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Have you noticed how Chinese people are when it comes to learning musical instruments? Because the unacknowledged, yet pervasive influence of Confucianism, can actually be seen in the attitude of Chinese families to music…

Many Chinese families get their kids to learn piano or violin. In some cases we’ve found that over three quarters of a group of second-generation Chinese have been brought along by their parents to learn music!

But notice that it’s not just any kind of art form that they are encouraged to learn. Chinese parents don’t so much encourage art forms like painting, or dance, or sculpture. It is particularly music that they like!

And notice also that it’s not just any kind of music. Chinese parents don’t tend to encourage their kids to learn drums or the guitar. It is particularly piano and violin that they encourage their kids to learn – those musical instruments that are perceived to be refined and cultured. And electric guitar is certainly not cultured and refined!

However, if you ask a parent why they want their kids to learn piano or violin, they won’t be able to tell you. They just … like it. And that’s the influence of Confucianism. It’s just there, influencing the culture, but people aren’t necessarily aware of its impact.

It is like how the earth’s mass exercises an inescapable, gravitational pull on the moon – although there is nothing visible  that ties the moon to the earth.

Because Confucianism is all about restoring order and harmony in a China that was divided and at war against itself. And while part of Confucius’ answer was to recover the rites and rituals of their ancestors in order to become a cultured person (or ren), it also involved applying oneself to learn music of all things!

Here is one quote on music from the Analects of Confucius, and notice from this how music is elevated to the important level of the odes and the rules of propriety (the li):

One of the important texts of Confucianism was even the Book of Music, which unfortunately has been forever lost during one of the purges against Confucianism (during the Qin dynasty).

The idea of music in Confucianism was that it was a means by which people could create harmony in society.

A family may have different people with different feelings towards each other. And the emperor’s court may also have simmering feelings of rivalry and jealousy.

However, by the family group, or by the court sitting down together and listening to a piece of music being played, as that music is being played it creates harmony in the feelings of everyone present. It regulates what people are feeling, so that at the end they are all feeling the same thing.

Of course people have lost that idea now, and many Chinese would not be able to express why the idea of their children learning piano or violin so appeals to them. However, rooted deep in the Chinese culture is this idea of music being an important tool for the virtuous man to create harmony in society – and of course harmony is one of the great virtues of Confucianism.

From this you can see how something like Confucianism very much influences what we do now – but people won’t necessarily know that the reason why we tend to do it is because of Confucianism. And if Confucianism influences us so much in how we are with music, then how much more in other areas of life!

[ PS: were you ever encouraged to learn piano or violin as a child? ]