Early Chinese Music Resources: Zhou
compiled by David Badagnani (rev. 25 December 2024)
In an effort to make it more accessible, this document contains resources related to the musical heritage of the Zhou Dynasty (周朝, c. 1046 BC-256 BC), both Eastern and Western, as well as the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods.
Links to textual sources are highlighted in green.
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Historical reference works about the music of the Zhou Dynasty
● Liji《礼记》(The Book of Rites)
The 19th chapter of this work is Yueji《乐记》(Record of Music), which constitutes the grounds for the reconstruction of the lost Yue Jing《乐经》(Classic of Music). Liji dates to the Warring States period (during the late Eastern Zhou Dynasty), but was reconstructed in the early Han Dynasty by Confucian scholars who had memorized the classics or hidden written copies during the Qin Dynasty (221 BC-206 BC), during which time many of the Confucian classics were destroyed.
https://ctext.org/liji/yue-ji/ens
https://medium.com/@patricius_flavius/record-of-music-in-book-of-rites-%E7%A6%AE%E8%A8%98-%E6%A8%82%E8%A8%98-text-english-translation-bd71e39c5ea9
https://medium.com/@patricius_flavius/record-of-music-in-book-of-rites-%E7%A6%AE%E8%A8%98-%E6%A8%82%E8%A8%98-text-english-translation-bd71e39c5ea9
● Shiji《史记》(Records [of the Grand] Historian), also called Taishigong Shu《太史公书》(Book of the Grand Historian) or Taishigong Ji《太史公记》(Records of the Grand Historian)
The official history of China's pre-Han period, this text covers the world as it was then known to the Chinese, encompassing a 2,500-year period from the age of the legendary Yellow Emperor (黄帝, alleged to have reigned from 2698 BC to 2598 BC) to the reign of Emperor Wu of Han (汉武帝, r. 141 BC-87 BC) in the author's own time, also including the Xia, Shang, Zhou, and Qin Dynasties. Shiji was completed c. 94 BC by the Western Han Dynasty historian Sima Qian (司马迁, c. 145 BC-c. 86 BC), after having been started by his father, Sima Tan (司马谈, c. 165 BC-110 BC), a Western Han historian and astrologer. It is one of the Twenty-Four Histories (二十四史). Music is discussed in several volumes.
● Lunyu《论语》(The Analects, or The Analects [of Confucius])
Lunyu is an ancient Chinese book comprising a large collection of sayings and ideas attributed to the Chinese philosopher Confucius and his contemporaries, traditionally believed to have been compiled and written by Confucius's followers. According to Ban Gu, writing in the Book of Han, Lunyu originated as individual records kept by Confucius's disciples of conversations between the Master and them, which were then collected and jointly edited by the disciples after Confucius's death in 479 BC. The work is therefore titled Lunyu, meaning "edited conversations" or "selected speeches" (i.e., analects).
The work is believed to have been written during the Warring States period (475 BC-221 BC), and it achieved its final form during the mid-Han Dynasty. By the early Han Dynasty Lunyu was considered merely a "commentary" on the Five Classics, but its status grew in such a way that it became one of the central texts of Confucianism by the end of that dynasty. Several discourses in Lunyu provide insight into Confucius's views on music.
● Shujing《书经》(Book of Documents or Classic of History), also known as Shangshu《尚书》(Esteemed Documents)
One of the Five Classics of ancient Chinese literature, this work is a collection of rhetorical prose attributed to figures of ancient China, and served as the foundation of Chinese political philosophy for over 2,000 years. It contains some discussion of music.
