Exspress Your Self: Music is a Way of Life

    Music, as well as art, was a very popular form of expression in the Yuan Dynasty. The people of the Yuan Dynasty relied on art to express them selves. Some instruments express a certain feeling and gives the music they are used in the same feel. A piece of music may express how the artist feels by their choice of instruments. Some very popular instruments were fully developed in this time period.

    The Flute was a common instrument in this time. The flutes were usually made of bamboo, some bone, and had six holes which the fingers cover to create certain notes. There was one hole to be blown into, know on a common flute now a days as an embouchure hole. When a flutist plays the Chinese flute, a common image to be associated with the music is a farmer riding a bull while playing the flute. A very common Flute in the Yuan Dynasty was the Dizi or bamboo flute. A six fingered Dizi is the most popular, but there are other variations like the 11 finger with added keys for extra notes which has been adapted from the western style flute.

   

      The Mongols used an instrument called the Horse-Head Fiddle. In the Yuan dynasty, China was ruled by the Mongol Empire, introducing this instrument into China. This fiddle is made of wood, and the head or scroll of the fiddle is carved as a horse’s head. The strings are made of horse hairs. The Mongols believed that the creation of this fiddle comes from a great legend. A horse racers horse was shot and killed, he loved his horse so much that he saw him in a dream. In the dream, his horse told him to make this fiddle.

    The people of the Yuan Dynasty were very expressive through their music and art. It was part of their way of life.