Guqin song "running water" has a long history. In the Ming Dynasty Zhu Quan's "magic secret manual", the caption of "high mountain" and "running water" recorded that "high mountain" and "running water" had only one song. At the beginning, ambition cared about the high mountain and said that benevolent people liked the mountain. Later, ambition cared about the running water and said that wise people liked the water. In the Tang Dynasty, it was divided into two songs, with no number of segments. In the Song Dynasty, it was divided into four segments of "high mountain" and eight segments of "running water". Since then, there have been more than 30 kinds of musical scores published in running water. Their basic content and spirit come down in one continuous line, and they basically maintain the structure of 8 paragraphs. During the period from Xianfeng to Guangxu of the Qing Dynasty, Zhang Kongshan, a Taoist from Qingcheng, a Sichuan pianist, added a paragraph between the original fifth and sixth paragraphs to become the ninth paragraph
In the first paragraph, the whole song starts to flow, which vaguely implies the theme tone of the whole song. 2、 The third paragraph uses overtone to write all kinds of spring sounds of mountains, streams and waterfalls. 4、 The fifth section shows that the spring of thousands of gullies flows out of the mountain and into the flood, and gradually has a turbulent trend. Since the sixth section, the water flows into the vast ocean, and the rapids cross the gorge and beach, forming a momentum of rough waves and surging unstoppable, conveying the character of fearing difficulties and dangers and forging ahead bravely. 7、 The eighth segment is the afterwave after the climax, which is slow and urgent, released and closed from time to time, and gradually calmed down. The ninth paragraph is the finale of the passing weather. This piano song is full of the harmony between man and nature, and exudes the atmosphere of the harmony of nature, earth and people. This song has both lyricism and simulation, the combination of virtual and real, the integration of scenes and the lofty atmosphere.
On August 20, 1977, the Voyager spacecraft launched by NASA into outer space carried a gold-plated record that is said to have been preserved for 1 billion years, including the song "running water" played by Mr. Guan Pinghu, a famous pianist in China.
古琴曲《流水》历史悠久。明代朱权《神奇秘谱》中《高山》、《流水》的题解记载：“《高山》、《流水》二曲本只一曲。初，志在乎高山，言仁者乐山之意。后，志在乎流水，言智者乐水之意。至唐分为两曲，不分段数，至宋分《高山》为四段，《流水》为八段”。此后刊载《流水》的琴谱多达30多种，它们的基本内容和精神一脉相承，也基本保持了8段的结构。清咸丰至光绪年间川派琴家青城道士张孔山在原第五、六段之间加了一段，成为9段
首段，起全曲水流之势，隐约暗示全曲的主题音调。二、三段用泛音写出山涧小溪潺潺、瀑布飞溅的各种泉声。四、五段表现万壑之泉由细流出山汇入洪流，并渐有汹涌之势。自六段起，水流汇入浩瀚汪洋，急流穿峡过滩，形成惊涛骇浪、奔腾难挡的气势，传达了不畏艰险、勇往直前的品格。七、八段为高潮之后的余波，忽缓忽急，时放时收，渐渐平复。第九段以杳渺徐逝的气象终曲。 这首琴曲充满着人与自然的和谐之音，散发了天籁、地籁、人籁相知相合、浑然一体的气象。此曲兼有抒情性和模拟性，虚实结合、情景相融、气象高远。
1977年8月20日，美国宇航局向外太空发射的“旅行者”号宇宙飞船上搭载了一张据称能保存10亿年之久的镀金唱片，其中就有我国著名琴家管平湖先生演奏的《流水》一曲。