● Tsinghua Bamboo Slips (Chinese: Qinghua Jian, 清华简)
A large collection of Chinese texts dating to the mid-to-late Warring States period and written in ink on strips of bamboo, which were acquired in July 2008 by Tsinghua University in Beijing. The texts, which are written on 2,388 bamboo strips (including a number of fragments), were obtained by illegal excavation, probably of a tomb in the area of Hubei or Hunan province, a region of China that was at the time culturally dominated by the Chu state, and were subsequently acquired and donated to the university by an anonymous alumnus. A single radiocarbon date (305±30BC) and the style of ornament on the accompanying box are in keeping with this conclusion. The considerable size and breadth of the collection and the significance and diversity of subjects covered by its texts make it one of the most important discoveries of early Chinese texts to date.
In 2010 Tsinghua University began publishing a series of books containing photographic reproductions, transcriptions, and commentary on the Tsinghua Bamboo Slips. The series is planned to eventually comprise a total of 16 volumes (into which the various texts were grouped arbitrarily), the latest of which (Volume 14) was published in December 2024.
Of those volumes published so far, several of the individual texts explore various aspects of music; the following are brief synopses of this collection's music-related contents by musicologist Patrick Huang:
Vol. 1, no. 5, "Qiye"〈耆夜〉 - this text includes a variation of Xishuai (蟋蟀), a song from the "Odes of Tang" (Tang Feng 唐風) section of the Shijing. A comparison of rhymes and prosodies between the version in the Tsinghua Bamboo Slips and the handed-down version (傳世版) may give us hints about the potential oral-formulaic pattern of pre-Qin poetry as well as the potential morphology of the accompanying music of the poetry at that period.
Vol. 1, no. 5, "Qiye"〈耆夜〉 - this text includes a variation of Xishuai (蟋蟀), a song from the "Odes of Tang" (Tang Feng 唐風) section of the Shijing. A comparison of rhymes and prosodies between the version in the Tsinghua Bamboo Slips and the handed-down version (傳世版) may give us hints about the potential oral-formulaic pattern of pre-Qin poetry as well as the potential morphology of the accompanying music of the poetry at that period.
Vol. 3, no. 2, "Zhougong Zhi Qinwu"〈周公之琴舞〉- this text not only describes various features of qin (琴) playing and dance in China's early dynastic period, it also includes a variation of "Jing Zhi" (敬之), a poem collected in the Shijing, so that may make a parallel study with vol. 1, no. 5, "Qiye"〈耆夜〉regarding what oral-formulaic morphology of Shijing that Warring States Chinese might have had.
Vol. 3, no. 2, "Zhougong Zhi Qinwu"〈周公之琴舞〉- this text speaks about the zithers qin (琴) and se (瑟), their functions, and the importance of their usage by sages. It also features qin wu (琴舞, qin and dance), which describes the simultaneous use of music and dance in pre-Qin rituals, allowing the reader to guess how such music and dance might have looked and sounded.
Vol. 3, no. 3, "Ruiliangfu Bi"〈芮良夫毖〉- as with vol. 1, no. 5, this text features a poetic form called bi (毖), which had been lost for centuries. Now, based on this text, we finally know how such poetry may have looked, also allowing, by extension, some morphological hypotheses to be deduced about the accompanying music. Bi poetry is also featured in vol. 3, no. 2.
Vol. 6, no. 5, "Ziyi"〈子儀〉- this text discusses a banquet or similar event hosted by Qin Mugong (秦穆公), at which musicians were ordered to perform qin and yong (甬), and sing lyrical music. This discussion is certainly musical, and comparative studies with philosophical writings about music in the Greek Symposium (Συμπόσιον) as written by Plato, Xenophon, et al. could be made.
Vol. 8, no. 7, "Baqi Wuwei Wusi Wuxing Zhi Shu"〈八氣五味五祀五行之屬〉- this text provides some cosmological thought linking the Five Elements with the five musical notes, five human viscera, five heavenly planets, etc.; this represents the basic cosmology in which most pre-Qin music scholars believed.
Vol. 8, no. 8, "Yuxiayinzhou Zhi Zhi"〈虞夏殷周之治〉- this text speaks about the rites and music (禮樂) system from the distant antiquity, or at least that rites and music from the imagination of Warring States-era thinkers.
