Musicology·Music activities in the Qin and Han Dynasties·Theoretical achievements of Qin music

Academic activities of Qin music in the Western Han Dynasty include Qin history, Qin academic thoughts, Qin music research, etc. Liu Xiang's "Shuo Yuan" and Huan Tan's "Xin Lun" both have detailed records of the pre-Qin Yongmen Zhou Yiqin meeting Mengchang. Yang Xiong's "Qin Qingying" records Sun Xi's affair with the Jin Dynasty King Guqin, which is also similar to the Yongmen Zhou incident. Although this is a description of historical events, the attention to such historical facts and the description itself show a kind of musical thought consciously expressed by the historian, which emphasizes the important role of the appreciator as a subject in the aesthetics of musical music. This idea of ??qin music has a long-term influence on the aesthetic ideas of qin music in later generations (such as the aesthetic idea of ??"soundless music"). This also makes the record itself have some academic significance.

Quite systematic thoughts on qin studies have been formed in the theory of qin in the Han Dynasty, which is mainly reflected in aspects such as a gentleman's way of life and qin, qin and moral cultivation, qin and heaven and earth, and interpretation of qin music. These are reflected to a certain extent in "Qin Cao" compiled by Liu Xiang, Huan Tan and later generations and entrusted in the name of Cai Yong. These theoretical results are the product of musical research.