Ritual and music system

This article is about Chinese social system based around dance. For the dance itself, see Yayue.
A set of bronze bells called bianzhong c. 5th century BC from Hubei

The Chinese ritual and music system (Chinese: 礼乐制度; pinyin: Lǐ yuè zhìdù) is a social system that originated in the Zhou dynasty to maintain the social order.[1] Together with the patriarchal system, it constituted the social system of the entire ancient China and had a great influence on the politics, culture, art and thought of later generations.[2][better source needed] The feudal system and the Well-field system were two other institutions that developed at that time.[1] According to legend it was founded by the Duke of Zhou and King Wu of Zhou.[3][4][5][6][7][8]

The Ritual Music System is divided into two parts: ritual and music. The part of ritual mainly divides people's identity and social norms, and finally forms a hierarchy. The music part is mainly based on the hierarchical system of etiquette, using music to alleviate social conflicts.[2]

The system developed from older shamanic traditions[9] and was seen as having cosmological significance,[10] it was seen as representing the balance between Yin and Yang[10] and the Five Elements.[10]

The regulations on ritual and music strengthened people's concept of hierarchy, played a symbolic role in establishing authority, alongside standardizing rule across the civilization.[2]

  1. ^ a b "The ritual and music system – HistoryTopic". 4 June 2022. Retrieved 2022-09-25.
  2. ^ a b c "常识必背 | 什么是礼乐制度？_音乐_身份_阶级". www.sohu.com. Retrieved 2022-07-20.
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference 許之衡-1968b was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ Cite error: The named reference wang-kefen-1985a was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. ^ Cite error: The named reference zehou-li-2009a was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  6. ^ Cite error: The named reference aesthetic tradition was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  7. ^ Cite error: The named reference 李天云-2014a was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  8. ^ https://inf.news/en/culture/13f6bcc9ddf4e8248ad8525c0a36b55f.html [bare URL]
  9. ^ Cite error: The named reference city-university-of-hong-kong-press-2007a was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  10. ^ a b c Cite error: The named reference harvard was invoked but never defined (see the help page).