Vol. 10, no. 2, "Si Shi"〈四時〉(The Four Seasons) - this text is not directly musical, but appears to be related to the four seasons - four directions - twelve earthly branches - twelve divisions of the octave cosmological thinking. The reading of texts is still unclear, and more study is certainly needed.
Vol. 10, no. 3, "Si Sui"〈司歲〉- this text speaks about the position of the planet Jupiter, called Suixing (歲星) in Chinese, and the divination of good or bad. This text is not directly related to music. However, as we know that the earliest known dating text is music-related (in Guoyu Zhouyu 國語·周語: 昔武王伐殷，歲在鶉火: "when King Wu attacked the state of Yin, the Jupiter is at the Chunhuo position...," as the analogy that the musician Lingzhoujiu (伶州鳩) rose to discourage Jingwang of Zhou (周景王) from casting a new set of bells Wuyi (無射).
Vol. 10, no. 4, "Xingcheng"〈行稱〉- this text is not directly music-related; it is like a simplified version of the "day books" (ri shu, 日書), that list the days of each month in groups of five, then judge each day as either good or bad. Many day books are found in Fangmatan (放馬灘秦簡), the Shuihudi Qin bamboo slips (睡虎地秦簡), and the Kongjiapo Han slips (孔家坡漢簡), where five musical notes are sometimes used as a references for determining the days. One such "day book," from Fangmatan, is specifically about musical temperaments, so any links to those sources would be important study of pre-Qin music thought on music.
Vol. 11, no. 1, "Wu Ji"〈五紀〉- also a long text about the cosmological thinking of five, as mentioned above. It is noteworthy in that the text contains readings like '一風，二雨，三寒，四暑，五大音 (one wind, two rain, three cold, four heat, five 'big note / dayin')'. So what does 'big note (大音)' refers to? That might be thunder considering its meteorological features, or is it something musical? Also the latter part of the text mentions a list of 24 deities, one of the southern deities is also called '大音'. A lot is still uncertain here.
Vol.12, no. 1, "Sanbuwei"〈参不韋〉- this text is also related to cosmological concepts of the number five, as explained above.
Vol. 8, no. 7, "Baqi Wuwei Wusi Wuxing Zhi Shu"〈八氣五味五祀五行之屬〉- this text provides some cosmological thought linking the Five Elements with the five musical notes, five human viscera, five heavenly planets, etc.; this represents the basic cosmology in which most pre-Qin music scholars believed.
Vol. 8, no. 8, "Yuxiayinzhou Zhi Zhi"〈虞夏殷周之治〉- this text speaks about the rites and music (禮樂) system from the distant antiquity, or at least that rites and music from the imagination of Warring States-era thinkers.
Vol. 10, no. 2, "Si Shi"〈四時〉(The Four Seasons) - this text is not directly musical, but appears to be related to the four seasons - four directions - twelve earthly branches - twelve divisions of the octave cosmological thinking. The reading of texts is still unclear, and more study is certainly needed.
Vol. 10, no. 3, "Si Sui"〈司歲〉- this text speaks about the position of the planet Jupiter, called Suixing (歲星) in Chinese, and the divination of good or bad. This text is not directly related to music. However, as we know that the earliest known dating text is music-related (in Guoyu Zhouyu 國語·周語: 昔武王伐殷，歲在鶉火: "when King Wu attacked the state of Yin, the Jupiter is at the Chunhuo position...," as the analogy that the musician Lingzhoujiu (伶州鳩) rose to discourage Jingwang of Zhou (周景王) from casting a new set of bells Wuyi (無射).
Vol. 10, no. 4, "Xingcheng"〈行稱〉- this text is not directly music-related; it is like a simplified version of the "day books" (ri shu, 日書), that list the days of each month in groups of five, then judge each day as either good or bad. Many day books are found in Fangmatan (放馬灘秦簡), the Shuihudi Qin bamboo slips (睡虎地秦簡), and the Kongjiapo Han slips (孔家坡漢簡), where five musical notes are sometimes used as a references for determining the days. One such "day book," from Fangmatan, is specifically about musical temperaments, so any links to those sources would be important study of pre-Qin music thought on music.
