Timeline of Chinese music

Dynastic periods

Zhou dynasty

• System of formal music yayue established.
• Lyrics of folk songs recorded.
• Decline of yayue by the end of the Spring and Autumn period, increased popularity of new music from Wey and Zheng states.

Qin to Han dynasty

• Establishment of the Music Bureau to collect folk music.

Sui to Tang dynasty

• Founding of various academies and music departments -
• Influence from Central Asian, Persian and Indian music.
• Oldest surviving notated music in China - Youlan.

Song to Yuan dynasty

• Revival of yayue due to the revival of Neo-Confucianism
• Increasing popularity of Chinese opera such as nanxi opera and zaju theatre.
• The artform of Ci poetry which is meant to be sung reached its zenith in the Song dynasty.

Ming dynasty

• Kunqu opera.

Qing dynasty

• Development of Peking opera.
• Beginning of New Music in late the 19th century under influence of Western music.

1900s

• Popular English and western classical music grew with British influence.

1910s

• The dynastic period ends. New China tries to find a national anthem.
• Beginning of active development of New Music in New Culture Movement.

1920s

• Shidaiqu started by Li Jinhui, which forms the basis of all Chinese pop music genres such as C-pop, mandopop and cantopop.

1930s

• Heyday of Shidaiqu in Shanghai which lasted until the 1940s.
• Development of modern Chinese orchestra.

• Japanese enka influence Hokkien pop for Taiwanese people.

1940s

• The Chinese Communist Party labeled pop music as yellow music.
• CCP promote national music.
• Government control of music via censorship begins.

1950s

• Baak Doi leaves China in 1952 and relocates to Hong Kong.
• Mao Zedong and CCP evolved patriotic music into revolutionary music.

• Continuation of Shidaiqu in Hong Kong.

• Development of Taiwanese mandopop.
• Native Hokkien pop phased out by Kuomintang in favor of mandopop.

1960s

• Decline of Shidaiqu.
• Popularity English pop around mid-1960s but beginning to fade by the late 1960s.
• Beginning of cantopop in the late 1960s with Roman Tam as the father of the new genre.
• Popularizing of Huangmei tone.
• Popularizing of Hong Kong musical tongue twister.

1970s

• Teresa Teng expanded mandopop in Taiwan. Beats censorship in the mainland.

• Increasing popularity of cantopop.

1980s

• China begins the importation of gangtai music.
• The "first generation" of Mainland Chinese pop singers emerge, such as Zhang Qiang, Cheng Lin, Zhu Fengbo, Cheng Fangyuan, Shen Xiaocen and Zhu Mingying.
• Tiananmen Square led to the popularizing of Northwest Wind.
• Northwest wind became prison song.

1990s

• Prison song became Chinese rock with Cui Jian as the father of the new genre.
• Popularity of gangtai music.

• Karaoke culture begins.

• Hokkien pop re-emergence.

2000s

• Punk rock begins in China.

• Chinese hip hop begins in Hong Kong and Taiwan.

2010s

• 2015: Establishment of the Billboard China V Chart.