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Joanne Yau

This article serves as an introduction to our upcoming series on classical Chinese instruments and the traditional Chinese music orchestra, in which we will show you how musicians play the eight different types of instrument and explore their history.
China, Hong Kong and Asian countries with large Chinese populations such as Singapore and Malaysia all have professional orchestras specialising in Chinese instruments.
These instruments, and the classical Chinese music they play, sound quite unlike those of Western orchestras. How much do you know about them?
To fully appreciate the richness of classical Chinese music, it helps to understand its history, which stretches back more than 8,000 years.

According to legend, the person responsible for the invention of Chinese music was the Yellow Emperor – whose other reputed accolades include unifying all the Chinese tribes along the Yellow River, writing the first Chinese characters and originating indispensable parts of traditional Chinese medicine.
One day the emperor asked a very clever scholar called Ling Lun to search for “harmonious sounds”, according to the classic text Master Lu’s Spring and Autumn Annals.
Ling Lun is said to have replicated the sound of the phoenix, a mythical bird, by carving holes into a piece of bamboo and blowing it – thus creating the first dizi, or Chinese flute. (It was not the earliest flute in the world – that record belongs to a Neanderthal flute discovered in Slovenia, southeast Europe, which was made out of bear bones 50,000 years ago.)
Myths aside, the earliest playable music instruments excavated in modern-day China were crane bone flutes found at an archaeological site in Jiahu, a Neolithic settlement near the Yellow River. Dating back to as long ago as 7500BC, they had five to eight holes and were capable of producing a near-perfect octave.
Over the centuries, other types of Chinese musical instruments emerged. By the Zhou dynasty (1046BC-256BC), instruments were categorised based on the primary material used in their fabrication.
There were eight categories: silk, bamboo, wood, stone, metal, clay, gourd and hide.

All the instruments used today – there are over 50 in a standard Chinese orchestra, such as the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra – still fall under one of the eight categories.
The silk category covers all stringed instruments, including the erhu and pipa. The hide category covers drums. Gourd mainly includes the sheng, a wind instrument dating to 1100BC whose central chamber was traditionally made from gourd. Look out for our detailed explorations of each instrument category over the next few weeks.
An important musical concept was developed during the Zhou dynasty. Called yayue, it is a formal system of music and dance that was later absorbed into cultures across East Asia. In Japan, it is known as gagaku, and in Korea, aak.
Much classical Chinese music explores the interplay between the natural environment and human emotions. Among the most famous works are High Mountains and Flowing Water, originally played on a Chinese zither called the guqin, and Plum Blossom Melodies, best-known for its flute and guqin parts.
Chinese music is not typically based on the Western scale but a five-note pentatonic scale, made up of notes called gong, shang, jue, zhi and yu (equivalent to do, re, mi, sol and la in Western music). The system aligns with the five elements of Chinese cosmology: earth, metal, wood, fire and water. For example, gong is aligned with the earth element and has a deep pitch.

Music plays a major role in Confucian philosophy. As one of Confucianism’s “Six Arts”, music is considered a way for cultured individuals to express themselves, and is also emblematic of a stable government.
Not all viewed it so favourably, however. The ancient Chinese philosopher Mozi (circa 470BC-391BC) – who founded Mohism, an ancient Chinese belief system – strongly opposed music, seeing it as a form of excessive extravagance.
The evolution of Chinese instruments had a lot to do with trade with nearby cultures. Gongs, for example, are said to have originated from Tibet and what is now Myanmar the sixth century.
Fast-forward to the 1920s and 30s and a modernisation of Chinese music took place alongside the standardisation of regional versions of instruments and the systems for tuning, musical notation and more.
The Shanghai Conservatory of Music was established by scholar Cai Yuanpei in 1927 and was China’s first institution of higher learning devoted to musical education.
During this time, the modern Chinese orchestra was born, incorporating Western instruments and new Chinese instruments such as the gehu, which was adapted from the cello.

Four modern families of Chinese music instruments were formed based on how they were played: plucked strings, bowed strings, woodwinds and percussion.
In 1935, the Central Broadcasting System of China, later known as the Broadcasting Company of China (BCC), pioneered the professional four-section orchestra, also known as the guoyuetuan.
The BCC Orchestra provided the model for the many contemporary Chinese orchestras – including the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra, which was founded in 1977.
Do not miss our exploration of the eight categories of Chinese musical instruments, which we will begin publishing on August 26.


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Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra member Lu Yi with his sheng, a wind instrument dating to 1100BC. Photo: Jonathan Wong

Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra member Song Hui with her erhu, a two-stringed bowed instrument. Photo: Jonathan Wong

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Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra dizi virtuoso Wu Chih-ting with a xun, an ancient wind instrument. Photo: Jonathan Wong

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How traditional Chinese instruments sheng and ‘Chinese bagpipes’ make music using gourds

The Chinese sheng (above) is formed from a gourd and bamboo pipes. Photo: Shutterstock

The sheng and “hulusi” or Chinese bagpipes (above) are traditional Chinese wind instruments that use a bottle gourd for a base and bamboo pipes with finger holes to play notes. Photo: Shutterstock

A dried calabash or bottle gourd. These were used for millennia for transporting liquids, and in ancient China were turned into musical instruments including the sheng and “hulusi” or “Chinese bagpipes”. Photo: Shutterstock

Lu Yi, sheng player with the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra. Photo: Jonathan Wong

The ‘Chinese bagpipes’ come in various forms and colours, and are often decorated in classical Chinese style. Photo: Shutterstock

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Bianzhong, or chime bells, are an ancient instrument often found in tombs and were already in use in the earliest recorded periods of Chinese civilisation. Photo: Getty Images

Chime bells from the tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng, exhibited in the Hubei Provincial Museum. Photo: Getty Images

An illustration of a Chinese waterman and his barge, next to a large gong, in the 18th century. Photo: Getty Images

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Wu Chih-ting, a Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra member, with a xun. It is the signature clay instrument of modern Chinese orchestras. Photo: Jonathan Wong

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Master instrument maker Choi Chang-sau with a guqin at Choi Fook Kee Musical Instrument Factory in Shek Kip Mei, Hong Kong. Photo: SCMP

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Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra member and erhu virtuoso Song Hui with her instrument. Photo: Jonathan Wong

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Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra Lin Yu-hsien with her dizi, a bamboo flute. Photo: Jonathan Wong

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A Chinese lithophone, or “bianqing”. Photo: Sina

Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra member Luk Kin-bun with a lithophone. Made of stone and struck with a wooden mallet to produce sounds, the Chinese musical instrument. has a long history. Photo: Jonathan Wong

The bianqing is a common sight when Chinese instrument orchestras perform. Photo: Sina

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We look at China’s earliest musical instruments, how Chinese instruments fall into eight categories, and the modern four-section orchestra


From the earliest playable musical instruments to their roles in a modern four-section orchestra, Chinese traditional instruments and their 8,000-year history explained.


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The history of Chinese musical instruments and how they fit in modern orchestra – overview

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}We look at China’s earliest musical instruments, how Chinese instruments fall into eight categories, and the modern four-section orchestra

We look at China’s earliest musical instruments, how Chinese instruments fall into eight categories, and the modern four-section orchestra