Vol. 11, no. 1, "Wu Ji"〈五紀〉- also a long text about the cosmological thinking of five, as mentioned above. It is noteworthy in that the text contains readings like '一風，二雨，三寒，四暑，五大音 (one wind, two rain, three cold, four heat, five 'big note / dayin')'. So what does 'big note (大音)' refers to? That might be thunder considering its meteorological features, or is it something musical? Also the latter part of the text mentions a list of 24 deities, one of the southern deities is also called '大音'. A lot is still uncertain here.
Vol.12, no. 1, "Sanbuwei"〈参不韋〉- this text is also related to cosmological concepts of the number five, as explained above.
Vols. 11 and 12 contain some indirect description of the five basic elements and five musical notes in regard to Chinese cosmological thinking.
Vol. 13, no. 2, "Wu Yin Tu"〈五音圖〉(Chart of the Five Tones) - a musical work that provides important information about the system of music theory that existed in China during the pre-Qin period; it is 19.3 cm in length and 0.5 in width and originally comprised at least 37 slips, of which 35 are extant (the ninth and nineteenth having been lost, and the second, third, fifth, sixth, seventh, twelfth, sixteenth, seventeenth, and twentieth being damaged). When laid out in order, the slips form a large five-pointed star; five groups of synonyms for the names of the orthodox five pentatonic pitches (Gong 宫, Shang 商, Jue 角, Zhi 徵, and Yu 羽) are written in relatively systematic manner, with the five-pointed star as the center and the pitch names radiating out from it in five directions in counterclockwise fashion. The order of the generation of these pitches is consistent with that given in Guanzi《管子》and the Western Han source Huainanzi《淮南子》. It is speculated that, when this diagram was complete, there would have been 24 (or possibly 25) pitch names, of which only 23 survive.
Vol. 13, no. 2, "Wu Yin Tu"〈五音圖〉(Chart of the Five Tones) - a musical work that provides important information about the system of music theory that existed in China during the pre-Qin period; it is 19.3 cm in length and 0.5 in width and originally comprised at least 37 slips, of which 35 are extant (the ninth and nineteenth having been lost, and the second, third, fifth, sixth, seventh, twelfth, sixteenth, seventeenth, and twentieth being damaged). When laid out in order, the slips form a large five-pointed star; five groups of synonyms for the names of the orthodox five pentatonic pitches (Gong 宫, Shang 商, Jue 角, Zhi 徵, and Yu 羽) are written in relatively systematic manner, with the five-pointed star as the center and the pitch names radiating out from it in five directions in counterclockwise fashion. The order of the generation of these pitches is consistent with that given in Guanzi《管子》and the Western Han source Huainanzi《淮南子》. It is speculated that, when this diagram was complete, there would have been 24 (or possibly 25) pitch names, of which only 23 survive.
Vol. 13, no. 3, "Yuefeng"〈樂風〉(Airs of Music) - a brief (yet important) musical work, originally comprising 14 slips, which contains what appears to be some of the oldest surviving Chinese musical notation; at 9.9 cm in length and 0.5 cm in width it is small in size and easy to carry around, and can thus be presumed to have had certain practical functions for court music officials. Of the 12 surviving slips (the eighth and the thirteenth having been lost, and the ninth and tenth being damaged), slips 1 through 5 record the names of pitches, primarily the five pentatonic Proper Tones (Chinese: Zheng Sheng, 正声), with a punctuation mark appearing after approximately every two pitch names seeming to indicate sections; this portion is presumed to be a musical score. The text on slips 6 through 14, although not yet clearly understood, may comprise performance instructions for the preceding notes.
