Before looking at Chinese Music, perhaps you need RealAudio Player. For Macintosh help with .au format sound files, go to IPA-Software for SoundMachine 2.6.2 (shareware $10.00 U.S.). IPA-Software also has .au applications for PC and UNIX machines. Another site to try is "Playing Audio on your Web browser". These sites should help get you going. If you are a NetScape user as I am, then you may like to read the Helper Applications information sheets from NetScape.
For an appreciation of Chinese traditional music, Christopher Evans has written a paper that will introduce you to the technical aspects. His paper is sometimes hard to read (for the non-musician), but I found it interesting, especially the historical comparisons of tonal scales. Christopher also has links to other Chinese music sites.
This radio station from Vancouver (British Columbia), can be listened to with the RealAudio player and is Chinese (Mandarin and Cantonese) 24 hours a day. News in Mandarin is from 7pm to 9pm Pacific Standard Time Monday to Friday. Programming is in Cantonese most of the rest of the time. You will need a Chinese Language viewer to surf this site.
This page is maintained by Jaideep Ray and Jonathan Tischio, and has links to every type of Chinese music you can imagine. These are generally large (as in really huge) files in the .au format, so don't try downloading unless you have some time on your hands. The pre forties music is very interesting from a Western point of view, not what you would expect. Follow this link back to the Rutgers University Sound Home Page for some interesting and unique sounds (not in Chinese). Be warned that there seem to be many dead links at the Sound Home Page.
This page is an extension of the Chinascape home page, and music is found in .au and .ra format. Music from Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong, China, and around the world. You will have to do some searching if you want audio files, as there is a lot of text (English and Chinese top 10 charts, song dialogue, and so on) at this site and many of it's links. One of the links is the Singapore Mandarin Golden Song Chart which requires a Chinese browser, but you can experiment on screen until you see a download link for a .ra file, then go for it!.
A Dream Return To Tang Dynasty
This is not what you might think! This site is basically a tribute to Chinese Rock star Zhang Ju (of the band "Tang Dynasty"), who died tragically May 12, 1995. Jiang Yi Ji (James) has done a tremendous job at his site, which has historical biographical information on the band, supplementary documentation, plus links to other Chinese music and Aisian Rock bands. Pay a visit...you will experience Rock and Roll that is familiar, but quite definitely different.