音樂中的身體意義已經在不少西方音樂論著中受到重視與探討。而身體在傳統古琴的理解、欣賞、實踐，特別是在二十世紀音樂現代化之前，具有極重要的意義。與目前所見的音樂身體意義相當不同的是，古琴傳統中的身體理想與審美理想密切結合，而非如前者之中所見的，二種理想各行其是而無共同目標。
本文的目的，是在指出古琴傳統的實踐、感知、評價等審美活動如何與身軀上的覺受、狀態密切關聯，呈現出有別於歐洲音樂傳統中的身體意義，特別是古琴音樂的審美理想與身體的理想相結合的種種現象與實踐方式。本文將說明古琴的身體審美意義不僅表現在抽象的概念、思維而已，更表現於許多具體作法，容許琴人在彈琴過程中，同時趨近於審美經驗與軀體經驗二層面的理想。

Bodily or corporeal significance in western art music has been explored in recent years. In Chinese tradition the body played a tremendously important role in the understanding, appreciation and actual practice of guqin prior to the modernization movement of early 20th century, yet this embodied significance is very different from what one finds in recent studies about the musical body.
This essay proposes that a unique feature of guqin lies in the unification of bodily ideal and musical beauty, and that this is what makes its embodied significance distinguished from that explored by Susan McClary and Elizabeth Le Gunn in 17th- and 18th-century European music. In the guqin tradition, the notion of bodily ideal──such as longevity and health──is closely associated with the notion of beauty and goodness. As explored in this paper, such a unique feature is reflected not only in various historical judgments of guqin music or performance, in poetry and other literary works from various times, but also in the notation, the structure of the instrument, and in many specific regulations found in instructions written specifically for guqin players.