Music is an art category that exists by means of sound wave vibrations, unfolds in time, and causes various emotional reactions and emotional experiences through human auditory organs. From a sociological perspective, music is one of the many cultural phenomena created by human beings; early human musical activities were an element in mixed social and cultural phenomena. After humans entered class society, music was also one of the social ideologies. one.
In China, before the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, the two words "yin" and "music" were used separately. In ancient Chinese, sound, music and music are divided into three levels. According to the ancient Chinese music theory monograph "Yue Ji": "It moves based on the feeling of things, so it is shaped by sound. The sound corresponds to it, so it changes and becomes a square, which is called sound. Compare the sound and enjoy it, and Qian Qi Yuyan , which is called music.” It can be seen that “sound” refers to all sounds, which in ancient times were also called sounds of nature, sounds of earth, sounds of man, etc., including various noises; “sound” specifically refers to orderly, organized, and organized sounds. Sound is equivalent to tones, tunes, sound combinations, etc. made up of musical sounds; as for "music", in ancient times, it refers to an undifferentiated artistic activity that combines the three elements of poetry, music, and dance. In the era of Confucius, As one of the "six arts" (ritual, music, archery, imperialism, calligraphy, and mathematics) required for education, "music" is this kind of hybrid artistic activity. The first time the word "music" appeared in ancient Chinese books was in "Lu Shi Chun Qiu 6 1 Great Music": "The origin of music is far away: it is born from measurement and originated from Taiyi." After that, "music" The word "yin" gradually replaced the original word "yin" to refer to the art category of music; while the meaning of the word "yin" gradually narrowed, referring only to musical sounds with a certain pitch (such as "five tones") . Later, the word "乐" was used as the abbreviation of the word "music" to refer to music. In Europe, the Latin word "Musica" originates from the name of Muse, the goddess in charge of literature, art and science in Greek mythology. Its meaning is not as clear as the Chinese word "music". However, the duty of the Muses in Greek mythology is to serve the sun god Apollo. From this point of view, the semantic evolution of using the name of the Muses to describe music contains a symbolic meaning: praising music for its refreshing effect. social function and gives her a noble and pure image.
When people compare music with other art categories, they will find that: ① The content of music is different from literature, drama, painting, etc., which depict a large number of specific things and scenes in life (reproduction, description) Different art categories, music directly calls for and inspires emotions and will (expressiveness, expressiveness); starting from emotional experience, different individuals associate with different specific objects based on their own life experiences. Therefore, it can be said that the content of music has the characteristics of unity of emotional certainty and object uncertainty. ② If people study this feature in depth, they can find a more profound essential feature: the materials and structures used in music are non-semantic, which is also the fundamental dividing line between music and language arts. From the surface, living language arts (except written records) are also demonstrated in time through sound wave vibrations through the auditory organs. However, the sounds used in language have semantics and are the shell of word meanings; this is not the case with music, and various music collections The associations evoked are freely developed from emotional stimulation and do not obey the rules of semantics. ③ From the comparison between music and architectural art, it can be seen that music and architecture are very similar in terms of the abstraction of formal elements and the rigor of structural specifications; but unlike architecture that is displayed in space (belonging to spatial art), music is Art that unfolds in time (belongs to time art).
In short, music is a reflection of human social life. At the same time, the content of music is full of emotion and will. The social life activities reflected by music not only express the understanding and application of objective laws by social members, but also show the subjective pursuits, wishes, wills and longings of social members. It undertakes the function of transmitting social information and communicating emotional experiences. It plays the role of organizing and coordinating the volitional behavior of social members.