Guangdong music, also known as '' Cantonese music'' (廣東音樂 "Kwongdong yam ngok",''Guǎngdōng yīnyuè'') is a style of traditional Chinese instrumental music from

Guangzhou Guangzhou (, ; ; or ; ), also known as Canton () and Chinese postal romanization, alternatively romanized as Kwongchow or Kwangchow, is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Guangdong Provinces of China, province in South China, sou ...

and surrounding areas in

Pearl River Delta The Pearl River Delta Metropolitan Region (PRD; ; pt, Delta do Rio das Pérolas (DRP)) is the low-lying area surrounding the Pearl River estuary, where the Pearl River flows into the South China Sea. Referred to as the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Ma ...

of Guangdong Province on the southern coast of China. The name of the music is not an accurate description because ''Guangdong music'' is not the only music of the whole Guangdong area. Cantonese classical music especially were usually much livelier in pace and happier than those of other China provinces which is typical and the very essence of the Cantonese's character. In Guangdong, there are numerous traditional

genres Genre () is any form or type of communication in any mode (written, spoken, digital, artistic, etc.) with socially-agreed-upon conventions developed over time. In popular usage, it normally describes a category of literature, music, or other for ...

of music such as

Teochew music Teochew or Chiuchow (; peng'im: ''Dio⁵ziu¹'' ) is a historical area that is mostly within the modern Chaoshan region, eastern Guangdong, China. Teochew may also refer to: * Teochew dialect, a dialect of Southern Min Chinese, commonly used in ...

and

Hakka music The Hakka (), sometimes also referred to as Hakka Han, or Hakka Chinese, or Hakkas are a Han Chinese subgroup whose ancestral homes are chiefly in the Hakka-speaking provincial areas of Guangdong, Fujian, Jiangxi, Guangxi, Sichuan, Hunan, Zhej ...

(Hakka ''Hanyue'' and ''sixian''). The name of the music originated in the 1920 and 1930s when the music was popular in

Shanghai Shanghai (; , , Standard Chinese, Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four Direct-administered municipalities of China, direct-administered municipalities of the China, People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the ...

ballrooms in the form of "Spiritual Music" ( 精神音樂, Jīngshěn Yīnyuè; more properly translated as "spirited music"). As the performers were almost entirely from Guangdong, Shanghai people generalized the form of music as Guangdong music. Musically, compositions are based on tunes derived from

Cantonese opera Cantonese opera is one of the major categories in Chinese opera, originating in southern China's Guangdong Province. It is popular in Guangdong, Guangxi, Hong Kong, Macau and among Chinese communities in Southeast Asia. Like all versions of Ch ...

, together with new compositions from the 1920s onwards. Some pieces have influences from

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a m ...

and Western music, using

syncopation In music, syncopation is a variety of rhythms played together to make a piece of music, making part or all of a tune or piece of music off-beat. More simply, syncopation is "a disturbance or interruption of the regular flow of rhythm": a "place ...

and triple time, and incorporating instruments such as the

saxophone The saxophone (often referred to colloquially as the sax) is a type of Single-reed instrument, single-reed woodwind instrument with a conical body, usually made of brass. As with all single-reed instruments, sound is produced when a reed (mouthpi ...

violin The violin, sometimes known as a '' fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone ( string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument ( soprano) in the family in regu ...

guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected string ...

piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboa ...

drum set A drum kit (also called a drum set, trap set, or simply drums) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and other auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one person. The player (drummer) typically holds a pair of matching drumsticks ...

, or

xylophone The xylophone (; ) is a musical instrument in the percussion family that consists of wooden bars struck by mallets. Like the glockenspiel (which uses metal bars), the xylophone essentially consists of a set of tuned wooden keys arranged in ...

