As mentioned above, China has a vast territory, which provides an incomparably broad spread world for China traditional music; The various landforms and climates in China have prompted various ethnic groups to create various traditional music schools. When it comes to the spatial distribution of traditional music in China, we must explain the following points: (1) The so-called "spatial" distribution of traditional music generally has two meanings. First, it refers to the distribution of music genres, that is, what kinds and genres of music are circulating in what geographical environment, which is relatively simple. Therefore, the author thinks that there is a "surface relationship" between it and the environment. Second, it refers to the spatial distribution of music style and color. Because of the complexity of the style itself and its versatility, the author thinks that there is a "deep relationship" between it and the environment. This paper will mainly discuss the spatial distribution of traditional music schools. (2) First of all, it must be affirmed that there is no doubt that some schools of traditional music depend on the geographical environment. For example, folk songs in plateau mountainous areas, fishing songs in coastal areas, Tian Ge in rice-growing areas, boat songs in rivers and lakes, pastoral songs on grasslands and so on. They can be said to be the direct product of a specific geographical environment, and the relationship between them is basically one-to-one correspondence. (3) However, since ancient times, traditional music has relied on inheritance and dissemination to maintain its vivid life, especially in China. After thousands of years of spread, with the help of language and customs, some schools are confined to some areas, while others are widely circulated and even spread all over the country. In addition, there are fewer kinds of music in some closed areas, and there are more kinds in some open areas, forming a distribution. (4) So when discussing this issue, on the one hand, choose the most direct examples of environment and genre to make the discussion more vivid; On the other hand, when we encounter the phenomenon of "overlapping" of multiple schools in a certain area, we take those varieties that we think have the most regional characteristics as the representatives. Below, we will use the above principles to briefly describe the spatial distribution of China traditional music.

(1) The northern grassland is famous for its "long tune" and Ma Touqin music. Hulunbeier grassland in the northeast, Alashan and the northern foot of Tianshan Mountain in the west, Daxinganling and the yinshan mountains in the west, is a vast natural pasture. Mongolian and other ethnic groups who have lived here for a long time have created a folk song genre with free rhythm, long singing and sentence structure in the nomadic labor of "living by weeds". As the most representative traditional music variety in grassland culture, the content of "Long Tune" is almost inseparable from horses, sheep, camels, blue sky and white clouds, especially horses, such as Zaoer Horse, Round Hood Horse, Little Huang Ma Horse and Xiaoqing Horse. There are as many horses as there are songs, because horses are the symbol of grassland. In addition, "long tune" also includes many categories, such as "pastoral songs", "hymns", "homesick songs" and "banquet songs". Their lyrics are not exactly the same, but the music is always a "long tune" style, stretching, opening and free, just like endless grasslands and carefree sheep. Ma Touqin, a Mongolian musical instrument, has the same meaning as "long tune". Ma Touqin's modeling, raw materials, playing posture, timbre and musical style are all grassland-like, full of grassland feelings and charm. It complements the "long tune" and "different tune" and becomes the two pearls of grassland music culture. Of course, some people say that besides them, there is another genre that is both literature and music, and that is "epic". Just as many "epics" in the world are produced by grassland people, there is also a heroic epic circulating in the northern grassland-The Biography of King Gesar. Therefore, we can say that without grassland, there would be no Long Tune, Ma Touqin and Gesar, and grassland is the source of these music genres. And if we lose the long tune and Ma Touqin, the grassland will lose its luster, and no one can deny their interdependence.

