Masters in the Temple of Music

Author: Zhao Yishan
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-09-01
Features: This book recounts the lives of 20 world music masters, offering profound insights. Only by thoroughly understanding their biographies can many wonderful origins be unveiled. Whether a place is civilized or not can be judged by two useful standards: whether music education is (popularized) and how well public restrooms are maintained. This shows the importance of music. In fact, music has been inseparable from humans since ancient times, though it has not been sufficiently discussed, and people have not clearly realized this. The "Xintianyou" folk songs of northern Shaanxi are not sung all day long by shepherds and their lovers, and they are illiterate. Perhaps, besides eating, sleeping, and herding, singing is their main activity—how significant! During the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods, over two thousand years ago, China was already a land of etiquette and civilization. At that time, the term for a land of etiquette and civilization was "ritual music" (). "Music" () refers to music. Confucius and others were great musicians. In 2003, UNESCO designated our "Guqin" as "World Intangible Cultural Heritage" after "Kunqu Opera." The Guqin has a history of over two thousand years, and we still preserve Tang, Song, and Yuan dynasty Guqins. Not only are they complete but they can also be played today, which is astonishing. They play ancient melodies that have been passed down for over a thousand years. This shows that music has existed since ancient times and was highly developed, widespread, and popular.