Keeping China’s Ancient Music Alive
We just heard this story on this morning’s Morning Edition. Very cool!
Morning Edition, March 10, 2009 - For many years, music scholars in China and Japan tried unsuccessfully to decipher ancient musical notations that looked a bit like Chinese characters. They found the key to the puzzle in the city of Xi’an in northwest China, where the music is still performed by a dwindling number of orchestras. The notation was used by court musicians of the Tang Dynasty as far back as the seventh century, predating Europe’s Gregorian chants, which are commonly described as the earliest written music.
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