''Xi'an guyue'' (), also ''Shaanxi guyue'' (), is the regional

Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of ...

ritual music genre featuring a type of

wind Wind is the natural movement of air or other gases relative to a planet's surface. Winds occur on a range of scales, from thunderstorm flows lasting tens of minutes, to local breezes generated by heating of land surfaces and lasting a few ho ...

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. Ex ...

ensemble Ensemble may refer to: Art * Architectural ensemble * Ensemble (album), ''Ensemble'' (album), Kendji Girac 2015 album * Ensemble (band), a project of Olivier Alary * Ensemble cast (drama, comedy) * Ensemble (musical theatre), also known as the ...

named for its place of origin,

Xi'an Xi'an ( , ; ; Chinese: ), frequently spelled as Xian and also known by other names, is the capital of Shaanxi Province. A sub-provincial city on the Guanzhong Plain, the city is the third most populous city in Western China, after Chongqi ...

, in

Shaanxi Shaanxi (alternatively Shensi, see § Name) is a landlocked province of China. Officially part of Northwest China, it borders the province-level divisions of Shanxi (NE, E), Henan (E), Hubei (SE), Chongqing (S), Sichuan (SW), Gansu (W), N ...

Province. It is also, somewhat misleadingly, called Xi'an drum music. A folk genre, sustained by amateur groups before the 1960s,Jones, Stephen (2013). ''In Search of the Folk Daoists of North China'', p.95. Ashgate. . it was placed on the

UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage List UNESCO established its Lists of Intangible Cultural Heritage with the aim of ensuring better protection of important intangible cultural heritages worldwide and the awareness of their significance.Compare: This list is published by the Intergove ...

in 2009.Xi'an wind and percussion ensemble
, ''UNESCO.org''. The music is split into two categories based on performance, sitting and walking (the latter including chorus), and into three repertoires based on transmission, Buddhist (''Seng''), Daoist (''Dao''), and secular (''Su'').Zhuo, Dr. Sun (2015). ''The Chinese Zheng Zither: Contemporary Transformations'', p.106. Ashgate. . Though associated with the

Tang dynasty The Tang dynasty (, ; zh, t= ), or Tang Empire, was an imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 618 to 907 AD, with an interregnum between 690 and 705. It was preceded by the Sui dynasty and followed by the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdom ...

(due to its prestige and history), the genre shares more with the late

Ming The Ming dynasty (), officially the Great Ming, was an imperial dynasty of China, ruling from 1368 to 1644 following the collapse of the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming dynasty was the last orthodox dynasty of China ruled by the Han peop ...

and Qing dynasties.Zhuo (2015), p.108. The ensembles formerly included other instruments, such as the '' pipa'' and ''daqin'' (presumably the ''

zheng Zheng may refer to: *Zheng (surname), Chinese surname (鄭, 郑, ''Zhèng'') *Zheng County, former name of Zhengzhou, capital of Henan, China *Guzheng (), a Chinese zither with bridges *Qin Shi Huang (259 BC – 210 BC), emperor of the Qin Dynasty, ...

''), as witnessed in '' gongche'' manuscripts. Famous musicians include An Laixu (安来绪, 1895-1977), Daoist master of Xi'an's Chenghuangmiao temple. Manuscripts collected during the fifties date as far back as

1689 Events January–March * January 22 (January 12, 1688 O.S.) – Glorious Revolution in England: The Convention Parliament is convened to determine if King James II of England, the last Roman Catholic British monarch, vacated ...

, but the knowledge of how to perform pieces that old is lost. The genre flourished in the thirties and forties, with ensembles going from temple to temple, "but tacitly it was also treated like a competition." The number of musical ensembles and temples of all kinds was greatly reduced during the

cultural revolution The Cultural Revolution, formally known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a sociopolitical movement in the People's Republic of China (PRC) launched by Mao Zedong in 1966, and lasting until his death in 1976. Its stated goa ...

in the sixties and seventies, beginning to return more as historical preservation, academic research, or tourism then as religious practice in the eighties.

References

Chinese traditional music Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity Culture in Shaanxi Culture in Xi'an {{music-genre-stub

See also

References