is a long-neck two-strings instrument. The tune of Dombra is never too loud and the play skill is mainly obtained by the ...
Pipa
Pipa has four-stringed lute with 30 frets and pear-shaped body. The musician holds the instrument upright and play with five small plectrums attached to each finger of the right hand. The history of Pipa dates back at least 2,000 ...
Guzheng
Chinese Zither (Chinese name: Guzheng) is one of traditional musical instruments in China. It’s a kind of plucked instrument. It originated during the Warring Period more than 2,500 years ago in China. The earliest known ver...
Guqin
Guqin, the oldest musical instrument in China, is also known as the Seven-stringed instrument. The body is a long and narrow wooden sound box. Usually, it is 130 centimeters long, 20 centimeters wide and 5 centimeters high. The su...

Xiao
Xiao (Chinese: 箫) is one of the oldest musical instrument in China. It’s a kind of wind instrument. It enjoyed a time-honored history. The melody of vertically-played bamboo flute or Xiao in Chinese, reminds people of a lone...
Xun
Xun（Chinese: 埙） is a kind of wind instrument. It’s one of the oldest musical instruments found so far in China with a history of more than 7,000 years, and play a important role in world music circle. The instrument has been...
Erhu
Erhu, a kind of bowed instrument, is the most representative one in the Chinese traditional folk musical instrument. As one of the most popular Chinese string instruments the two-stringed vertical fiddle has a long history of more...

Drum
China, Mesopotamia ancient Egypt, ancient India are regarded as home of drum. As a traditional percussion instrument, drum occupies a prominent place in Chinese culture. According to the ancient literature, it might as old as Chin...
Dizi
Flute (Chinese pinyin: Dizi) is a kind of ancient Chinese musical instrument and is the most representative musical instrument with with strong ethnic characteristics. Dizi is always performed in occasions, such as Chinese traditi...
Chinese Chimes
Chinese chimes are large-scale musical instrument in China, which originated in the Western Zhou Dynasty (1046BC-771BC), and reached heyday during the Warring States period (770BC-221BC). Chinese Chimes are made flat with sharp co...

Waist Drum
Waist Drum (腰鼓 yāo gǔ) ,is a traditional Chinese drum, mainly popular among people in north China especially in Shanxi province. Waist Drum is usually played by man as the instrument shows a muscular feature of men and often accom...
Suona
The suona was first introduced to ancient china from Persia. It is one of the typical Chinese traditional instruments. It is also commonly called laba (meaning horn in Chinese) in China and bayin (meaning eight tunes) in Guangdong...