Hubei "tong Ji" Ceremony Music Research

The rite music of Tangji is performed throughout and constitutes the very important structure and behavior ways of the folk funeral sacrifices ceremony, which is called"Tangji"by the local Han Nationality in Hubei province. The rite music, inheriting Chinese traditional culture, is developed mainly from patriarch system of Chinese feudalism and valuation or conception of Confucianism filial piety, and partly from the primitive religion, such as believes in supernatural beings, convictions of sorcery, and worship of ancestors, etc. Like some other traditions of Chinese culture, the Tangji's rite music is on the verge of extinction. So, it is of vital importance to do some rescue works, which are the major duties of this paper to record,sort out and research this rite music.Inspired by the conception of"music in culture", firstly presented by A. P. Merriam, an ethnomusicologist in U. S., and investigating in the local field of Hubei province, the author of this paper manages varieties of research methods like musical morphology, culture-anthropology, geography, and folklore, etc. to analyze the musical structure and morphological characteristics of Tangji's rite music, to interpret it's cultural origin, and to conclude it's function and meaningfulness. As a result, this paper objectively presents the performance and function of Tangji's rite music in funeral ceremony and reveals the interactive relationships among belief system, ceremony, and rite music.