Big music is easy, and big gifts are simple: the best music must be simple, and the greatest etiquette must be simple. It must be simple to refer to the highest-level decrees.

The elephant is invisible when the sound is loud: the better the music, the farther and lower it is, and the better the image is. Metaphor means "the greater the achievement, the more penetrating it is, and the more tolerant it is, the more inclusive it is."

1. "Big music is easy, big gifts are simple" comes from Xunzi's Book of Rites and Music.

Xunzi's Theory of Music is the first monograph on music aesthetics in Chinese history, and it also represents the highest achievement of music theory at that time. Music Theory is a paper on music theory and its social function. Xunzi believes that "music" is an indispensable part of people's lives. "Musicians, musicians, and human feelings are inevitable, so people can't be without music." If we put it into the whole book Xunzi, we will find that what he summed up is a music theory, an aesthetic thought that extends to the whole art field, and an ideal for society, which not only has an impact on the music research of later generations, but also has profound significance in guiding the thoughts of the whole society. Music and art, as important ways of personal socialization, affect the cultivation and sentiment of people in a society, and as the superstructure of society, affect the atmosphere and aesthetic morality of a society.

2. "The elephant is invisible because of the great sound" comes from the forty-first chapter of Laozi's Tao Te Ching.

The full text of the forty-first chapter:

Staff sergeant hears the Tao and works diligently; The sergeant heard that if you survive, you will die; The corporal heard this and laughed. Laughing is not enough. It is based on suggestions, saying: If Ming Dow is ignorant, if he enters the Tao, if he retreats, if he is arrogant; If you are virtuous, if Guangde is insufficient, if Jiande is awkward, the quality is really fragrant; If the white is humiliated, it is generous and has no corner, and it is a late bloomer, and the elephant is invisible. Tao is hidden and nameless. The husband is only the Tao, and the beginning is good and the success is good.

Translation:

The Staff Sergeant listened to the Tao and diligently implemented it; The sergeant listened to the word and was skeptical; When the corporal heard this, he laughed at it-it would not be a way if they didn't laugh at him. As the old saying goes, the bright road is like darkness, the forward road is like retreat, and the flat road is like rugged; Noble virtue is like a river valley, vast virtue is like deficiency, strong virtue is like cowardice, and full virtue is like emptiness; The whitest one seems to be dirty, the most square one has no edges and corners, the biggest instrument is finally completed, the biggest music has no sound, and the biggest elephant has no image. Avenue is hidden and has no name, but only Tao is good at starting all things and completing them.