Chinese music is often grouped by how it is made - sung, danced, narrated, staged, or played. These six entries are the groupings this site uses to get you oriented.
Overview
Folk Songs
民间歌曲
Work songs, mountain songs, short popular songs
Overview
Music for Dance
歌舞音乐
Yangge and other folk song-and-dance traditions
Overview
Narrative & Ballad Arts
说唱音乐
Suzhou pingtan, Jingyun dagu
Overview
Chinese Opera Music
戏曲音乐
Kunqu, Peking opera, clapper operas
Overview
Instrumental Music
民族器乐
Solo, duet and ensemble playing
综
Overview
Ensemble & Integrated Traditions
综合性乐种
Forms that combine singing, playing and staging
This grouping is the framework this site uses to help you get oriented. It is not the only way Chinese music is classified, and different sources divide it differently.Genre photographs are illustrative: they show a related practice, not evidence for any statement about the genre. Detailed genre pages do not exist yet.
Older Chinese writing groups instruments by the material they are made from - metal, stone, silk, bamboo, gourd, clay, hide and wood. It is a different question from "how is it played", and the two systems do not line up neatly.
That is the interesting part: the same instrument can be described in more than one way depending on which tradition of classification you are using.
金Metal
Bells, and later gongs and cymbals
石Stone
Chime stones
丝Silk
Stringed instruments, from silk strings
竹Bamboo
Flutes and pipes
匏Gourd
Reed instruments with a gourd wind chest
土Clay
Vessel flutes such as the xun
革Hide
Drums
木Wood
Slit drums and percussion blocks
The eight-sounds system is not a parent category above the four families above, and the modern grouping is not simply a later form of it. They answer different questions.
