Chinese Musical Instruments Unearthed Neolithic Research

In this article, the unearthed instruments from the Neolithic Age are taken as research object. By doing research on the shape and music function and zone, people can get a deep and comprehensive idea of the development of these instruments. And base on this, we can also and revaluate the ancient music history and get a more comprehensive and objective cognition on ancient music.The first part of the article is mainly a diachronic review of the research on ancient music which exists in works on the history of music from the early20th century when the ancient music first burgeoned to now and this part proposes the current problems that still exist, so that we can pay attention to them in the following research.The second part is the overview of the instruments of The Neolithic Age unearthed in China from the types, volume, and distribution. This article altogether collected more than740items of Neolithic Age Instruments, including the Hit Musical Instrument: Qing, bells, chimes, drums, shaking ringers and Wind Instruments: flute, whistle, horn, Xun. They were mainly distributed in most parts of China’s Yellow River Valley, the Yangtze River Valley and in some areas of the West Liao He River.The third part is the typology research on the Neolithic Age unearthed musical instruments, involving the chime, drums, bells, shaking ringers, Xun, flute, whistle and several other types of instruments. We will classify each type of instruments by their shape and style and do overall observation of its shape development.The fourth part, the research for the unearthed instruments in the Neolithic Age includes the second realization to the scale and the mode of JiaHu flutes in early, interim and later periods and the analysis to the various kinds of Xun and Qings’ characteristics.The fifth part, combining with the situation of unearthed instruments and culture division theory in our Neolithic Age from the world of archaeology, discuss in zones about music in the Neolithic Age. The longitudinal studies of the development of the unearthed instruments in every musical zone come to the related knowledge of their music development.In the sixth part, based on the preceding research on the instruments, the article dissects the developing trend of our country’s musical pluralistic integration in Neolithic period. What’s more, it carries on the discussion again about the remaining problems in the research of ancient time music mentioned in the first part, and come to the more overall and thorough understanding about its development.At the end of the article, there are reflections on the historical methods of ancient music. The rebuilding of ancient music history is a kind of comprehensive work which mainly depends on the musical archeological studies, and it combined with the philological studies, meanwhile, it take the example by the research achievements of ethnology, folklore and even paleogeology, climatology and department of ecological and environmental sciences and so on. It demands many sided cooperation and achieving together.