Experts hesitate to make any definite judgments about the spirit of Far Eastern music, but the term “melodic” is the one most commonly used to describe it. In ancient times, Chinese writings that referred to sound always discussed it through aspects of the eight winds. The winds developed and shaped the sharpness of sound.
Melodic development has since changed a bit in China, leaving only a clean play of intervals. The separation of the vocal and the instrumental is so old a phenomenon that it has created age-old habits, like envisioning instruments and voices only in an independent fashion. This situation is quite different from the one found in Japan and Korea where the melodies create heterophony, the practice of two or more musicians simultaneously performing slightly different versions of the same melody.
China has placed its energies in small instrumental ensembles. Through them, learned Chinese music has become known. In China, substantial importance is given to soloist music, specifically the seven-stringed zither (called the qin). Confucius himself knew this instrument, which has the special characteristic of being played for itself in private in a landscape in order to conquer solitude.
Far Eastern Instruments - Categories
