Bianzhong of Marquis Yi - Traditional Chinese Bells 

And there were almost no improvements during this 3000 years.

Improve what? Anything beyond this is electrification and dubstep. You wanna have electrical bianzhongs playing bangarang? Not to mention this is court music, you will mostly hear it at palace courts during events and rituals so it's obvious it's ceremonial purposes wouldn't need for it to be "improved".

秦始皇Qin ShiHuang Improve what? Minds like yours is what causes this halt in the development of any technology. Instead of coming up with ways you can improve something you immediately jump to another that is completely irrelevant and deem the subject has no need for improvements because you know bells and electrical music work under completely different concepts. You are trying to produce a line where there is no two dots to begin with, and try to convince me that such line does not exist when you don't even know what those two dots were. When you are looking for ways to deny, other people were thinking for ways to improve. How do you make the instruments easier to play? How do you make it sound better? How do you make the reach of notes faster? And so on. The result was this: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-6CQgzqYuo04.html It might be obvious to only you that ceremonial instruments wouldn't need to be "improved", but it's more obvious that you don't know the history of pipe organ and church music. Try to look up for a improved version of this bell instrument, and you will know that people like you killed it.

Ah, so you are one of those "everything western is good", actually it's people like you who caused a halt in development of any technology. The fact that you can only point me to video about an "instrument" that's five hundreds years old which haven't been changed at all from the 1600s till 1972, that's massively impractical and a waste of resources all just because you want to play a bell ensemble with one person is the best evidence I need that you only believe the west can produce great things. In fact when the Domtoren was being constructed, it was being criticised by Geert Groote for being "vain, expensive and only for aesthetic purposes". In case you know fuck all about the Bianzhong, which you probably do, is that it is the only known bell to be able to produce 2 tones, making it able to play 12 tones at least 2000 years before the west was capable of doing the same. This fact tells us that this bell is already being improved a lot upon, adding onto the fact that the oldest bells were found in China at roughly 2800 BCE, the oldest metal bells appearing again in China by 2000 BCE, and the earliest Bianzhong appearing by 1600 BCE and the Bells of Marquis Yi at 430 BCE is itself evidence of 1600 years of development and improvement on the metal bells like the Bianzhong and 2400 years for bells in general at that point of time. It simply shows this bell is probably at the best, at it's limit, of what a bell will ever be capable of. What you think is an improvement of the "bell" in that video is actually wrong, it is not an improvement of the bell but rather the improvement on the techniques of how an instrument is played, that is impressive, but yet still easily achievable with people playing in an ensemble, it is just as good, as fast and as easy to play as the tower, all at a millionth of the cost. Those church bells are just your same old regular bells whose casting method is no more superior than Chinese ones, in fact Chinese bells are widely recognised to be one of the most advanced in terms of bell casting, not to mention all of the Yi Bells were playable when they were excavated at near perfect condition, testament to the superiority of Chinese bronze casting. And why should the way this instrument is played be changed? Obvious you know nothing about the musical history of your own music, along with the cheek of you to flaunt your "knowledge" of western music is simply ludicrous at this point. Look at the setup of Marquis Yi's bell, there are 64 bells, why 64? Because of the 64 hexagrams, this is a musical representation of the YiJing itself. Not only that, why are the musicians dressing in Han clothing that's yellow, red and black, as are the racks holding up the bells? Because the bells are metal and they are struck with wooden hammers, with metal and wood present, the players represent earth, fire and water to complete the five elements. Further more, the metal bells were struck with wood, going against the flow of elements in Wuxing that only metal overcomes wood, not the other way around, however this action is done by a human, showing that we humans have control over the elements and we can manipulate them to create harmony with the universe, as we did to create such harmonious music, which is in Chinese philosophy an important aspect of CEREMONIES and rituals, one of the basic steps to attain harmony with people, with nation and ultimately with nature. Moreover, it is to show that Yin and Yang does not only mutually overcome, but also mutually work together to achieve harmony; the bells are dead, inorganic but the humans are alive and organic, but yet instead of only being opposites and overcoming each other, being Yin and Yang, they have now merge to produce the wonderful harmonics that we've just appreciated, a true epitome of the definition of Yinyang, of Harmony. There's a reason why ceremonies should not be changed, because they have meanings to every single actions, just because you are too ignorant to understand them doesn't mean it's pointless. So, let me ask you again, improve what? How you improve something that is already the most improved at it's technological level back then? Why do we need to find an improved version of this bell when it is already the improved version of 2400 years of improvement? How did we kill it when it was ironically the people who think that the west is better are the ones who killed it? It was people like you who stripped us of our traditions, abolishing it because it's "feudal" and "archaic". You point me towards church music, which absolutely laughable because China already have more advanced musical systems before jesus even "existed", also absolutely laughable because most western music only exists today because of the introduction of equal temperament from China. Yes, the tune that was played in your video probably owns it's existence because Matteo Ricci brought Zhu Zaiyu's work back to Europe. Finally, I love how you gave "people like me" a blanket judgement, just because I see no need to improve this instrument doesn't mean I see no need for improvement for everything else. Funnily that is a very western mindset you have there, only being able to see in absolutes with no concept of harmony or grey area or middle ground. So before you continue acting like an idiot in front of us, how about you go study up and understand your own culture and philosophy. Go read up some yinyang, you might not be so stupid after that.

