Chao zhou yin yue, Chaozhou music
One set of instruments is chamber music in the hall and gong-and-drum in the square: the string poems, the flute sets, the fine music, several lines of one tradition.
Pronunciation cháo zhōu yīn yuè｜Crafts and performance｜One entry in the Chaoshan glossary
What it means
The instrumental music of Chaoshan, played through Chaozhou, Shantou and Jieyang and carried by emigrants to southern Fujian, Huizhou, Meizhou and the Teochew quarters of Southeast Asia. The same instruments make fine chamber music in a hall and gong-and-drum in an open square — change the setting and the ensemble, the volume and the repertory all change.
It is written in its own numbered notation, using only the seven figures two, three, four, five, six, seven and eight, and sung out in Teochew. It is neither the numbered notation of the conservatories nor the old gongche scale.
When you see it
In the drum teams of a procession, the fine music of an ancestral sacrifice, the drums opening a temple fair, the warming-up before a stage play. It does not hang in a concert hall; it grows inside rites. It was entered on the first national list of intangible heritage in 2006.
Words easily confused
Chaozhou music is instrumental, Chaozhou opera is theatre; the two bands at the sides of the stage play this music, but the music stands on its own without a stage.
Read next: Chaozhou music: fine strings and gongs.
Same group: Chaozhou opera, iron-rod puppets, gongfu tea.
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Last revised: 4 November 2026