The Instrumental Derivation of the Scale



CHAPTER 9 CHINESE THEORIES OF MUSIC

Traditionally, most Chinese theoretical writing on music was embedded in larger treatises that dealt with history, philosophy or the rituals of the Confucian state. Since their authors were scholars, not “professional” musicians, and since the purpose of the treatises was philosophical not practical, it is not surprising to find that most traditional Chinese music theory is very far removed from the practical concerns of the working musician. Though concepts such as pitch, scale and mode are discussed, it is their cosmological significance that is usually the focus, not their practical manipulation in actual pieces of music. Thus prior to the 20th century we know comparatively little about how a working musician thought about the music he or she performed, or the process by which it was created. This situation parallels that of Medieval Europe, where authors also did not waste much time or precious parchment writing about what was considered to be mere technical craft.

But whereas in Europe the composition process gradually emerged as a separate craft apart from performance, thus requiring “how-to” manuals to train composers, in China this division of labor never occurred. Composition never became as divorced from performance as in the West, and the composition process appears to have been much more of an intuitive one whereby performers derived new material from old through performance. The “theory” needed to compose in this manner is not a separate body of technical rules, but rather the holistic mastery of one’s instrument, performance tradition, and cultural sense of aesthetics.

The Qin Pu or “Qin Manuals” which were published by Qin teachers from the Ming Dynasty onwards (see chapter 5), provided the literati with a kind of theory designed to reinforce a player’s understanding of this sacred instrument. After extensive chapters in which the philosophical theories were expounded, they would then be applied, first in lessons on re-tuning the strings to play in different scales or modes, and then in annotations to the actual pieces of music. But even in the numerous Qin Pu published over the centuries, the connection between theory and actual music-making was never specifically detailed, the authors perhaps assuming in true Daoist fashion, that “the theory which can be written down is not the true theory.”

Thus it is not until very recently, when Chinese musicians began experimenting with Western concepts of harmony, form and orchestration that we find in-depth treatises on practical theory. In the 20th century, as China opened western style “conservatories” of music, practical theory became a respectable academic subject. Western harmony and form were adopted enthusiastically by arrangers who added chordal harmony and bass lines to traditional pieces in the hopes of making them more “modern.” Western orchestrational ideas contributed to the development of the modern traditional Chinese orchestra in that instruments were developed into “families” to more closely imitate the western orchestra.

But music theorists also re-inspected the traditional Chinese repertoire with new attention to details of melodic construction, form and timbre and developed new ways of understanding the “intuitive” theory of the traditional performer/composer. They also re-visited the philosophical theories of ancient treatises and reinterpreted cosmic concepts such as the “five tones” and the “eight sounds” in modern terms useful to the working composer. In this chapter, we will take a brief look at the diverse and still emerging field of Chinese music theory. Then, in the following chapter, we will apply some of these concepts to actual pieces from the traditional repertoire.

Philosophical Roots

The earliest writings to contain references to music- the Yi Jing “Classic of Changes”, the Shu Jing “Classic of History”, the Chun Chiu “Spring and Autumn Annals” and the Tso Zhuan “Tso Commentary,” date from the early Zhou Dynasty. The Yi Jing presents a cosmology and a basis for decision-making based upon the concepts of Nature, Dao and the principles of Yin and Yang. The other three present a kind of anecdotal history of events and ritual practices of ages past. In these early sources musical terms derive from numerology, cosmology and nature.

Ba Yin “The Eight Sounds”

From the Ba Gua “Eight Trigrams” of the Yi Jing were derived the Ba Yin “Eight Sounds”- the eight categories of natural materials out of which musical instruments were constructed. It was believed all categories had to be represented in a ritual music ensemble in order to produce music in harmonious accord with Nature. This Ba Yin system remained the basis for categorizing instruments in China until the 20th century. (See Chapter 8 on musical instruments)

Through the Ba Gua, the Ba Yin were also associated with other aspects of cosmology, as shown below:

Trigram Name Attribute Image Family Member Aspect Season Direction Ba Yin

Yang Strength Heaven Father Yang Late Autumn Northwest Stone

Creative

Yin Devotion Earth Mother Yin Late Summer Southwest Earth

Receptive (clay)

