This talk focuses on music-making – usually perceived as a ‘lively’ activity – as an act bridging between the realms of the living and the dead in early Chinese thought. We will focus on the musicality of ku 哭 (wailing) as a public, ritualistic act that is often contrasted with ge 歌 (singing); and see how musical sounds were not only made by the living for the dead and in their honour, but also thought to have emerged from within the realm of the dead, played by the dead themselves and heard by the living as ominous signs of impending loss.

We tend to think of music-making at the time of death in early China as taboo. Yet Warring States and Han period texts are in fact replete with allusions linking music with different aspects of death and the netherworld. From destructive tunes sung by ghosts of drowned Music Masters to critiques on performances of laments; from the prediction of a ruler’s impending death that relied on the sounds of the bells cast in his court, to untuned zithers buried alongside the deceased – we will discuss the ways in which musical actions, and in particular wails and laments, served to highlight the cultural, conceptual and emotional links drawn between death and life.