Musical Instruments From The1950s To The Present Reform Of Chinese Folk Instrumental"new Tradition"

The reform of musical instrument means that people reform the part or the wholestructure of the instruments in order to improve the quality and performance ofmusical instruments to meet the demands of new music. This practice was alsoknown as the “the improvement of musical instrument”.This paper explores the reform of musical instruments since the1950s in China.During this period the practice of instrument reform has two characteristics: First,reforming old instruments for the construction of Chinese orchestra and not only fora single instrument; Second, the scale of this movement was unprecedented and thenumber of people involved was huge, which once formed a tidal wave of reform ofmusical instrument. This practice is different from previous instrument reform whichonly improved the performance of a single instrument. The instrument reform of thisperiod provides the basic guarantee of instrumentation for the development ofChinese orchestra and promoted the formation of a new tradition of Chineseinstrumental music.This paper mainly uses the method of literature analysis and field interviews.The paper is divided into five parts. The first part is the introduction; the secondtraces the historical experience of the instrument reform of Chinese musicalinstrument and Western instrument; The third discusses the background of the reformof musical instruments since the1950s; The fourth introduces three mostrepresentative Chinese orchestras and their reform practice since the1950s, as wellas the reform in minority area; the fifth part is the reflect from the movement of thereform of Chinese musical instrument on such questions: the reform of instrumentsshould maintain the basic sounds and shapes of Chinese traditional musicalinstruments; the playing habits should be taken into account of the reform of musicalinstruments; instrument reform should be closely integrated with composition;reform of musical instruments should keep the flavor of Chinese music; bass stringedinstruments should be carefully chosen and reformed; the reform of musicalinstruments requires the support of governmental policy; to pursue the diversificationof theinstrumental combinations.