Active Arousal Thunder First Son Yang Spring East Bamboo

Following Penetration Wind First Daughter Yin Late Spring Southeast Wood

Depth- Danger Water Second Son Yang Winter North Skin

Seeking

Attentive Awareness Fire Second Daughter Yin Summer South Silk

Still Rest Mountain Third Son Yang Late Winter Northeast Gourd

Joyous Joy Lake Third Daughter Yin Autumn West Metal

Wu Sheng The Five Scale Degrees

The Wu Sheng, were the “five scale degrees” of the most common scale in use in northern China during the Zhou dynasty. They were given cosmological meaning by correlating them with the five directions, the five planets, the five colors, and the five levels of the world:

Scale Degree Direction Planet Color Societal Level

Gong (C) Center Saturn Yellow King

Shang (D) West Venus White Ministers

Jue (E) East Jupiter Blue People

Green

Zhi (G) South Mars Red Affairs of State

Yu (A) North Mercury Black Natural World

These Sheng were not specific pitches such as our “A-440” (440 cycles per second), the pitch by which we tune an orchestra. They were rather degrees of a scale, equivalent to the western terms do-re-mi-so-la which could be transposed to begin on any pitch.

Lu-lu “The Twelve Pitches”

But these early sources also mention Lu-lu “pitch pipes” as instruments kept by the court which produced specific pitches believed to be those of Nature itself. All instruments in the realm were carefully tuned to these to insure a “harmonious” state. This is the earliest known application of what today we call “absolute pitch.” Later sources provide much more detail on the system of pitches and scales used in Confucian ritual music. A theoretical system of 12 pitches per octave was generated in the same manner used by the Greek philosopher Pythagoras who lived during the same period. The first frequency of the system was called Huangzhong “Yellow Bell” which served as the primal generator of the whole series of twelve. Various methods were employed to determine this all important first pitch, from listening to birds, to measuring a king’s middle finger! The second note of the series Linzhong “Forest Bell” was the fifth above Huangzhong, and was produced by a pipe cut two-thirds the length of the Huangzhong pipe. The next pitch Taichu “Great Frame” was a fourth below Linzhong and was produced by a pitchpipe four-thirds the length of Linzhong. By rising a fifth and dropping a fourth via the numerical ratios of 2:3 and 4:3, a series of twelve pitches is produced. The first of each pair is considered Yang or “generating,” the second is considered Yin or “generated.”

Assuming arbitrarily that Huangzhong equals “middle C”, the following chart provides a summary:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

Huangzhong Linzhong Taichu Nanlu Guxien Yinzhong Reibin Dalu Yiche Jiazhong Wuyi Zhonglu

Yellow Forest Great South Old Answering Luxuriant Great Equalising Pressed Un- Middle

Bell Bell Frame Pipe Purified Bell Vegetation Pipe Rule Bell Named Pipe

Yin pitches

Yang pitches

The thirteenth generation comes very close to closing the circle with a pitch just slightly higher than an octave above the original pitch Huangzhong. The fact that the circle does not perfectly close has been an endless source of irritation for numerologists in China and around the world, and a source of fascination for their mathematical counterparts. The latter have investigated whether or not the circle would close to a perfect octave after numerous further cycles of generation. Alas it does not! But the fact that the system came close to closing after the twelfth pitch was enough for the Chinese to assume a correlation with the natural cycle of the twelve moons (months) of the year and the double-twelve hours of the day.

Charts like the following were common in musical treatises into the 20th century:

Ascertaining the “correct” Huangzhong pitch was obviously of critical importance in a musical culture which assumed that the universe resonated to a particular frequency, and it often took on political significance as well. In their campaigns to discredit their predecessors and prove their own virtues, founders of dynasties usually commissioned research which determined that the old ruler had had the wrong pitch, thus leading his State to confusion and chaos. Surveys by modern scholars suggest that a new Huangzhong was determined at least 35 times between about 400 BC and 1700 AD, with the pitch varying between c1 and a1.

Scales and Modes

Scales

The five note scale (Wu Sheng) consists of the first five notes generated by the system above and is the scale first mentioned in early sources. Later sources (Han Dynasty) mention the 7 note scale which adds the (raised) fourth and seventh scale degrees (western names fi and ti) to complete a scale like the western Lydian modal scale: do-re-mi-fi-sol-la-ti (or fa-sol-la-ti-do-re-mi). These extra two pitches are the next ones generated by the above system.