(2) Northwest Plateau and Northwest Mountain Song Northwest Plateau, namely Shanxi Plateau, Loess Plateau, Longdong Plateau and Qinghai Plateau west of Taihang Mountain; Northwest folk songs refer to all kinds of folk songs popular in this area. Among them, the most representative songs are Folk Songs in Northwest Shanxi, Rotten Straw Mat, Mountain Climbing Tune in Western Inner Mongolia, Xintianyou in Northern Shaanxi, and Huaer in Ningxia and Qinghai, Gansu. The northwest plateau is mostly between 2000 and 3000 meters above sea level, belonging to the middle and upper reaches of the Yellow River. Its geomorphological features are represented by the Loess Plateau. There are no vast mountains, ditches, promontories, gullies and tablelands criss-crossing, sparse towns and inconvenient transportation. Farming, chopping wood and transporting are all individual labor. This is the ideal scene for singing folk songs, and it is also the basic premise for forming the genre characteristics of folk songs. In particular, farmers who are responsible for commercial transportation are called "foot brothers", "foot drivers" or "porters" locally. Because of their loneliness and helplessness, folk songs have become their only spiritual comfort, and they have also become the preservers and disseminators of folk songs. Therefore, through all kinds of folk songs in this area, on the one hand, we can hear the emptiness and vastness of the plateau environment, and at the same time, we can feel the deep sadness of people here. This is a special musical figure in a special genre, which can only be found in such a specific natural environment as the Northwest Plateau.

(3) Southwest Plateau and Southwest Folk Songs The southwest plateau in a broad sense should include Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau and Tibet Plateau. It is also a treasure house of China folk songs, such as Shen Ge in southern Sichuan, Guizhou folk songs, Yunnan Fengqing tune, Midu folk songs, Tibetan folk songs, Miao folk songs, Dong folk songs and Buyi folk songs. Among them, some are Han folk songs and some are minority folk songs. They are both folk songs, but due to the different geographical positions in the northwest and southwest, their natural environment and vegetation ecology are obviously different. The climate here is mild and evergreen all the year round (except for some mountainous areas over 5000 meters). Agriculture is dominated by rice, and there is also grazing labor. The folk songs produced and circulated in such a specific plateau environment, on the one hand, keep the Shan Ye flavor of the north and south folk songs, and on the other hand, contain the Qingming wind endowed by the nature and climate in this area. What is more distinctive is the "multi-voice folk songs" created by more than a dozen ethnic minorities (most of them belong to folk songs). Therefore, the formation of this traditional singing method has many social and historical reasons, such as production, living customs, aesthetic choice and so on. However, the basic reason is directly related to the natural climate conditions that encourage people of all ethnic groups to like the traditional habits of collective labor, social interaction and festivals. This interdependence between southwest plateau and southwest folk songs not only proves the decisive role of geographical environment in the formation of folk songs, but also reflects the great influence of climate conditions in specific areas on music styles and singing customs.

(4) Rice-growing areas in the Yangtze River Basin. The "Tian Ge" Yangtze River flows through nine provinces and cities, all of which are rice-growing areas in China, except Qinghai, the birthplace. As mentioned earlier, this is a "banded" landform, with plateau in the upper reaches, low hills criss-crossing rivers and lakes in the middle reaches and impact plains in the lower reaches. However, due to the suitable climate, rice has been mainly planted since ancient times. Because of the labor intensity of rice planting and the need to cooperate with each other, the custom of rice farmers "singing in the fields" has been formed since the Han Dynasty. Therefore, from Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau to the Yangtze River Delta, there must be a "Tian Ge" to dig, plant seedlings, mow grass and draw water. "Tian Ge" is the general name of Tian Yang songs in various places, and it has dozens of different regional titles such as weeding gongs and drums, digging mountains gongs and drums, arranging flowers gongs and drums, catching water gongs and drums, yangko and shouting yangko. Rice farmers said: farming does not sing, food is less, barnyard grass is more. It can be seen that this genre has distinct functional characteristics and strong utilitarianism. If the "long tune" circulation area of northern grassland presents a "strip" distribution pattern from east to west, then the distribution of folk songs in northwest and southwest is a "block" pattern. Looking at the spread of "Tian Ge", it is "banded", and it is different from the dotted "banded" of "long tune". It is formed in a rather dense way from west to east along the banks of the Yangtze River. As a genre of folk songs, "Tian Ge" is different from all kinds of "songs" which are completely dominated by the rhythm of labor, and is also different from the "song of Shan Ye" which is very free to sing in individual labor. Sometimes semi-professional "singers" and "singers" stand in the fields and sing with gongs and drums, and sometimes workers entertain themselves, and even a form of "harmony" appears. In order to relieve the writer's fatigue, the singer rarely stops, so Tian Ge's structure mostly adopts "divertimento" style, each set includes many "brands", and it is sung once, sometimes for about an hour.

