Introduction
When surveying the historical landscape of Chinese music it is easy to be overwhelmed by the numerous musical traditions that boomed and then faded out over the years. Stock (2017) asks: 'is there a way to approach Chinese music overall? How can we begin to grasp this immense subject area?'. He goes on to suggest ways of subdividing the field, for instance by comparing those rooted in indigenous traditions to those significantly inspired by musical traditions from outside China, or, indeed, by approaching them according to the social status of their respective audiences, say elite or popular (Stock 2017: 395). In this section, I try to give a holistic picture of Chinese music while still grasping issues that scholars worldwide have frequently raised regarding this wide topic. Content for this section is, therefore, grouped into folk song, opera and ballad-singing, solo instruments, ensembles, religious musical traditions, Western classical practices in the conservatories, and popular music.
Folk Songs
Folk songs are the foundation of many other music genres in China. As in many other world cultures, folk songs sprang from many different sources: They were initially sung by workers who needed to unite their strength while laboring or just wanted to make their chores a bit more bearable; by people expressing their loneliness or happiness walking in the mountains or riding a horse on the grasslands; by shepherds who imitated the bleats of sheep to call their herd; or by small traders on the streets to get the attention of potential customers. For young people in many areas, love songs were, and still are, a sometimes very effective means of finding a potential partner. Before China walked into largescale urbanization by the mid-last century, folk songs played an integral role in all kinds of activities and situations, including funeral and marriage ceremonies, child care, ritual, etc. The following pages will cover a few song examples.
Chinese historical sources treat music as just one component of a unified art of performance.
