The Image of Music and Sound in Xunzi's 'On Music': A Study of Character, Cosmos, and the Cultivation of Rites and Music

Section 10: "Song is Purely Exhaustive" ($\text{gē qīng jìn}$) — The Exhaustion of Song

"Song is purely exhaustive" ($\text{gē qīng jìn}$)—This states the quality of song is both "pure" ($\text{qīng}$) and "exhaustive" ($\text{jìn}$).

The meaning of "pure" ($\text{qīng}$) is crucial in pre-Qin contexts. "Pure" means clear, transparent, and upright. Xunzi, Dispelling Obscurity ($\text{Jiě Bì}$) states:

"How does the heart know$1 It is when the heart is empty, unified, and still. ... When the heart is empty, unified, and still, it is called Great Clarity and Brightness ($\text{dà qīng míng}$)."

The highest state of the heart is "Great Clarity and Brightness" ($\text{dà qīng míng}$); "purity" ($\text{qīng}$) is the supreme quality of the mind. Song’s "purity" ($\text{qīng}$) means the human voice, when sung, possesses a quality of clarity and purity. The human voice differs from instruments: instruments are constrained by material and craftsmanship, inevitably carrying the characteristics of their substance (metal sounds deep, stone sounds brittle, bamboo sounds bright, earth sounds subdued). The human voice, however, issues from the mouth and originates from the heart; if the heart is clear, the sound will naturally be clear. Song’s "purity" ($\text{qīng}$) is the external manifestation of the heart’s "purity" ($\text{xīn qīng}$).

The meaning of "exhaustive" ($\text{jìn}$) is to reach the end, completeness, or perfect fulfillment. Master Kong comments on the Shao Music ($\text{sháo yuè}$):

"The Master said of the Shao: 'It is perfectly beautiful ($\text{jìn měi}$), and moreover perfectly good ($\text{jìn shàn}$). As for the Wu Music, it is perfectly beautiful, but not perfectly good.'" (Analects, Ba Yi)

"Perfectly beautiful" and "perfectly good"—"exhaustive" ($\text{jìn}$) means complete. Song’s "exhaustiveness" ($\text{jìn}$) means that singing can fully express human emotion, exhausting the depth and breadth of feeling without reservation. Instrumental music requires a material medium (metal, stone, earth, bamboo, silk, etc.); human song proceeds directly from the heart, transmitted through the mouth, with the fewest intervening steps, thus achieving the greatest "purity" ($\text{qīng}$) and "exhaustiveness" ($\text{jìn}$).

We must ask: Why is human song placed after the ten instruments and before dance$2

Logically, the passage describes the qualities of various instruments sequentially, and song represents an elevation of instrumental music—a leap from the material instrument to the human voice, from "instrument" ($\text{qì}$) to "person" ($\text{rén}$). Dance further advances this, moving from "sound" ($\text{shēng}$) to "body" ($\text{shēn}$), from hearing to sight and kinesthesia, from "human sound" to "human body." The progression from instrumental music to song to dance is one of deepening involvement and ultimate sublimation.

The Book of Rites: Record of Music offers a similar description:

"Thus, the singer, the high notes are like ascending, the low notes like descending, the curves like bending, the pauses like dead wood, the upright posture like a square, the bent posture like a hook, the connected phrases like strung pearls."

These descriptions emphasize the clarity, precision, and perfection of song, matching "pure and exhaustive" ($\text{qīng jìn}$).