Ji Kang's Main Music Thought of "Sound without Sorrow and Music"

Ji Kang's On Sound Without Sorrow and Music not only discusses whether there is sorrow and music, whether music can change customs and other issues, but also involves a series of important issues in music aesthetics, namely, the ontology and essence of music, the relationship between sound and emotion in music appreciation, and the role of music.

Ji Kang also put forward the viewpoint of "sound without sorrow and music" in "On Sound without sorrow and music", that is, music is an objective sound, and sorrow and music is the feeling that people's spirit is touched, and there is no causal relationship between them. In Ji Kang's words, "harmony between heart and soul are two different things".

The music thought that music should be divorced from feudal political utility and the official music thought that "ceremony, music and punishment should be paid equal attention" reflected in "On Music" constitute the source of two major musical aesthetic thoughts in China feudal society.

Extended data

The change of music itself, beauty and ugliness, has nothing to do with people's emotions. Ji Kang believes that people's emotional sorrows and joys are due to people's inner sorrows and joys, and music plays the role of induction and media, which makes it appear.

Ji Kang boldly opposed equating music with politics since the Han Dynasty, completely ignored the artistry of music, and even asked it to play the role of divination, which is of progressive significance. What he saw was the contradiction between the formal beauty of music, the actual content of music and the understanding of the audience, which was also not discussed by predecessors.

Baidu Encyclopedia-"Sound without Sorrow"