In China, before the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, the words "sound" and "music" were always used separately. In ancient China, sound, sound and music were divided into three levels. China's ancient monograph "Yue Ji" said: "Emotion moves with things, so it is shaped by sound. The sound is corresponding, so it changes and becomes a square, which is called sound. Listening to the sound is fun, and drying feathers is also fun. " It can be seen that "sound" refers to all sounds. In ancient times, it was also called natural sounds, earth sounds and human voices, including all kinds of noises. "Sound" refers to an orderly, organized and organized sound, which is equivalent to the combination of tones, tunes and sounds composed of musical sounds. As for "music", in ancient times, it refers to an artistic activity in which poetry, music and dance are mixed without any difference. In the era of Confucius, "music", as one of the "six arts" (ritual, music, shooting, imperial, calligraphy and number), was such a mixed artistic activity. The word "Yue" first appeared in China's ancient books in Lv Chunqiu? In Da Le: "The origin of music is far away: it was born in metrology, originally in the first year." Since then, the word "music" has gradually replaced the original position of the word "sound" to refer to the artistic category of music; However, the meaning of the word "tune" is gradually narrowing, only referring to notes with a certain pitch (such as "pentatonic scale"). Later, the word "music" was used to refer to music, which was the abbreviation of the word "music". In Europe, the Latin word "Mirica" comes from the name of the muse in charge of literature, art and science in Greek mythology, and its meaning is not as clear as the word "music" in Chinese. However, in Greek mythology, the muse's duty was to serve Apollo, the sun god. From this point of view, using the name of Muse to relay the semantic evolution of music implies a symbolic meaning: praising the social function of music that makes people feel relaxed and happy, and giving 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 those art categories such as literature, drama and painting. It describes a large number of concrete things in life (reproducibility and descriptive), and music directly calls and stimulates emotions and will (expressiveness and emotionality); Starting from emotional experience, different individuals associate different specific objects with their own life experiences. Therefore, it can be said that the content of music is the unity of emotional certainty and object uncertainty. If people study this feature deeply, we can find a more profound essential feature: the materials and structures used in music are non-semantic, which is the fundamental dividing line between music and language art. On the surface, living language art (except written records) is also expressed in time through the vibration of auditory organs with the help of sound waves, but the sound used in language is semantic and is the shell of word meaning; On the other hand, music evokes associations freely from emotional stimuli and does not follow the rules of semantics. ③ From the comparison between music and architectural art, we can see that music and architecture are very similar in the abstraction of formal elements and the rigor of structural norms; However, unlike architecture in space (belonging to space art), music is an art in time (belonging to time art).
In short, music is a reflection of human social life, and the content of music is also full of emotion and will. The social activities reflected by music not only show members' understanding and application of objective laws, but also show their subjective pursuit, desire, will and yearning. It undertakes the function of transmitting social information and exchanging emotional experience, and plays the role of organizing and coordinating the will and behavior of social members.