A Study on Measures of Preservation of Cultural Heritage of Chinese Folk Music

Abstract

Musical heritage is the most stable section in the cultural sediment, which is free from the impact of time and space. Hence the music from Chinese ancestors recorded in the historical literature thousands of years ago can come into the horizon of the researchers vividly. From the late of the 20th century on, the prosperity of the processing-oriented township industry and tourism injected vitality into the rural economy in China, resulting in not only the increase of peasants' income and improvement of their life but also the transformation of their living space and concept. As a result, the inheritance and development of traditional folk music are inevitably subject to the influence of this situation. Confronting the outside impact and partial extinction involving the intangible folk cultural heritage, many scholars set out to go deep into the rural areas and make an investigation, advancing such preservation measures as ``museum-style{''}, a measure by establishing museums to preserve cultural heritage, in an attempt to preserve the splendid cultural heritage on the verge of extinction. Based on the characteristics of current survival state of Chinese folk musical heritage and the previous preservation modes, this paper proposes a new concept ``preserve heritage by means of exploiting it{''} in accordance with law of the development of things and spirit of marching with the times in an attempt to find a fundamental solution in protecting and developing traditional musical heritage and traditional culture at large.