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Q: Is China the birthplace of the LANGUAGE of music?
Had to re-write the question a little as the original one was 'Is China the birthplace of music?' A rediculous idea, I agree, but that's what happens when you post questions under the influence of alcohol.
But to get to the point of the question, i've just had a long conversation with my mother in England, who has a prominent career in music behind her, and she told me a great deal about how China was the birthplace of THE LANGUAGE of music.
'Apparently', and according to her, some fella about 3000 years ago (give or take 1000), was sitting beside a river and got to listening to the music of the water (sounds very Chinese already, I know) and from his observation of those sounds was gradually born the pentatonic scale. For the uninitiated among us, which includes me, those are the black notes on a piano, and for those who are at least somewhat in the know, the scale goes: tone, tone, tone and a half, tone: If you know the tune, "Wo zai zhe dengzhe ni hui lai, dengzhe ni hui lai kan dao cao hua kai" and are able to sing it and listen to the melody, what you are listening to is the pentatonic scale in use. It is a simple scale with a distinctly Chinese flavour.
But anyway, according to my dear dear 70 year old mum, the pentatonic scale was the building blocks on which all modern music was created. Pope Gregory of Italy developed it in the 600s, 'apparently', into major and minor chords, and then, as we all know all too well, S Club 7 did the rest.
So there you have it. Or do you? True or no? Is China the birthplace of the LANGUAGE of music?
If so, then Imo...they are a developing country on that too. Traditional music aside, the current music scene in China has a lot to be desired. Sugary, childish, censored lyrical, pop music devoid of and soul or meaning. As I said, just my opinion.
Nobody (in terms of country and/or civilization[s] invented music.
It came to many (if not all) civilizations naturally and/or by chance...
as you mentioned in the OP.
Nature sounds, bird "singing" then things like water, wind etc inspired humans to do their own sounds which in the end became music.
Drums were most likely the first instruments, flutes/horns were right behind.
prayers from various religions/believes most likely were the inspiration to give the melodic flavor...like in Cusco civilization.
Cusco civilization was totally isolated from outside influence, same as Maya. prayers became eventually melodic .
Even the Hans Christian Andersen story with the emperor, bird and the golden cage give you some hints.
It is like who invented hunting? nobody did, it was a necessity to live.
who invented philosophers? Nobody did. they were in basically every civilizations. as curiosity to discover what we are, why this or that is the way it is.
Asked this question to the professor of the University of Göttingen
(honoris causa, for his contribution to musicology and musical instruments but especially the African music and it's influence on other cultures and Baroque music )
also University of Cal.
The person in question is my friend with whom I grew up as a kid and we still keep in touch.
We were talking about this many years ago
I can give you link which elaborate on this mattter (slightly but it is there)
it is a PDF file but in German.
look for
"Musikinstrumentensammlung Universität Göttingen"
maybe it is in English somewhere ..dunno
NotGuilty:
This link is in German.. there are lots of PDF files that one can download.
Gold mine of information.
Don't speak German use translator.
http://www.uni-goettingen.de/de/71170.html
mArtiAn:
Ok, i'm in agreement that music is a natural thing and that it's impossible to find who made the first hum in imitation of the wind while he was collecting wood or something. Maybe the question should be 'Where was the language of modern day music born?' as that is built upon the pentatonic scale, as mentioned before, which as I understand it was created in China.
Surely the people who built something as great as the pyramids and Stonehenge would have had music as well. I find it laughable that someone would think music is only 3,000 years old. As NotGuilty said, it didn't really come from any civilization in particular, it's something that any group of humans would have stumbled onto. Besides, China as we know it did not exist 3,000 years ago, so it's not even something China could say it created.
mArtiAn:
Apparently the pentatonic scale traveled from China 'to' Egypt, but didn't properly make it west until much later when Pope Gregory started playing with it. Thus were born the famous Gregorian chant's from which Hip Hop was inspired.
Don't know why it took so long to head west. Maybe it hooked up with some hot chick, en route.
Xpat.John:
Some people think that dinosaurs didn't exist or that Man did not evolve from apes. There was once even a widely accepted scientific belief that matter transformed from inert to living animals. (For example, if you left grains of rice in a box and put that box in a warm dark place, the grains of rice would transform into mice. Or if a leaf fell into a stream it would at some point transform into a fish as it went down stream.)
