Traditional Chinese Musical Aesthetic Thinking Title Research

Having an overview of Chinese traditional music, most of them, no matter themusic documented in the ancient literature, or the fork music remainedcontemporarily, or the ethnic music created since the twentieth century, arecharacterized with literary title. Undoubtedly this phenomenon highlights the naturalmorphology and diachronic inheritance of programmatic factor existed in Chinesetraditional music. In other words, this musical thought reflects regular and naturalcharacteristics in Chinese traditional music creation and aesthetic, which can benamed programmatic thought. Morphological characteristics have become not onlythe consensus of academia, but also the important factor that reflects China’s ethnicmusic style.This paper discusses the programmatic thought in Chinese traditional music intwo aspects: firstly, summarizes the reasons for the forming of this thought; secondly,generalizes the aesthetic characteristics of Chinese traditional programmatic music.The first chapter summarizes the historical, cultural and aesthetic reasons for theform of programmatic thought in Chinese traditional music in three aspects, namelythe integrated mode of thought, the artistic tradition that music is for conveyingTaoism, and aesthetic tradition of heteronomy. First of all, the deviation ofcomprehensiveness and integrity existed in Chinese traditional thinking mode as wellas the literature and art tradition formed in the influence of the deviation thatvenerates synthesizing the music form and integrating aesthetics among different artsare the decisive factors in the formation of the programmatic thought in traditionalmusic, and make the programmatic thought a cultural consciousness of musicalaesthetic; Secondly, Chinese traditional views on literature and art emphasize thetheory that writings are for conveying Taoism, regarding the art noumenon as thecarrying tool of Taoism, highlighting the importance of Taoism, focusing on the ideological content and functionality of art and forming the recognition thatmusic is for conveying Taoism which is an important reason to promote theformation of programmatic thought in traditional music. Thirdly, because of theChinese ancient materialist view of musical essence that creation is inspired by theobjects and the view of musical content that cognition, emotion and intention shouldbe integrated, our ancient music focuses on the expression of specific emotions andcontents, emphasizes the intrinsic charm and meaning of music, treats the overtonesof sound as ultimate pursuit of artistic aesthetic, forms the aesthetic tradition ofheteronomy that emphasizes expression and content. These are the aesthetic reasonsof the programmatic thought in our traditional music. Overall, the programmaticthought in Chinese traditional music results from the combined effects of these threeaspects.Based on the characteristics of Chinese history, culture and aesthetics, the secondchapter discusses the features of our the traditional programmatic music in threeaspects including perusing the beauty of freehand brushwork and artistic conception,the beauty of comparing an objects to a person and figural virtue, also the beauty ofreality contemplation and simulation. Due to the imagery bias in our traditionalthinking mode, China has formed the aesthetic tradition that is pursuing freehandbrushwork. Especially when compared with western aesthetic way, this featurebecomes more obvious. Freehand brushwork and artistic conception share a commonphilosophy and aesthetic foundation: conveying the content rather than the form.Therefore, in our traditional programmatic music, creating an artistic conception offeeling and setting happily blended, oblivious of oneself and the environment, falseor true complement by the way of freehand brushwork has become a major aestheticfeature. Secondly, because of the profound impact of Confucianism and Taoism, theexternal things are far from simple objective images, but analogy objects with theirown morality and intrinsic qualities in ancient aesthetics. The ancients tend to regardmorality as the starting point and reference. By praise the natural attributes ofexternal objects, the ancients aim to express the nobility of the morality and spiritexisted in the main body. Meanwhile, the appearance characteristics and object attributes can be achieved personification, ethnics, socialization. All these factorscontribute to the aesthetic feature of figural virtue that compares an object to aperson in Chinese programmatic music. Thirdly, our ancient emphasis the harmonybetween man and nature, and agriculture is the economic base. Given these factors,China has formed the tradition of focusing on practicability and reality. Therefore,traditional folk instruments often closely integrated with natural objects and dialectcustoms in the process of creation, playing and appreciation. The simulation is alsoused to describe the external objects. According to these expressive ways, the uniquesimulation aesthetic feature existed in China’s traditional music is formed. In essence,the beauty of artistic conception, figural virtue and simulation all are the aestheticreflection of China’s traditional thinking mode, cultural thought and aesthetictradition. It can help to acquire a better understanding of Chinese traditional musicand traditional culture through the analyzing and summarizing aesthetic feature andthe reasons of programmatic thought in Chinese traditional music.With its profound historical, cultural and aesthetic origins, the programmaticthought in Chinese music has become a bias, which can also be called musicalcustom in Chinese traditional music thinking mode. Therefore, it has vital theoreticaland realistic meaning for the inheritance and development of Chinese traditionalmusic to cognize aesthetic connotation in the programmatic thought in traditionalmusic by dialectical approach and to avoid the drawbacks in functional music view.