Tone Theory

The theory of music and heart is the axis part of the Chinese ancient music theory, also the thought root for the morphological characteristics of Chinese traditional music. From the pre-Qin to the Qing dynasty, the theory of music and heart was just like a red line and could be seen throughout the whole Chinese ancient music theory, and finally be the main study of the ancient music theory. It was firstly created in pre-Qin dynasty,fell into a pattern and became mature after the Han dynasty and Weijin dynasty. Thereafter it maintained its popularity after the Sui and Tang Dynasties and began to decline till Qing Dynasty. It could be found both in monographs and scattered theories that as long as it comes to music, inevitably it will be connected with heart theory.The theory which was put forward by the Confucianists and Taoist became the most important content of Chinese ancient music theory. The connotation of the theory of music and heart contains at least three aspects, which includes mental harmony,temperament and mental morality. The most important function of the traditional music is the function for the heart. Heart is the noumenon of the music, and provides power for the generation of music. Meanwhile, music serves for heart, and works for getting calmness for heart. The common core point of mental harmony,mental morality and temperament is calmness. Without calmness, it is impossible to talk about mental harmony, temperament and mental morality。Calmness is the link of connecting the connotations of the heart and also the core part of the theory of music and heart. The characteristics of Chinese traditional music forms,such as simplicity,naturalness and linear, all of them are formed on the basis of “calmness”, and this is the embodiment of the theory of music and heart on the traditional music form. The musical scale,melody,notation,rhythm,beat,the structure layout and the velocity distribution of Chinese traditional music are connected with the theory of music and heart. The “calmness”thought,which is the core point of the theory of music and heart, has permeated into all parts of Chinese traditional music, and not easily noticed by people. Therefore, “calmness”is the thought root for the formation of all the patterns of Chinese traditional music. The function of Chinese traditional music is that it could help people to regain a peace of mind. If music can not do this, it can not be regarded as “music”. So music should aim to calm the mind, only in this way could people obtain the last-long happiness. The only standard of evaluating music is weather it delivers the “calmness”spirit. The value of the theory of music and heart contains two aspects. Firstly, Chinese traditional music finally has its own theoretical basis and doesn’t have to go with the flow to cater to the needs of the western aesthetic view and values. Secondly, it becomes our theoretical weapon of evaluating all kinds music. We can use it to evaluate our own music and also can use it to evaluate other kinds of music. Thus we can think about other music phenomenon with our stand, rather than just picking up the words of other people.