Lots of silly ideas in this world. China being the inventor of music is up there with Al Gore being the father of the Internet.
mArtiAn:
Oi vey, ok, I realise I didn't help the discussion by asking if China was the inventor of 'music'. But I have said quite clearly that a more accurate question would be 'Is China the birthplace of the language of music'. Had to have been born someplace you know.
Did you stop for a minute and think that it's pretty silly that anyone can claim to pinpoint the birth of music to a guy sitting by a river in China 3,000 years ago?
First off the Greeks had music LONG before that. So there you go; No China did not.
Plus, cultures have music going back to before the world was so connected. Most developed their own music as is human nature.
mArtiAn:
Talking about the pentatonic scale, Superbrain. Do you know what that is? Hmm? It's the earliest evidence of the written language of music. Give it a listen, it has quite a distinctive Chinese flavour. Hard to ignore.
As for the old dude, stories like that always crop up. Who cares if it's true?
nevermind:
Well the pentatonic scale isn't inventing music, is it, dumbass?
And that scale's origins are traced back to Greece, as the name "Pentatonic" should have indicated, superbrain.mArtiAn:
Maybe the Greeks couldn't speak Chinese. I think the word 'paper' originated in England but that doesn't change the fact of where it was invented. Perfectly willing to accept that the scale originated in Greece but I haven't found any reference to support that suggestion. Would you care to offer one? Also I stated later that a more accurate question might be, 'Is China the birthplace of the language of modern music', not music itself, drunk when I posted the question though. But it's a valid question.
nevermind:
Ah, so even thought it was developed in China after ancient greece was long gone, you're suggesting Europeans chose a greek name for it.
It's not hard to research this stuff on your own. Do it yourself.
mArtiAn:
Believe me, i'm trying. But thanks for such positive input.
mArtiAn:
Hmmm, though I hate to admit it, it seems you were right, the pentatonic scale, though easily recognizable for its influence on Chinese music, was not in fact the earliest step in creating the 'language of music', Pythagoras was knocking out tunes on his Fender Stratocaster before even that. So congratulations, the Greeks get the gold, and I get a slice of humble pie.
mArtiAn:
I've been through this agenda thing before and no, I don't have one. But in your mind it is clear that I do. You can see through me. There is no doubt in your mind. It is obvious to you. I can't do anything about that. Am interested to know what agenda I might have though. To promote China I guess. Well I live here and I don't see any big difference between here or the west. I would prefer freedom of speech here, of course, but that freedom stands for nought in my eyes when I look to the west. All any government, Chinese or western needs to do is control the media, which it seems is the way of things across the board, and they then control the people. As far as i'm concerned they are all utterly corrupt and I have no care for any of them. As for the Chinese 'people', I think they are just people, and I will defend them, even though i'm aware of the racism that exists in many of them towards me as a westerner. When the tables are turned I will defend myself. My agenda may be to speak on the part of the underdog, which on this site, is more often than not the people of China. I'm just a fair play do-gooder. That is my agenda. I am nobody. I'm a man with a Chinese wife and child, a bit of a shitty job, and a family on the other side of the world I cannot afford to visit. Raising money to cover those bases and visit my folks once a year is my only real agenda and I don't reach it at 5 mao a pop.
But this is for nought. You can see through me. I am as clear as glass.
The post itself, I asked in all sincerity. My mother is a teacher of music, she introduced me to the catatonic scale (yeh, bit drunk, can't remember the real name) and if I sing through it (can't actually read music myself) I can hear the Chinese style it inspired very very clearly. It's kind of hard not to. My mum told me it came from China and was the building block of musical theory. What reason did I have to doubt her? So I asked the question. Simple. Not Guilty pointed me to Pythagoras and it now seems to me that my mum was wrong. Simple. Nothing more to it. Believe it. Don't believe it. Nothing could possibly be less important. Goodnight.
cooter:
"Well I live here and I don't see any big difference between here or the west."
