Daoist liturgical chanting is performed by ordained priests, daoshi, within structured rites such as the jiao, a large communal offering ceremony intended to renew a community's bond with the celestial administration and restore cosmic and social harmony, and the zhai, a purification rite historically associated especially with mourning and the dead. The chant is not treated as musical accompaniment to a ritual that would otherwise work by gesture or offering alone; the correctly performed recitation, in a formal register distinct from everyday spoken Chinese, is itself part of the mechanism by which the rite opens communication with deities and summons the celestial officials named within the liturgical text, so that a jiao or zhai without its proper chant would be considered incomplete rather than simply less impressive.
Percussion instruments, bells, drums and wooden fish among them, mark the ritual's changing phases and support the rhythm of the chanted text, giving the priest a way to coordinate lengthy, structured recitation with the wider choreography of the rite, which can involve multiple priests, extensive ritual paraphernalia and, for a major jiao, several days of continuous ceremony.