(5) The geographical distribution of opera tune is in the history of China opera for more than 800 years, and the evolution of tune is one of the fundamental driving forces to promote its development. During the Song, Jin and Liao Dynasties, the center of traditional Chinese opera was in the north, and it turned to the south in the Southern Song Dynasty: Yuyao, Haiyan, Yiyang and Kunshan in the Ming Dynasty were mainly in the south in terms of geographical distribution; Finally, in the Qing Dynasty, new "four major operas" appeared, namely, Bangzi Opera, Pi Huangqiang Opera, Kunshan Opera, Gaoqiang Opera and two local opera operas, namely, singing and dancing and singing. Among them, there are many kinds of Bangzi operas popular in the north (Yellow River Basin); The treble and Kunshan accent are mostly in the south (the Yangtze River valley, the appearance of "Beikun" in this century should be another matter); Pi Huangqiang can be seen in both the north and the south, but its most influential representative drama, Peking Opera, is mainly in the north. Others, such as Tanchun Opera, Huagu Opera, Tea Picking Opera and Lantern Opera, are mostly distributed in the south, while Yangko and Fairy Opera belong to the northern system. In short, as far as the distribution of cavity systems is concerned, most of them have their clear circulation areas. Here we take Bangzi and Gaoqiang as examples to illustrate their spatial distribution in the north and south. "Bangzi Opera" is a kind of traditional opera singing based on northern folk music, named after singing with two pieces of hardwood bangzi. One of the oldest operas is Shaanxi's "Shaanxi Opera" (formerly known as "Tongzhou Bangzi"), which has a history of 200 years. After it, Henan Bangzi (Henan Opera), Shanxi Bangzi (Shanxi Opera), Hebei Bangzi, Shandong Bangzi and so on. According to statistics, there are about 20 kinds of "Bangzi Opera" in various places, such as Pu Opera in Shanxi, Beilu Bangzi and Shangdang Bangzi. Hebei old tune, Wu 'an flat tune, flat tune, Huai tune and western tune; Wanbang in Henan; Zhangqiu Bangzi, Laiwu Bangzi and Jujube Bangzi in Shandong Province are mostly distributed in the Yellow River Basin, and they are also in a "banded" pattern. "Gao Qiang", formerly known as "Yiyang Qiang", is a sound cavity system formed by absorbing a lot of folk music nutrients on the basis of Yiyang Qiang in the middle of Ming Dynasty and Qingyang Qiang in Anhui Province later. After the mid-Qing Dynasty, it gradually became the basic aria of Sichuan Opera, Qing Opera (Hubei), xiang opera Opera, Gan Opera, Xiyue Gaoqiang Opera and Wu Opera. Obviously, it spreads along the Yangtze River in a "banded" distribution. Responding to the "Bangzi Opera System", one north and one south. Of course, as a constantly spreading voice cavity, it has not been in the same place for hundreds of years. Therefore, in the general layout of traditional opera vocal cavity, it is inevitable that "Bangzi cavity" crosses the river in the south and "Gaoqiang cavity" crosses the river in the north. However, just like the distribution of the above-mentioned folk songs, the "banded" distribution of this tune appears again, which proves once again that there is a certain dependence and correspondence between China traditional music and nature and phenology, and this law, or "law", is exactly what cultural geography pays attention to and repeatedly proves.