.Leisure and Cultural Service Department (Hong Kong) - Guangdong music series
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Instrumentation

The ''

gaohu The ''gaohu'' ( 高胡; pinyin: ''gāohú'', ; Cantonese: gou1 wu4; also called ''yuehu'' 粤胡) is a Chinese bowed string instrument developed from the ''erhu'' in the 1920s by the musician and composer Lü Wencheng (1898–1981) and use ...

'' is the most common lead instrument used in performing Cantonese music. It was invented by

Lü Wencheng Lü Wencheng ( 吕文成, pinyin: Lǚ Wénchéng, or ''Lui Man Sing'' in Cantonese) (1898 in Zhongshan - 1981 in Hong Kong) was a Chinese composer and musician. He composed '' Autumn Moon Over Calm Lake'' () in the 1930s, one of the best known w ...

(吕文成, 1898-1981) in the 1920s. Prior to this, the '' erxian'' was the most common lead bowed string instrument in the Cantonese ensemble. Ensembles led by the ''erxian'' and also featuring the ''tiqin'' are called ''yinggong'' (硬弓, literally "hard bow") ensembles, while those led by the ''gaohu'' are called ''ruangong'' (软弓, literally "soft bow") because the ''erxian'' and ''tiqin'' have thick bamboo bows, while the ''gaohu'' has a thinner, flexible bow. Guangdong music gradually evolved into a string ensemble format by the 1960s, led by the

with ''

ruan Ruan may refer to: Buildings * Ruan Center, office building in Des Moines, Iowa * John Ruan House, historic mansion in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, t ...

'', '' qinqin'', '' yangqin'', ''

sanxian The (, literally "three strings") is a three-stringed traditional Chinese lute. It has a long fretless fingerboard, and the body is traditionally made from snake skin stretched over a rounded rectangular resonator. It is made in several siz ...

'', '' yehu'', '' tiqin'' and various

woodwind Woodwind instruments are a family of musical instruments within the greater category of wind instruments. Common examples include flute, clarinet, oboe, bassoon, and saxophone. There are two main types of woodwind instruments: flutes and re ...

(including '' houguan'') and

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Exc ...

instruments.

Alto saxophone The alto saxophone is a member of the saxophone family of woodwind instruments. Saxophones were invented by Belgian instrument designer Adolphe Sax in the 1840s and patented in 1846. The alto saxophone is pitched in E, smaller than the B t ...

, xylophone, violin, piano, electric guitar, and drum set may also be used, in combination with traditional instruments.

Composers

* He Liutang (何柳堂, 1874-1933) *

(吕文成, 1898－1981) * Qiu Hechou (丘鶴儔, 1880-1942) *

Yan Laolie Yan may refer to: Chinese states * Yan (state) (11th century – 222 BC), a major state in northern China during the Zhou dynasty * Yan (Han dynasty kingdom), first appearing in 206 BC * Yan (Three Kingdoms kingdom), officially claimed inde ...

(嚴老烈, dates unknown)

Compositions

*Baihua Ting Nao Jiu () *Bu Bu Gao (步步高, by Lü Wencheng) *È Mǎ Yáo Líng (餓馬搖鈴, possibly by He Liutang) *Han Tian Lei (旱天雷, by Yan Laolie) *Jiao Shi Ming Qin (蕉石鳴琴, by Lü Wencheng) * Autumn Moon Over the Calm Lake (平湖秋月, by Lü Wencheng) *Qīng Méi Zhú Mǎ (青梅竹馬, by Lü Wencheng) *Sailong Duojin (賽龍奪錦, by He Liutang) *Xiao Tao Hong () *Yu Da Ba Jiao (雨打芭蕉, possibly by He Liutang) *Yu Le Sheng Ping (娛樂昇平, by Qiu Hechou)

Audio samples

References

External links

Guangdong music page
(

Mandarin Chinese Mandarin (; ) is a group of Chinese (Sinitic) dialects that are natively spoken across most of northern and southwestern China. The group includes the Beijing dialect, the basis of the phonology of Standard Chinese, the official language ...