Chaozhou music
Chaozhou music is the instrumental music of the Chaoshan region. The same set of instruments makes fine chamber music in a hall and gongs and drums in an open yard — change the occasion and the make-up, the volume and the repertory all change.
What it is
It is the traditional instrumental music of the people of Chaozhou, current in Chaozhou, Shantou and Jieyang, and carried by emigrants to southern Fujian, Huizhou, Meizhou and the Chaozhou settlements of Southeast Asia. In 2006 it entered the first national list of intangible cultural heritage.
Its origin is usually told in two stages: it began in the Tang and Song and matured in the Ming and Qing. A good deal came in along the way — old music brought by migrants from the north, court music of the Song, then Yiyang and Kun tunes, Han and Qin tunes, and religious music of the faqu and daoist kind — and what settled out is what is played today.
Two lines: the hall and the open yard
The clearest division is by occasion.
The hall — played in courtyards, halls of lineage, temples, teahouses and the ‘idle rooms’ where amateurs gather, with attention to the fine points of inflection.
- Xian shi, the string poems: led by the er xian and the ye hu, with pipa, san xian and zheng. The famous piece is Cold Crows at Play in the Water; others are Wild Geese on the Flat Sand, Zhaojun’s Resentment, Little Peach Blossom Red, The Moon Rises High and The Phoenix Seeks Its Mate.
- Chaoyang di tao, the flute suite: led by the flute with guan, sheng and xiao, archaic in manner and carrying a court-music foundation. Pieces: Lantern Tower, The Four Great Scenes, Ten Thousand Years of Joy, The Kapok in Bloom.
- Chaozhou xi yue, the fine music: only three instruments — san xian, pipa and zheng, called ‘the three’ in the trade. Slow, and quiet. Pieces: The Eighteen Stanzas of the Barbarian Reed Pipe, Beads on a Curtain, The Northern Goose Longs for Home.
- Temple music: for chanting, confession and merit-making in monasteries and charitable halls. Pieces: The Opening Verse, The Incense and Flower Board, The Great Taking of Refuge.
The open yard — for festivals, god parades, welcome of the gods, temple fairs, weddings and funerals: outdoors, on a large scale, and it has to be loud.
- Da luo gu, the great gongs and drums: big drum, dou gong and large cymbals, with suona and flute. Pieces: Two Geese Biting, Casting the Net for Fish.
- Xiao luo gu, the small: small gongs and small cymbals, light and nimble, much given to imitating animals and scenes of daily life. Pieces: The Thrush Hops on the Branch, Lions Playing with a Ball, Butterflies Gathering Flowers, Thrushes Fighting.
- Wai jiang luo gu: under the influence of the wai jiang theatre, the Han opera, with melodies in the Han manner and a high, firm bearing. Pieces: The Dragon Crosses the River, Thinking of the Past, Trouble at Jiangzhou.
- Hua yin luo gu: mixed with music from Chao opera and played to feats of skill, with wide movements in the playing. Pieces: The Dragon and Phoenix Bring Auspice, The Lantern Festival.
- Ba yin luo gu: all eight classes of instrument at once — metal, stone, silk, bamboo, gourd, clay, hide and wood — the thickest in colour, mostly for fetching the bride and for the great sacrifices. Pieces: A Hundred Birds Pay Court to the Phoenix, A Hundred Flowers Offer Their Swords.
The instruments
Four classes. Strings: bai zi tou xian, wai jiang tou xian, er xian, er hu, san xian, pipa, yue qin, qin qin, zheng, yang qin. Winds: the chui and the transverse flute. Drum and clapper: drum, clapper, bang zi. Metal: su gong, dou gong, yue gong, cymbals.
Three are local:
The tou xian, also called the Chaozhou er xian, leads the string poems and accompanies the opera. Its forebear was the bamboo string, a strip of bamboo held between two strings and rubbed to sound. The soundbox is smaller than the er hu’s and covered in python skin, the bow is short, and the tone is higher and more piercing than the er hu’s.
The di-da, the Chaozhou suona, leads the gong-and-drum music and the opera. The reed is wheat straw, not cane: straw is thin and soft, vibrates differently, and gives a yielding sound whose top register comes close to the gaohu — a different road from the full-bodied suona of the north. The proportion of body to bell is not the northern proportion either.
The shen bo, a gong with a high rim and a deep voice, holds the bottom in gong-and-drum music.
The er si pu and the modes
The er si pu is Chaozhou music’s own notation, using only the seven characters two, three, four, five, six, seven and eight, and read aloud in the Chaozhou speech. It is neither the numbered notation nor the gong che notation.
The point is that a character does not fix a pitch. The same ‘three’ sounds differently in qing san liu and in zhong san liu: change the mode and the actual position of the character moves with it. Numbered notation cannot express that layer, which is why the er si pu cannot simply be replaced.
The modes are several: qing san liu, zhong san liu, qing san zhong liu, huo wu and fan xian. Where a name carries ‘three-six’ or ‘five’, it says which characters are altered. The ‘living’ in huo wu is the telling word: that note drifts, and will not be pinned down.
What it is tied to
Chaozhou music does not hang in a concert hall; it grows in the rites — the gong-and-drum band of a god parade, the fine music at a sacrifice in a hall of lineage, the gongs that open a temple fair, the noise before the curtain goes up. The prefectural gazetteer notes that the wards and villages put on a great deal of theatre, and theatre and music were always the same body of sound.
It is ordinary for the same players to be at fine music in a hall in the morning and in the great gongs of a procession in the afternoon. Nobody has to change instrument; what changes is the make-up and the repertory. That is what makes it elastic: three or five players make an ensemble and thirty or fifty do too.
Between one area and another
Chaoyang is known for the flute suite. The flute leads, and both repertory and bearing lean archaic; this branch has the strongest local colour.
The prefectural city is known for the string poems. The er xian leads, with ye hu, pipa, san xian and zheng following, and the judgement is all in the inflection and in how much ornament is added.
For the lineage of the music societies around Jieyang no systematic record has been found. How far the repertories of the three cities overlap, and whether the playing differs, cannot be set out from the material to hand; what is given here is the distribution only.
Related
The occasions are on the festival calendar and on belief and its stories; the theatre that uses the same instruments on Chao opera; the sung narrative read from a text on Chaozhou gece.
Sources
The Wikipedia article on Chaozhou music and the instrument and repertory material it cites; the national heritage list on the Chaozhou municipal government portal (the Chaozhou music entry); and How much of the Chaozhou heritage do you know (China Youth Net). Accessed 18 October 2026.
Home › Heritage › Heritage list › Chaozhou music
Last revised: 14 November 2026