Xi'an drum music is famous for its beautiful melodies and rich cultural meaning, which represents the prosperity of the Tang Dynasty.

Xi’an drum music originated in the Mount Zhongnan region of the Qin Mountains, southern Shaanxi Province. It is also known as Chang’an drum music or the ancient music of Chang’an, which is the old name of Xi’an and the capital of the Tang Dynasty (618-907). It is famous for its beautiful melodies and rich cultural meaning, and it has been passed down through generations for a thousand years, providing a lively record of Chinese music. Performances of Xi’an drum music are on a grand scale with great vigor, and fully express a profound and diverse Chinese culture. It has become one of the most precious examples of cultural heritage and a source of spiritual wealth for Chinese people and the world.
 

  The pronunciation and singing of scores of Xi’an drum music are based on the Chang’an or Xi’an dialects. Although many folk musical associations don’t have a unified standard for pitches, musicians who perform melodies or musical instruments adopt fixed tonic solmization to read scores. Since the early 1950s, scholars of Chinese music have been concerned about the loss of these scores which carry much cultural information of ancient music, they began to collect and organize those scores of Xi’an drum music scattered throughout pieces of folk culture.
 

Xi’an drum music is handed down via oral teaching methods that inspire true understanding, as well as handwritten scores. Scores from each musical association that played Xi’an drum music are all handwritten and passed on from older generations. Now only old musicians can read them. At present, there are more than a hundred volumes of scores preserved in these musical associations. Approximately 500 melodies are written in these scores and can be divided into four categories, such as ancient Buddhist music and Tang court music.

Lu Hang is a reporter at the Chinese Social Sciences Today.