Baisha xiyue (, literally "Baisha fine music") is one of the two surviving forms of traditional

music Music is the arrangement of sound to create some combination of Musical form, form, harmony, melody, rhythm, or otherwise Musical expression, expressive content. Music is generally agreed to be a cultural universal that is present in all hum ...

of the

Nakhi people The Nakhi, Nashi, or Naxi (; Naxi: ) are a people inhabiting the Hengduan Mountains abutting the Eastern Himalayas in the northwestern part of Yunnan Province, as well as the southwestern part of Sichuan Province in China. The Nakhi are tho ...

Lijiang Lijiang ( zh, s= ), formerly romanized as Likiang, is a prefecture-level city in the northwest of Yunnan Province, China. It has an area of and had a population of 1,253,878 at the 2020 census whom 288,787 lived in the built-up area (metro) ...

Yunnan Province Yunnan; is an inland Provinces of China, province in Southwestern China. The province spans approximately and has a population of 47.2 million (as of 2020). The capital of the province is Kunming. The province borders the Chinese provinces ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

, known as "Nakhi ancient music". Baisha is a town located 10 kilometres north of Lijiang, and was the capital of the independent Nakhi kingdom before it was annexed in 1271 by the Yuan Empire. Baisha xiyue is a classical orchestral musical form, with 24 qupai (tunes), played on antique Chinese musical instruments, such as

flute The flute is a member of a family of musical instruments in the woodwind group. Like all woodwinds, flutes are aerophones, producing sound with a vibrating column of air. Flutes produce sound when the player's air flows across an opening. In th ...

shawm The shawm () is a Bore (wind instruments)#Conical bore, conical bore, double-reed woodwind instrument made in Europe from the 13th or possibly 12th century to the present day. It achieved its peak of popularity during the medieval and Renaissanc ...

, Chinese lute, and

zither Zither (; , from the Greek ''cithara'') is a class of stringed instruments. The modern instrument has many strings stretched across a thin, flat body. Zithers are typically played by strumming or plucking the strings with the fingers or a ...

. It is derived from the ritual music of

Taoist Taoism or Daoism (, ) is a diverse philosophical and religious tradition indigenous to China, emphasizing harmony with the Tao ( zh, p=dào, w=tao4). With a range of meaning in Chinese philosophy, translations of Tao include 'way', 'road', ...

and

Confucian Confucianism, also known as Ruism or Ru classicism, is a system of thought and behavior originating in ancient China, and is variously described as a tradition, philosophy, religion, theory of government, or way of life. Founded by Confucius ...

ceremonies from the 14th century. Since Lijiang is relatively remote, the music form has survived relatively unchanged since that period. The music is characterised by the "three olds" – old melodies, old instruments and old musicians. The other surviving form of Nakhi ancient music is the Han derived '' dongjing yinyue'' ("cave scripture music"), which has its roots in

and

Buddhist Buddhism, also known as Buddhadharma and Dharmavinaya, is an Indian religion and List of philosophies, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha, a wandering teacher who lived in the 6th or ...

ritual music. A third form of Nakhi ancient music, ''huangjing yinyue'', has not survived. Traditional Nakhi music has been described as the

living fossil A living fossil is a Deprecation, deprecated term for an extant taxon that phenotypically resembles related species known only from the fossil record. To be considered a living fossil, the fossil species must be old relative to the time of or ...

Chinese music The music of China consists of many distinct traditions, often specifically originating with one of the country's various ethnic groups. It is produced within and without the country, involving either people of Chinese origin, the use of tradit ...

References

Chinese folk music Nakhi people Music of Yunnan {{china-music-stub