Chinese Ancient Musical Instruments Zebra Keys Blog

Chinese Ancient Musical Instruments

Back in 1977, there were four chambers full of numerous musical instruments were found in Suzhou in Hubei Province, China. These instruments were dated back more than 2,500 years ago. Among them were bamboo flutes, bronze drums, stone chimes, a set of 64 cast-bronze bells in wooden frame, and many other musical instruments.

This has indicated that even over thousands of years ago, the Chinese civilization had reached its peak in using all the available resources to brilliantly create such incredible musical instruments.

The largest bell discovered then was 485 pounds in weight. There were bells with complex design such as a range of five octaves each with 12 semitones. The frames and hooks of these bells had over three thousand inscriptions of instructions on the assembly as well as the music theory.

The difference of the Chinese musical instruments and the Western instruments is that the latter use eight-note scales instead of five-note scales used in Chinese music instruments found. In Chinese music theory, there are also 12 pitches within an octave, but only five of them are regarded as essential pitches – that is why Chinese music sounds a little strange to Western music world.

Qin, or Guqin (古琴) is a string instrument used in the ancient music, was played mostly for the emperors and the imperial courts. It is estimated that there are only about 200 of these instrument left in China, and they are being stored in the conservatories. Most of the Chinese populations have never heard of the music played by this instrument.

Below is music played using Guzheng (古筝)