Abstract
The musical mode of harmony is symbolic of political ideal and moral expectation altogether. Politics in ancient times would be schemed to resemble or interact with music in both representational and expressive aspects. Hence different forms of political practices were supposed to be embodied in different styles of music that were construed as echoing people’s feelings and responses to the social reality, the current governance, and the human condition in the main. Such embodiment would be specified in the varied changes of sounds and melodies.
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Notes
- 1.
Guo yu. Zhou yu xia [The Sayings of the States 6, The Sayings of Zhou C]. Cf. Xue Anqin and Wang Liansheng (ed.), Guo yu yi zhu [The Sayings of the States Paraphrased and Annotated] (Changchun: Jilin Wenshi Press, 1994), p. 131.
- 2.
Xu Fuguan, Zhongguo yi shu jing shen [The Spirit of Chinese Art] (Shanghai: East China Normal University, 2001), p. 9.
- 3.
Plato, The Republic (trans. Desmond Lee, London: Penguin Books, 1974), 398e–399c. As for Heraclides’ description, see D. B. Monro, The Modes of Ancient Greek Music (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1894), pp. 9–11.
- 4.
Xiu Hailin, “Yue zhi chu yi ji li shi yan ge” [The Meaning of yue and Its Historical Evolution], in Renmin Yinyue [Journal of People’s Music], 3 (1086). Cf. Li Zehou, The Chinese Aesthetic Tradition (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2010), p. 17.
- 5.
Xu Shen, Shuo wen jie zi, juan, 6, pt. 1, p. 20a, in Shuo wen jie zi fu jian zi, 124. Li Zehou, The Chinese Aesthetic Tradition, p. 17.
- 6.
Hsün Tzu (Xunzi), Basic Writings (trans. Burton Watson, New York: Columbia University Press, 1963), p. 113.
- 7.
James Legge (trans.), Record of Music (Yue chi), in Book of Rites (Li chi) (New York: University Books, 1967).
- 8.
Hsün Tzu (Xunzi), Basic Writings, p. 113.
- 9.
Guo yu [The Sayings of the States 6, The Sayings of Zhou C], in Xue Anqin and Wang Liansheng (ed.), Guo yu yi zhu [The Sayings of the States Paraphrased and Annotated], p. 131.
- 10.
Li Zehou, The Chinese Aesthetic Tradition, p. 19.
- 11.
James Legge (trans.), Record of Music (Yue chi), in Book of Rites (Li chi), pp. 92–93.
- 12.
Ibid., pp. 98, 126.
- 13.
James Legge (trans.), Record of Music (Yue chi), in Book of Rites (Li chi), p. 107.
- 14.
Confucius, The Analects (trans. James Legge), in The Four Books (Changsha: Hunan Press, 1995), 3:20, p. 83.
- 15.
The five-note scale stands for the five notes of traditional Chinese music. The five notes are gong, shang, jue, zhi, and yu, corresponding respectively to 1, 2, 3, 5, 6.
- 16.
James Legge (trans.), Record of Music (Yue chi), in Book of Rites (Li chi), p. 94.
- 17.
Ibid., pp. 120–121.
- 18.
Ibid., p. 126.
- 19.
Guo yu [The Sayings of the States 6, The Sayings of Zhou C], in Xue Anqin and Wang Liansheng (ed.), Guo yu yi zhu [The Sayings of the States Paraphrased and Annotated], p. 131.
- 20.
Zhuangzi, “Heaven and Earth”, in Zhuangzi (trans. Wang Rongpei, Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1999), p. 176.
- 21.
Zhuangzi, Zhuangzi (trans. Wang Rongpei), p. 177.
- 22.
Ibid., pp. 15–17.
- 23.
Zhuangzi, Zhuangzi (trans. Wang Rongpei), pp. 227–229.
- 24.
Ibid., pp. 229–231.
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Wang, K. (2019). The Musical Mode. In: Harmonism as an Alternative. Key Concepts in Chinese Thought and Culture. Palgrave Pivot, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-3564-8_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-3564-8_1
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