Zhoushan is located in the north-eastern part of Zhejiang Province, east to the Hangzhou Bay and south to the mouth of the Yangtze River. The rich oceanic resources are the foundation of the local people's production and living, and the special production mode and life customs have given birth to distinctive folk arts in Zhoushan, of which the gong and drum music is the representative. The music takes gong, drum, cymbal and sona as its keynote and string and bamboo flute music as its auxiliary instruments, which together produce sonorous sound, surging and wild tunes as well as vehement and restrained rhythm. Thus Zhoushan gong and drum music fully demonstrates island characteristic.
In the bygone times, Zhoushan gong and drum music mostly appeared at weddings, funerals, festivities, temple fairs, celebrations and the fishermen's sacrificial ceremonies in the rural area. As early as in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, it had became very popular. It is said that Zhoushan gong and drum music was initially used for sea sailing. When ships stopped at the wharfs, it was performed to attract guests, and during the sailing it was performed to divert the guests from boredom. What's more, it could be used to transmit messages in the foggy weather. Later, rich families would invite a troupe of drummers to perform music on their weddings, funerals, birthday parties, and even when they started their new ships' first voyage, moved to new residences and began new business.
Zhoushan gong and drum music is a kind of wind and percussion ensemble, which consists of a few sections and each section has many pieces. The ensemble is equipped with the blowing, pulling, stringed and percussion musical instruments, all of which play their own roles in the performance. Paigu (drum-set) and Pailuo (gong-set) are two main instruments in this ensemble. Their performance is full of novelty and originality, with sharp contrast between the music and sound volume and rich tunes, so it can express manifold sentiments. The traditional representative works include Zhoushan Gong and Drum Music, the Preface to the Eight Immortals, Fishmen's Fun, Sand Tune, Melody of Tide, etc.
Because of the regional culture, Zhoushan gong and drum music expresses the fishmen' robust and straightforward characters, their breathtaking battles against the wind and wave, and the joyful celebrations of their festivals including starting the sail and coming back from the sea. Nowadays, through exchanges with foreign folk cultures, Zhoushan gong and drum music has been gradually perfected and developed. In this process, the "taiping luo" (peace gong), "chuanxing luogu" (ship-shape gong and drum) and "sanfan luogu" (multi-repetitious gong and drum) appeared successively, from simple to complex, stiffness to dexterity. In particular, in the 1950s of the 20th century, the professional music workers participated in the collation of this folk music, and reformed the "Zhoushan luogu" into a large wind and percussion ensemble - "Gong and Drum on the Sea".