I think we've found the problem.
crimochina:
am i the only one that sees this??? matty gets bust because of the ip address thing. up pops loke , hughg, gaohao. (gaohao once claimed to be real life buds with hughg) gaohao gets busted when he claims china has no graffiti. (loke the obvious wumao account, links himself with gaohao saying they are buds in the pm he sent me) after gaohao account is busted up pops martian saying the same exact things as gaohao. "fault of the monetary system" every pucking country in the world uses money do all countries have the exact same probs as china????????????
now he is claiming china is the birth place of music??????????????????
mArtiAn:
Found the problem have you Cooter? Good job. Now I guess you know what you can do with it.
And Crimo.................don't call us, we'll call you.
cooter:
There's nothing for me to "do" with your problem. If you truly can't tell any difference between China and the west, then I'm afraid there's no helping you 
mArtiAn:
Just talking about people, Cooter. Not the laws and the culture and the variables, which of course are many, i'm talking about people. I find no difference in the people of the east or the west. Good and bad in everyone and all that. Just people.
@nevermind. You could be right and could be wrong (about the Greece/Greeks)
the records are scarce...and confusing or contradicting each other rather.
As it happens I majored in Greek history, it was more a passion than rational thinking at that time, as it is hard to make money on history,
so I had to switch to engineering.
Anyhow I run few websites in Greece all connected to Greek culture, Ancient Greece, Byzantine times,Orthodoxy, Greek philosophers and the list goes on and on.
All is in Greek.
All my writers live in Greece and they are so passionate about it that sometimes i must to tell them to slow down a bit.
example...who discovered America? Well read this:
http://www.defencenet.gr/defence/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&...
Greece.(actually cities/mini states in the start) is about 3000 years old.
Because of Geography and tons of islands trade was essential which in turn created
master sea navigators which in turn made them travelers and explorers of other cultures/civilizations.
Mostly, Egypt, Babylon, Assyria etc.
In all those cultures there was music
About Greece and music.
Not many people are aware of this but a guy named Pythagoras who is mostly know as a philosopher, geometry guy.and mathematician.
best example the triangle a2 + b2 = c2 (Pythagorean triples) sinus, cosinus, tangus and so on.
There are so many debates about his other geometry theories, as it was all written/documented by others.
Same as Socrates has written nothing by himself, so we must rely on his students, in this case Plato.
but Pythagoras is also know about the guy who made blueprint for musical scale.
http://www.midicode.com/tunings/greek.shtml
the word "Melody" is A Greek Word.
Egyptian civilization goes at least as far back as 7000 years..and i bet they had music.
First Chinese dynasty was Xia,,about 4200 years ago.
Fuxi and Yan (rulers) in Ancient China dates to 5000 years ago...
but archeological finds in China goes as far back as 9000 years ago...
I bet there was music as well.
When i was at school age..we always debated which civilization contributed the most.
Of course it is so rhetorical question in itself..imposble to say.
Lets go by population, size (of country/region) contribution and what still is in use or applies today.
Simple Mathematics, Greeks beats everybody. (Romans were students of Greeks BTW)
Even in longevity.
link to list of 39 Greek philosophers who lived past age of 70.
http://www.grg.org/OldGreeks.htm
but the list of those who didn't reach 70 goes in hundreds
So statistical wise Greeks were living to very old age which cannot be said about ancient Egyptians.
With the exception of Ramses II who died in his 90's, because he lived for that long, he unintentionally destroyed Egyptian civilization when it was in it's peak.
Why?
Because people lived no more then up to 40 years old...usually mid 30's.
So they knew no one else but Ramses as he was a ruler and God..
So few generation knew nothing else but Ramses who seemed to be a God as he cheated death for so long...
When he died Egyptians where "confused" and that peak period collapsed.
There was a music as well.
Lets go to "Cave people" I bet they were humming.
that is music as well.
Moral of the story...
Music is a way of expressing oneself for whatever reason, whatever the period of time, whatever the scientific achievements/progress..
We all were humming.
Mother to infant to put him to sleep.
mArtiAn:
Yeh, the question's about written music. Thanks for the input.
mArtiAn:
Ok, that link to Pythagoras was an interesting one. Seems the pentatonic scale, though distinctly Chinese, was only a step in the development of musical theory. Thank you.
nevermind:
No martian it isn't distinctly Chinese. That's the point. You ask this question, are told the answer and refuse to believe it. You obviously have an agenda.
I think it could be and then other countries learned how to tune the instruments so the instruments sounded better.
