Explainer | The history of Chinese musical instruments and how they fit in modern orchestra – overview
We look at China’s earliest musical instruments, how Chinese instruments fall into eight categories, and the modern four-section orchestra
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The Sounds of China: A beginner’s guide to Chinese musical instruments
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.