Vol. 14 contains three texts, of which the last one (vol. 14, no. 3, "Liangzhong"〈两中〉) contains a small amount of information about music. This text can be viewed as a complement to vol. 12, no. 1, "Sanbuwei"〈参不韋〉; both are dialogues between a sage and a ruler, with the sage instructing the ruler that good policies shall be applied, in order to fit the cosmic order of the Five Elements and the Four Directions. These texts provide an early Chinese concept equivalent to the Latin musica universalis.
Photo of twelve bamboo slips from the "Yuefeng"〈樂風〉(Airs of Music) section of the Tsinghua Bamboo Slips (Chinese: Qinghua Jian, 清华简) collection (published in December 2023 as vol. 13, no. 3), containing what is believed to be pre-Qin musical notation. The slips were obtained by illegal excavation, probably of a tomb in the area of Hubei or Hunan province, a region of China that was at the time culturally dominated by the Chu state, and date to the mid-to-late Warring States period (305±30 BC).
Photo of the surviving 35 bamboo slips from the "Wu Yin Tu"〈五音圖〉(Chart of the Five Tones) section
of the Tsinghua Bamboo Slips (Chinese: Qinghua Jian, 清华简) collection (published in December 2023 as
vol. 13, no. 2), containing numerous synonyms for pre-Qin pitch n ames. The slips were obtained by illegal excavation, probably of a tomb in the area of Hubei or Hunan province, a region of China that was at the time culturally dominated by the Chu state, and date to the mid-to-late Warring States period (305±30 BC).
Tsinghua Bamboo Slips website:
Additional resources:
https://vistudium.top/2023/12/13/ngraukpym/
https://archive.org/details/tsinghua-bamboo-slips
https://vistudium.top/2023/12/13/ngraukpym/
https://archive.org/details/tsinghua-bamboo-slips
● Shanghai Museum Bamboo Slips (上海博物馆藏战国楚竹书; abbreviated 上博楚简 or 上博简)
An important collection of Chinese texts dating to the Warring States period (c. 300 BC) and written in ink on strips of bamboo. These texts have been edited and published in a 9-volume series (each volume covering multiple treatises), of which only two treatises (one in Volume 1 and another in Volume 2) are highly focused on music.
According to the musicologist Patrick Huang, the two texts from this collection that have the greatest relevance to music include the following:
Vol. 1, no.1: "Kongzi Shilun" (孔子詩論) - this text comprises 30 slips and hence is a rather lengthy text. It is a relatively comprehensive Confucianist text discussing poetry criticism, as well as including aesthetic discourses on poetry, text, and music.
Vol. 4, no.1: "Caifeng Qumu" (采風曲目) - this text, which comprises six slips, is considered the earliest music catalog found in early China. It lists the titles of several musical pieces, categorized by their modes, which include Gong (宮 = Do), Shang (商 = Re), Zhi (徵 = Sol) and Yu (羽, La).
● Yue《乐》(Music)
In June 2021, more than 3,200 clearly written and well preserved Chinese texts, written in ink on strips of bamboo (not counting small fragments), were discovered in tomb no. 798 of the Warring States-era Chu Cemetery at Wangjiazui (Chinese: Wangjiazui Zhan Guo Chu Mu, 王家咀战国楚墓), which is located in Hongsheng Village (洪圣村), Jinan Town (纪南镇), Jingzhou District (荆州区), Jingzhou (荆州市), south-central Hubei province, central China.
These bamboo slips, which date to approximately 300 BC, appear to belong to three important Confucian texts: the Shi Jing《诗经》(Classic of Poetry), Kongzi Yue《孔子曰》(Sayings of Confucius), and Yue《乐》(Music). The Kongzi Yue texts overlap with some portions of Lunyu《论语》(The Analects [of Confucius]), Li Ji《礼记》(The Book of Rites), and Mengzi《孟子》(Mencius). The structure of the Kongzi Yue text, however, shows marked differences from Western Han-era manuscripts of The Analects. The portions of the Shi Jing come from the "Guo Feng" (国风, Lessons from the States) part of the text.