秦始皇Qin ShiHuang A simple concept can be explained by you into a pile of chaos. The only reason ceremonies should not be changed is because you don't understand the meaning behind, your blindness only allows you to imitate. 吼春，将军令，阳明春晓，羽调，东海渔歌，空山鸟语 over the years I had performed these musical composition on stage, and you ignorantly thought I know nothing about the culture. For someone who claim to know stuff from yijing to praise something as near perfect condition is laughable. Have you not actually study what yijing is about, or you just got your knowledge from a novel? The 5 elements were never meant to overcome each, instead were meant to aid the formation of one another. It's the book of change rooted in observation that was never about ying or yang but from a beginning and so on, start from 1 to infinite. I gave you a few words of my thoughts, and you wrote me back an essay filled with anger. Bless you.

Ghost Music i also wish that. China, with its Virtue, Humility, Courtesy, culture, Respect, Thoughtfulness, and grace is my ideal time period. I’m glad to see someone shares this mindset

Why would anyone in their right mind want to live in feudal China? A little historical research would do you both good. These instruments were literally made during the warring states period, which wasn't a picnic for anyone.

I think if you could go back in time the musicians of that time probably made those bells sound a little better too. I imagine they'd probably be like you guys suck, move aside and let the masters play.

ƁᴇғᴏʀᴇƮʜᴇļɴᴛᴇʀɴᴇᴛ Everyone in their right mind would love to live in my China you dick.

Now who was it that destroyed all records of these wonderful bells that can each sound two tones, so that we didn't even know they actually existed until 1978? ;)

I think ancient Chinese music was probably pentatonic, hexatonic, or heptatonic, but a given melody could be played in any of twelve tonal centers.

@@dbadagna Yes Twelve transpositions for the twelve years of the Chinese Zodiac to match the orbit of Jupiter

@@bobstuckey802 There's an article about this phenomenon, as it was practiced during the Tang Dynasty: ====== ● Wolpert, Rembrandt F. "Táng Music Theory of Ritual Calendrical Transposition Applied." CHIME: Journal of the European Foundation for Chinese Music Research, nos. 18/19 (2013), pp. 67-82.

@@dbadagna Thanks dbadagna i'll look it up Bob

@@dbadagna It sounds very much like a pentatonic scale to me. In fact, listening to the song again, the first four notes of the melody are (in order) flat7 - tonic - min 3rd - perfect 5th. Then it descends perfect 4th, min 3rd, tonic, flat 7. So it's written precisely in what we would call today "a minor pentatonic scale". I'm sitting here plucking away on my guitar with the tune and I don't have to leave that position at all. I know eastern/Asian traditional music has lots of quarter tone, crush notes, and a certain dissonance which isn't heard in or constrained by the Western musical ideals (which originated in Greece/Asia minor/Egypt). But with that said, its fascinating to me that musicians all around the world independently stumbled onto the Pentatonic scale as a means to make pleasant sounding melodies.

me too

Xiran said that the song was a banger

ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-2-afNj5-swE.html this is the music played with the existing original Bianzhong made in 433 B.C. You can tell this modern built replica is not as good as the original one.

daniel, i know ur japanese stop lying.

Back to the days with the bell set, Japan was part of China.

Yes, almost entirely so for courts and rituals.

Not really. I've seen gamelan groups, and they're a different sound and lineage.

I understand you. yes. realy

I don't know

The one that looks like a mouth-blown organ is called a *sheng*, and the harp-like instrument is a *guzheng*. I don't know the others.

@@jochanaan58 bianzhong (chime bells) and "bianqing"

They are the musical bells 编钟, jade chimes 编磬, pan pipes 竽, 埙 a tiny pot with holes, and 瑟 the string instruments.

@@dr.gaosclassroom Thank you!

Yeah the omega extended version

ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-BMzS0enUEac.html

ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-2-afNj5-swE.html this is the music played with the existing original Bianzhong made in 433 B.C.

Толықтай келісемін, жалғастыра бер

两千前可有英国乎？

China is huge and there are certainly more musical traditions to be found. It is just that what the West understands as 'Chinese Music' is based on the pentatonic scale. If you go south to the music of Guangdong and the southern provinces, you will find a tradition that is quite different with quarter-tones. hearing the genre of Teochew and other forms of Opera to get a larger picture of what Chinese Music is is highly encouraged. Enjoy the journey!

This set of bells is the evidence of China figured out dodecaphonic thousands years before the west.

youre irregular