Here are the two scales:

Five Note Scale: Gong Shang Jue Zhi Yu

Seven Note Scale: Gong Shang Jue Bienzhi Zhi Yu Biengong

Western Scale Degrees: Do Re Mi Fi Sol La Ti

Western Notes (Assume C=Do) C D E F# G A B

Undoubtedly these two scales were in common usage in Zhou Dynasty China, and theory was developed to explain and systematize contemporary practice. The Li Ji- the Han dynasty reconstruction of the Zhou Dynasty “Book of Rites,” describes the transposition of these two scales to any of the 12 notes of the Lu-Lu system. A scale in which Gong (Do) is placed upon the pitch Huangzhong would be called Huangzhong Gong. Scales called Linzhong Gong or Zhonglu Gong would establish Gong on those respective pitches of the Lu-Lu cycle. This is the equivalent of moving “do” around the twelve pitches of the western scale to create the scales of A Major, Bb Major, etc.

Diao “Modes”

By the Song dynasty, theorists were discussing the concepts of modes- subsets of scales in which each scale degree can be thought of as the “tonic” or final note of a scale. (The eight modes of ancient Greece or the “Eight Church Modes” of Medieval Europe are exact parallels.) Thus, once a scale has been selected, such as Huangzhong Gong, the following modes are available:

The Five Diao (Modes) of a Five Note Scale based on Huangzhong Gong: (assuming Huangzhong =C)

Gong Shang Jue Zhi Yu Gong Shang Jue Zhi

Gong Mode C D E G A

Shang Mode D E G A C

Jue Mode E G A C D

Zhi Mode G A C D E

Yu Mode A C D E G

Obviously, a seven note scale would have seven diao.

The scale degree marked here in boldface type is the “final” or “tonic” of the mode- the one upon which the tune would usually end. Interestingly enough, the Shang mode does not seem to have been used during the Zhou dynasty, perhaps because its name is the same as that of the previous (and thus discredited) dynasty!

Pieces of music based on these different modes have quite different qualities since they tend to emphasize and come to a close on different pitches of the scale. Unfortunately, like their European counterparts, Chinese writers on music did not explain in detail the way musicians thought of these different qualities- how the modes were perceived by listeners or manipulated by performers and composers. Again, the job of the writer on music was not to teach practical craft, but rather to investigate the size, nature and order of the musical universe.

Modern Chinese theorists have analyzed Chinese traditional repertoire from the earliest surviving and decipherable manuscripts (from the Tang-Song period) and determined that perhaps a third of the 84 seven-note modes or 60 five-note modes theoretically possible were in use in practical music-making. They have attempted through analysis of many melodies to determine the characteristics of each mode and how it flavors the music it governs. One modern analytical system describes the following characteristics for each of the five primary modes: (assuming Gong = C)

Closest

Name “Tonic” Emphasized Pitches Final Characteristic Intervals Western Equivalent

Gong mode: Gong Gong-Jue-Zhi-Gong (C-E-G-C) C Major third, Fourth Ionian Mode

Shang mode: Shang Shang-Zhi-Yu-Shang (D-G-A-D) D Fourths Dorian Mode

Jue mode: Jue Jue-Yu-Gong-Jue (E-A-C-E) E Minor Third, Fourth Phrygian Mode

Zhi mode: Zhi Zhi-Gong-Shang-Zhi (G-C-D-G) G Fourths Mixolydian Mode

Yu mode: Yu Yu-Shang-Jue-Yu (A-D-E-A) A Fourths Aeolian Mode

This theory postulates that a traditional melody, composed “intuitively” by a performer, manifests certain structural and affective characteristics according to its mode. For instance, a melody which emphasizes the pitches Zhi, Gong, Shang and (octave) Zhi (sol,do,re, sol in western terms) and which tends to come to its final cadence on Zhi (sol) is likely to be based on the Zhi mode and to emanate the kinds of expressive qualities of that mode.

A certain kind of “common tone modulation” also seems to have been used in which an interval emphasized in two different modes could be interpreted as belonging to either, thus allowing smooth transition from one mode to another. Placed in the right order, one can see how the five primary modes could be arranged to create a full cycle of smooth modulation, somewhat similar to the “circle of fifths” of the western tonal system.

Cycle of “Common Tone” Modulation

Mode Emphasized Pitches and Common Intervals

Fourth

Zhi: Zhi-Gong-Shang-Zhi fourth

Shang: Shang-Zhi-Yu-Shang fourth

Yu: Yu-Shang-Jue-Yu third

Jue: Jue-Yu-Gong-Jue f ourth

Gong: Gong-Jue-Zhi-Gong (leads back to beginning)

A piece of music does not always end on its “final” or “tonic” scale degree. Chinese theory refers to cadences on the final as Zheng Sha “complete stop,” in contrast to cadences on other scale degrees of the mode which are called Ce Sha “side stop.” Thus, just as in Western modal music, the last note of a piece does not automatically reveal its mode. Other factors must be inspected such as the emphasized pitches and the general qualities of the melody.

