Do you know “Youlan?”
According to legend, the founder of music in China was Ling Lun, who made bamboo pipes that sounded like the songs of birds. Very much like the songs of birds, Chinese music seems to have always existed. The oldest known written music is a song, called “Youlan,” which we hear in this video. “The Solitary Orchid,” attributed to the great songsmith — and ground-breaking philosopher — known as Confucius, who was born in 551 B.C.E. For the next two millennia, almost every Chinese emperor valued music as a high art form and prioritized making it part of his court.