Finally, it should be pointed out that the spatial distribution of traditional music in China is actually much richer and more complicated. Not only does each genre have its specific geographical distribution area, but every song, genre, drama, music and dance also has its corresponding geographical distribution area. In addition, within each genus, its geographical distribution is also different. For example, Sichuan Opera is divided into four rivers: western sichuan bazi, Ziyang River, North Sichuan and East Sichuan. "Qinqiang" is divided into four roads: Zhong (Xi 'an), Xi (Fengxiang), Dong (Dali, Tongzhou) and Nan (Handiao, Daoguang). Jin opera is divided into "middle road" and "north road"; Henan Opera is divided into "East Henan" and "West Henan". Zhejiang Wu Opera is divided into Xi 'an, Xiwu, Houyang and Songyang. The "Errenzhuan" in Northeast China is divided into four "roads": east, south, west and north. Gan Qing's flowers are divided into Hehuang and Tao Min. These spatial distribution contents of traditional music named after "water", "mountain" and geographical orientation provide us with very valuable information for studying the complex relationship between music, geography and people, further describing the "map" of traditional music distribution and finally establishing "music geography".

Thirdly, the study of music geography as cultural geography.

China is one of the first countries in the world to notice the geographical distribution of music culture. In the pre-Qin literature, people divided the legendary singing contents into "Southern Tone", "Northern Tone", "Eastern Tone" and "Western Tone" (see Lu Chunqiu Ancient Music for details). The "national style" of The Book of Songs, which came out in the 6th century BC, is also arranged by region (country), and the "national style" in one place fully embodies the folk singing in the north (mainly in the Yellow River basin). Folk music collectors in the Han and Wei Dynasties paid more attention to their regional differences, such as "the voice of Zhao, Dai, Qin and Chu", such as "Wu Ge" and "Opera". It is precisely because of this tradition that various folk music titles of later generations, regardless of folk songs, folk songs and dances, instrumental music, rap, opera or temple fair music, include Cantonese opera, Yin Qing in Sichuan, ancient paintings in Hunan, Hui opera, Chu opera and advocacy in southwest Shandong. Small as "Xi 'an Drum Music", "Changde Sixian", "Changyang Caoluogu", "Shanghai Opera" and "Tin Opera", this clear geographical symbol not only reflects the richness of China traditional music and the regional differences of the same variety, but also shows that the Chinese nation has a strong musical geographical concept since ancient times.

However, the rich historical classics and strong geographical concept are not the same as the formal establishment of a certain discipline. As one of the modern humanities, cultural geography was not separated from human geography by American geographer C.O. Sol through his own writings until the beginning of this century, and gradually extended to sub-disciplines such as linguistic geography, religious geography, cultural landscape and artistic geography. In China, due to some human factors in 1950s and 1960s, many humanities subjects failed to develop healthily because of the "squeeze" of the environment. It was not until the 1980s that it gradually recovered. Among them, the study of cultural geography has attracted the attention of many scholars, and a number of monographs and monographs have emerged one after another. Their publication undoubtedly further promoted the development of various disciplines.

The study of China's music geography in the field of music is carried out under the above academic background. First of all, in the same period, some ethnomusicologists learned from the works of European and American ethnomusicology that "it is one of the most important basic research methods of ethnomusicology to study this kind of music in connection with its cultural environment." This method essentially contains the nature of cultural geography. " (Note: Shen: ethnomusicology 10 (China Music Yearbook, 1990, Shandong Education Press). Based on this theory, Hornbostel and Sachs once put forward "music cultural circle"; Bartok and Kodak put forward "musical dialect area"; Meriam and Nettel put forward similar ideas such as "Music Cultural District". For China's burgeoning music field, they undoubtedly provided new observation methods and theoretical guidance. Secondly, during this period, the study of cultural geography in Chinese mainland once became a hot spot in the humanities field. Among them, the study of linguistic geography, the study of the formation and division of ancient regional cultural areas in China, the study of the relationship between culture and geography, and people have also benefited scholars who are concerned about the geographical distribution of traditional music in China, prompting them to seriously consider similar academic topics in this field. Thirdly, inspired by the above two academic achievements, many researchers of traditional music in China went deep into the field of studying the geographical distribution of traditional music in China with great interest, and published a series of monographs one after another. Typical examples are: Yang Kuangmin's Three-tone Folk Songs in Hubei and Their Structures (1980); Jiang Mingdun's Introduction to Han Folk Songs (some chapters,1982); Qiao Jianzhong's research on Han folk songs (see section "Distribution of Han folk songs",1982); Miao Jing's division of approximate color zones of Han folk songs in northern China (1983): Li's national music culture color block theory (1984); Miao Jing and Qiao Jianzhong's On the Division of Approximate Color Zones of Han Folk Songs (1985); Huang Yunzhen's On Color Zoning of Northern Han Folk Songs (1985); Yang Kuangmin's Formation and Color Division of Local Colors in National Melody (1987); Qiao Jianzhong, Miao Jing, the formation of folk song areas in the east and west of the Yellow River Basin and the comparison of their style characteristics (1987); Huang Yunzhen, a folk song in Northern Han Dynasty, changed to Gong Yin (1987); Qiao Jianzhong's Theory of Sound-Ground Relationship (1988), etc. The above monographs can be said to have their own opinions in terms of square inch, division basis and academic vision, but the "emphasis" of their discussion is basically the same, that is, the spatial distribution of China traditional music. In a short period of seven or eight years, we have reason to feel gratified that we can push a newly started branch of humanities to such a height. Moreover, as far as the overall academic progress is concerned, they can be called the first batch of achievements in the study of music geography in China in the early stage of discipline construction.

