Music of Guangdong

Music of Guangdong is a synthesis of a number of local Guangdong folk music styles. In modern times, the

Chinese province The provincial level administrative divisions () are the highest-level administrative divisions of China. There are 34 such divisions claimed by the People's Republic of China, classified as 23 provinces (), five autonomous regions, four muni ...

Guangdong Guangdong (, ), alternatively romanized as Canton or Kwangtung, is a coastal province in South China on the north shore of the South China Sea. The capital of the province is Guangzhou. With a population of 126.01 million (as of 2020) ...

has become known for '' Guangdong music'' (later ''Guangdong folk tunes''), a synthesis of a number of local folk music styles (like ''

kunqu Kunqu (), also known as Kunju (), K'un-ch'ü, Kun opera or Kunqu Opera, is one of the oldest extant forms of Chinese opera. Kunqu is one of the oldest traditional operas of the Han nationality, and is also a treasure of Chinese traditional cult ...

'' opera), intended as an accompaniment for the region's folk operas when it arose along the

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-Mac ...

in the 1920s. It gradually evolved into a string ensemble format by the 1960s, led by 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 ...

'' 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 The qinqin ( 秦琴; pinyin: qínqín; Vietnamese: Đàn sến) is a plucked Chinese lute. It was originally manufactured with a wooden body, a slender fretted neck, and three strings. photo 2/sup> Its body can be round, hexagonal (with rounde ...

'', ''

yangqin The trapezoidal yangqin () is a Chinese hammered dulcimer, likely derived from the Iranian santur or the European dulcimer. It used to be written with the characters 洋琴 (lit. "foreign zither"), but over time the first character changed t ...

'', ''

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 sizes ...

'', ''

yehu The ''yehu'' () is a bowed string instrument in the ''huqin'' family of Chinese musical instruments. ''Ye'' means coconut and ''hu'' is short for ''huqin''. It is used particularly in the southern coastal provinces of China and in Taiwan. The i ...

'', 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 reed ...

(including ''

houguan Houguan may refer to: * Guan (instrument), a Chinese double reed wind instrument * Houguan, Hebei (侯贯), a town in Wei County, Xingtai, Hebei, China * Houguan county (侯官), a former county near Fuzhou, Fujian, China {{disambiguation, ge ...

'' or

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

) 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. Formerly, bowed stringed instruments such as the ''

erxian The ''erxian'' ( 二弦; pinyin: èrxián; literally "two string") is a Chinese bowed string instrument in the ''huqin'' family of instruments. It has two strings and is used primarily in Cantonese music, most often in "hard string" chamber e ...

'' and ''

tiqin The ''tiqin'' () is a name applied to several two-stringed Chinese bowed string musical instruments in the ''huqin'' family of instruments. Types There are several types of ''tiqin'': *The ''tiqin'' used for ''kunqu'' opera *The ''tiqin'' used f ...

'' were used. Compositions by the noted ''gaohu'' player

Lü Wencheng Lü Wencheng (wikt:吕, 吕wikt:文, 文wikt:成, 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 1930 ...

(吕文成, 1898–1981) remain particularly popular.

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 ...

is popular in

. Musical institutions in Guangdong include the Guangdong International Summer Music Festival. Teochew music and

Teochew opera Teochew opera or Chaozhou opera, Chiuchow opera (especially in Hong Kong), is one of the many variants of Chinese opera, originating in southern China's Chaoshan region. It is popular in eastern Guangdong, southern Fujian, Hong Kong, Macau, Thailan ...

is popular in

Chaoshan Chaoshan or Teoswa (; peng'im: ''Dio5suan1'' i̯o˥˥꜖꜖.sũ̯ã˧˧ is a cultural-linguistic region in the east of Guangdong, China. It is the origin of the Min Nan Chaoshan dialect (). The region, also known as Chiushan in Cantonese, con ...

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, Zhe ...

is literary and laid-back in tone, and consists entirely of five notes; many folk songs only use three notes. {{China-music-stub