A cornerstone to Daoist practice and Chinese culture revolves around self practice and musical cultivation. While we practice martial arts for our body and study the classics for our mind, we practice music for the spirit. 

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Cultures throughout history have placed musical interpretation and performance at a high philosophical standard and used it as a means to cultivate a better emotional balance in life. Chinese culture is not different. In some respects, Chinese culture has even taken this practice further in self introspection. In Confucian classics, it is said that by listening to one play music, you can glimpse a piece of their true self. Whether it is our attuned mind using music as a brush to paint the broad strokes of our experience through the color of sound or if it is simply our subconscious spilling over and influencing the piece of music that we are playing is different depending on the person or culture that you ask. Either way, if it originates internally and expresses through the external or if it is cultivated externally in order to better translate the internal is second to the fact that there is a link between the two. In Daoist practice, music is a means to influence this pairing, no matter the belief pattern that you uphold. 

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By continuing our practice and performing music, we use the tones and experience as a means of self introspection. Not only can we become better musicians and play songs that we enjoy, but we can look into ourselves for balance or issues that may need correcting. As we begin to play music the first lesson is not necessarily how to make but rather how to receive. Before we can play a good song we must be able to hear a good song. One goal of traditional Chinese music is to become better listeners, as it is with other practices in Daoism such as Qigong, Meditation, and other art forms.