However, if measured by a large number of documents about cultural geography and even musical geography preserved in history and the extremely rich cultural geography and even musical geography contained in various traditional music, the achievements made at present can only be regarded as preliminary. In view of this, in order to gradually establish and constantly improve it, the author himself puts forward the following suggestions:

(1) Collect relevant historical documents. It can be said with certainty that the existing history books (such as Geography, Yue, Li Yue and Fa Li Ji in the twenty-four histories) and similar books are rich in discussions on music geography, but they are scattered or only a few words, but they are full of insights and contain certain academic value. Therefore, it is necessary to comprehensively collect and systematically organize.

(2) Accumulate and study the geographical distribution data of various traditional music in China in detail, and draw a "map" of its spatial distribution one by one. Most of the previous "perspectives" and research objects focused on folk songs. The geographical distribution of traditional music in China is a whole cultural phenomenon. Due to the long historical accumulation period and mutual communication between regions, various varieties in some regions (note: here mainly refer to folk songs, folk songs and dances, operas, rap, folk instrumental music, Buddhist music, Taoist music, lyre music, etc. ), there are only a few categories in some areas; Some areas are dominated by one or two, while others are more complicated. In order to conduct integrated research in the future, the first thing that music geographers should do is to fill in the distribution of all kinds of music in a region (preferably geographical division); Or draw their spatial distribution map one by one according to genre, vocal cavity, instrumental variety, drama, genre and genre. This will be the "basic project" for us to fully understand the geographical distribution of traditional music in China.

(3) On the basis of the above information, make a comprehensive study on the relationship among geography, music and people, either as a whole or with a specific variety. This is a more complicated academic subject. According to the viewpoint put forward by the author in "On the Relationship between Sound and Land", they have at least three relationships, namely, the "surface relationship" between geography and genre distribution; The "deep relationship" between geography and music style area; The "storage relationship" between a specific geographical environment and a specific music variety or style. Among them, "deep relationship" is the formation and division of musical style areas, which further involves the basis and conditions of division. In the past, there were different opinions in academic circles and a series of problems. Only under the premise of accumulating materials, grasping the whole and concrete analysis can we find some conclusions close to science.

(4) Strictly grasp the position of this discipline in the whole academic field, absorb the new methods and achievements of sister disciplines at any time, and carry out self-construction in the all-round development of human geography. In human geography, cultural geography is a relatively backward discipline, while in cultural geography, music geography is a just-started discipline. Therefore, in order to make music geography develop healthily, we should constantly draw nutrition from social geography, settlement geography, political geography, military geography, economic geography and historical geography, including physical geography. For example, the division only involves the relationship between the geographical distribution of music and the division of language, administration, natural phenology, nationality and economy, and we should get some enlightenment from its relatively scientific division basis.

The author thinks that if we can seriously pay attention to the above aspects, then we will make the research of music geography step to a new level, and the discipline construction of music geography will also flourish.

The author thinks that China's music geography is a promising new discipline, and its vigorous development will change the face of China's ethnomusicology to some extent.