As for the Yue text, it consists of numbers, the Ten Heavenly Stems, and a few simple characters. It has been proposed that it may be a pre-Qin musical score (something that has never before been discovered), but it is very difficult to read. If it is a musical score, then perhaps it is a key to understanding the missing Yue Jing《乐经》(Classic of Music), a Confucian text that was lost by the time of the Han Dynasty, probably having been destroyed in the burning of books and burying of scholars that is believed to have taken place in 213 BC, during the Qin Dynasty.
Photo of three bamboo slips from a collection entitled Yue《乐》(Music), containing what is believed to be pre-Qin musical notation. The slips, which are believed to date to approximately 300 BC, were excavated in June 2021 from tomb no. 798 of the Warring States-era Chu Cemetery at Wangjiazui (Chinese: Wangjiazui Zhan Guo Chu Mu, 王家咀战国楚墓), which is located in Hongsheng Village (洪圣村), Jinan Town (纪南镇), Jingzhou District (荆州区), Jingzhou (荆州市), south-central Hubei province, central China.
Set of 6 videos featuring speculative reconstructions of pieces from Yue by Wu Santu (伍三土, May 8, 2024)
Article analyzing Yue by Yao Xiao'ou (姚小鸥, May 30, 2024)
● Erya《尔雅》
Erya is the earliest surviving Chinese dictionary, which is believed to have been compiled between the Warring States period, Qin Dynasty, and Western Han Dynasty. It devotes some discussion to the subject of music and musical instruments.
Erya is the earliest surviving Chinese dictionary, which is believed to have been compiled between the Warring States period, Qin Dynasty, and Western Han Dynasty. It devotes some discussion to the subject of music and musical instruments.
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Zhou-era poems about music
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https://search.worldcat.org/title/20403643
● DeWoskin, Kenneth J. A Song for One Or Two: Music and the Concept of Art in Early China. Michigan Papers in Chinese Studies, no. 42. Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan, 1982.
https://www.amazon.com/Song-One-Two-Michigan-Monographs/dp/0892640421
● Falkenhausen, Lothar von. Ritual Music in Bronze Age China: An Archaeological Perspective. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University, 1988.
https://www.amazon.com/Song-One-Two-Michigan-Monographs/dp/0892640421
● Falkenhausen, Lothar von. Ritual Music in Bronze Age China: An Archaeological Perspective. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University, 1988.
● Falkenhausen, Lothar von. Suspended Music: Chime-Bells in the Culture of Bronze Age China. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993.
● Falkenhausen, Lothar von. Suspended Music: Chime-Bells in the Culture of Bronze Age China. Ph.D. dissertation. 3 vols. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994.
● Furniss, Ingrid. Music in Ancient China: An Archaeological and Art Historical Study of Strings, Winds, and Drums During the Eastern Zhou and Han Periods (770 BCE-220 CE). Amherst, New York: Cambria Press, 2008.
https://www.amazon.com/Music-Ancient-China-Archaeological-Historical/dp/1604975202
● Picken, Laurence. "The Shapes of the Shi Jing Song-Texts and Their Musical Implications." Musica Asiatica, vol. 1 (1977), pp. 85-109.
● So, Jenny F., ed. Music in the Age of Confucius. Washington, D.C.: Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, 2000.
https://www.amazon.com/Music-Age-Confucius-Jenny-F/dp/0295979534
https://www.amazon.com/Music-Ancient-China-Archaeological-Historical/dp/1604975202
● Picken, Laurence. "The Shapes of the Shi Jing Song-Texts and Their Musical Implications." Musica Asiatica, vol. 1 (1977), pp. 85-109.
● So, Jenny F., ed. Music in the Age of Confucius. Washington, D.C.: Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, 2000.
https://www.amazon.com/Music-Age-Confucius-Jenny-F/dp/0295979534
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Thanks to Patrick Huang and Keith Knapp for assistance with this page.
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