Han music (like Irish music) is heterophonic – the musicians play differently decorated versions of a single melodic line – and its melodies are basically pentatonic. Percussion plays a major role, both in instrumental ensembles and as accompaniment to opera, narrative-singing, ritual music and dance.

Chinese musical roots date back millennia – among archeological finds are a magnificent set of 65 bronze bells from the fifth century BC – and its forms can be directly traced to the Tang dynasty, a golden age of great poets such as Li Bai and Bai Juyi, who were also avid musicians. Several qin (zithers) from this period are still played today, and there's a good market in fake ones, too. In fact, the industry in fake antiques extends to the music itself, as tourists may be regaled with Hollywood-style routines marketed as the music and dance of the Tang court. In recent years, the rather soulless Confucian rituals of the bygone imperial courts have been revived in Qufu and some other towns like Nanjing, largely for tourists. The reality, of course, is that there are no "living fossils" in music, and most traditional forms in the countryside are the product of gradual accretion over the centuries, and especially over the past hundred years.

After China's humiliation at the hands of foreign imperial powers, and in the turbulent years after 1911, Western ideas gained ground, at least in the towns. Some intriguing urban forms sprang up from the meeting of East and West, such as the wonderfully sleazy Cantonese music of the 1920s and '30s. As the movie industry developed, people in Shanghai, colonial Canton (Guangzhou) and nearby Hong Kong threw themselves into the craze for Western-style jazz and dance halls, fusing the local traditional music with jazz, and adding saxophone, violin and xylophone to Chinese instruments such as the gaohu (high-pitched fiddle) and the yangqin (dulcimer). Composers Lü Wencheng and Qiu Hechou (Yau Hokchau), the violinist Yin Zizhong (Yi Tzuchung), and He Dasha ("Thicko He"), guitarist and singer of clown roles in Cantonese opera, made many wonderful commercial 78s during this period. While these musicians kept their roots in Cantonese music, the more Westernized (and even more popular) compositions of Li Jinhui and his star singer Zhou Xuan subsequently earned severe disapproval from Maoist critics as decadent and pornographic. Today, though, you can still hear these 1930s classics, played in modern arrangements, over street loudspeakers.

New "revolutionary" music, composed from the 1930s on, was generally march-like and optimistic, and after the Communist victory of 1949, the whole ethos of traditional music was challenged. Anything "feudal" or "superstitious" – which included a lot of traditional folk customs and music – was severely restricted, while Chinese melodies were "cleaned up" with the addition of rudimentary harmonies and bass lines. The communist anthem "The East is Red", which began life as a folksong from the northern Shaanxi province (from where Mao's revolution also sprang), is symptomatic. Its local colour was ironed out as it was turned into a conventionally harmonized hymn-like tune. It was later adopted as the unofficial anthem of the Cultural Revolution, during which time musical life was driven underground, with only eight model operas and ballets permitted on stage.

The conservatoire style of guoyue (national music), which was about the only Chinese music recorded until recently, was an artificial attempt to create a pan-Chinese style for the concert hall, with composed arrangements in a style akin to Western light music. There are still many conservatoire-style chamber groups – typically including erhu (fiddle), dizi (flute), pipa (lute) and zheng (zither) – playing evocatively titled pieces, some of which are newly composed. While the plaintive pieces for solo erhu by musicians such as Liu Tianhua and the blind beggar Abing (also a Daoist priest), or atmospheric tweetings on the dizi, have been much recorded by guoyue virtuosos like Min Huifen or Lu Chunling respectively, there is much more to Chinese music than this. Folk music has a life of its own and tends to follow the Confucian ideals of moderation and harmony, in which showy virtuosity is out of place.