Music of China

Bamboo pipes[?] and qin are among the oldest known musical instruments from China; instruments are traditionally divided into categories based on their material of composition: skin, gourd, bamboo, wood, silk, earth/clay, metal and stone. Chinese orchestras traditionally consist of bowed strings[?], woodwinds, plucked strings[?] and percussion. The oldest written music is Orchid in Seclusion[?], attributed to Confucius. The first major well-documented flowering of Chinese music was for the qin during the Tang Dynasty, though the qin is known to have been played since before the Han Dynasty.

Traditional orchestral instruments: Woodwind and percussion

• di zi[?], sheng, paigu[?], gong, paigu[?], guanzi[?], bells, cymbals

bowed strings

• erhu[?], zhongu[?], banhu[?], gehu[?], gaohu[?]

plucked strings

• qin, sanxian[?], yangqin[?], zheng[?], ruan[?], konghou[?], liuqin[?], pipa[?]