文化 | Hello China 英文版《你好中国》（17-18)

2019暑假已至！本号试图利用假期时间，每天分享Hello China 英文版《你好，中国》，每期2集，从不同角度用英语阐释中华文化。为英语，尤其是高中英语学习中华文化铺路。

需要说明的是Hello China 英文版《你好，中国》是由中国国家广电总局主办、中国国际广播电台、高等教育出版社联合策划实施的大型多媒体系列文化项目。本分享视频来自腾讯视频，版权归原作者所有。本分享旨在学生英语学习。

《你好，中国》选取了100个代表中国传统文化精髓的汉语词汇，从不同侧面反映中国文化的博大精深，加深国外民众对中国和中华文化的了解。

17 Chinese music

Music of China refers to the music of the Chinese people, which may be the music of the Han Chinese as well as other ethnic minorities within mainland China. It also includes music produced by people of Chinese origin in some territories outside mainland China using traditional Chinese instruments or in the Chinese language. It covers a highly diverse range of music from the traditional to the modern.

Different types of music have been recorded in historical Chinese documents from the early periods of Chinese civilization which, together with archaeological artifacts discovered, provided evidence of a well-developed musical culture as early as the Zhou Dynasty (1122 BC – 256 BC). These further developed into various forms of music through succeeding dynasties, producing the rich heritage of music that is part of the Chinese cultural landscape today. Chinese music continues to evolve in the modern times, and more contemporary forms have also emerged.

18 Chinese chime bells

Music is documented as far back as the Zhou dynasty and forms an important thread in the Confucian tradition. Musical harmony was believed to bring harmony to life. Confucius said he could predict a kingdom's problems from the music played at court. He disapproved of 'immoral' dance music and thought that the noisier the music was the more likely that the state was in jeopardy. Music was more than mere background entertainment it set the whole mood and character of thought. Chinese music was an harmonious emanation tied up with the concept of ‘qi’ the all pervading life-essence. In the tomb of the Marquis Yi of Zeng dating to about 430BCE 124 musical instruments of all types and sizes were found.

Chinese bells have survived from the days of the early dynasties, arranged in a series of twelve notes 十二律, the bells were struck with a rod. The notes do not form a scale - a scale is built from choosing notes from them. The tuning of notes followed a different approach to the Western octave. The octave attempts to divide a doubling of frequency evenly with notes. The old Chinese method did not use an octave instead notes were progressively tuned relative to existing ones. Notes were tuned to a frequency 2/3 and 3/4 of the current note, so the whole sequence of notes were in harmonious relation to each other. This method avoids the problems of tuning in octaves known as temperament. However it was Zhu Zaiyu who discovered equal temperament in 1584 before that in Europe but it was not taken up. The Legendary Yellow Bell  黄钟 huáng zhōng is associated with the Yellow Emperor whose minister developed the perfect flute nine Chinese inches long.

Drums have played a very important in ceremonial occasions for centuries. They were used to announce the start of a battle and are still used at all kinds of festive occasions. It marked the pulse of daily life as the great drum housed in the town's central Drum Tower announced the start and end of day.