To see how these concepts are applied in a piece of music, here is a famous piece which has been used as the basic structure underlying many pieces of traditional music. Lao Liuban “Old Six Beat” originally had six “measures”, hence the name six-beat. Here it is in its original form. (Though usually played in the diao “key” of D, it is presented here in C to match the mode charts above.)

(Assume Gong = C)

The piece uses the scale of Gong (“Do” or C) but the piece seems to revolve around the pitches Zhi (“Sol” or G), Gong (“Do” or C), and Shang (“Re” or D.) Furthermore it cadences on Zhi (G) with an intervening “half-cadence” on Shang (D) and thus shows itself to be in the Zhi mode.

Later Lao Liuban was extended into a eight bar phrase, and then further extended with another tune entirely which acts as a contrasting “B Section.” The first tune partially returns at the end to close off the basic structure. Here is the version of Lao Liuban as it is played today.

The brackets indicate the beats added to the original six beat phrase to make it an eight beat phrase. The boxed letters indicate the two sections, A and B.

The A section is still in the Zhi mode, but the B section is in the Gong mode, cadencing on the pitch Gong (C) with a secondary emphasis on the pitch Zhi (G). The shift in mode from Zhi to Gong and back are effective and noticeable but very smooth, utilizing a common pitch Zhi (G) with which the A section ends and the B section begins an octave higher.

Not only is this “common pitch” used to smooth the transition, but the two modes share other pitches and intervals in common as shown below:

(Assume Gong = C)

Final Other Emphasized Pitches Final

Zhi Mode G C D (E) G

Fourth---- Second---- Fourth--------------------

Final Other Emphasized Pitches Final

Gong Mode G C (D) E G C

Fourth-----Third-------------------- Third------ Fourth------------------

Second---- Second----

Fourth-------------------

Because many pitches are shared, the change of mode is smooth just as the change from G major to C major is smooth in a piece of Western Classical music. (Note that Zhi and Gong are next to each other in the “Cycle of Common Tone Modulation” chart above just as G major and C major are next to each other in the Western “circle of fifths.”) Because some but not all intervals are shared (i.e. both modes have fourths and seconds, but only Gong emphasizes thirds) the flavor is subtly but distinctly changed. Also, it must be noted that the shift in mode expands the tessatura or range of the notes up to the high C in measures 15-16 creating a dramatic climax. The following measures drop back down to the lower range of the Zhi mode, thus preparing effectively for the smooth return of that mode in measure 27.

Harmony and Texture

Harmony in traditional Chinese music is a substantially different concept from that of the West. Being primarily a melodic tradition, there has been relatively little use of deliberate counterpoint, and the concepts of “chords” and “bass lines” are utterly foreign until the 20th century. Chinese “harmony” arises out of three primary effects: modal context, heterophony and temperament.

Modal Context

A Chinese performer or listener perceives a piece of music within his or her understanding of its mode. As the melody moves within the structure of its modal scale, the listener understands it as resting on or moving through those emphasized pitches which define the mode- now implying tension, now moving towards degrees of resolution, etc. Like the modal chants of the medieval European Church, “harmony” is a matter of hearing the colors and implications of individual scale degrees, of whole phrases, and of varieties of cadences.

The one Chinese instrument which characteristically plays a kind of “harmony” is the Sheng (bamboo mouth organ.) Since it is easy to produce two to three notes simultaneously, the Sheng has from ancient times been able to play melody notes accompanied by those emphasized pitches of the modal scale. The predominant intervals produced are fourths and fifths with a few thirds. The following is a typical “D Diao” (D major) scale as it might be played by a Sheng.

The ascending scale is in the middle, surrounded by other pitches which reinforce the modal context. (The pitches E and G may be duplicated if desired (as above) since there are two pipes for each.) It is possible that in early Chinese ritual music, the Sheng may have sustained all appropriate notes of a given phrase in a kind of harmonic cloud amidst which other instruments played the melody. This can still be heard in the Japanese ritual music tradition of Gagaku (originally based on Tang Dynasty Chinese court music) where the instrument is called Sho.

Heterophony

When two or more voices or instruments play a piece together, they each play essentially the same melody, but render it according to the idiomatic traditions of the instrument. Thus a voice may sing a melody in long notes with mild vocal ornamentation, while a Dizi (bamboo flute) plays the same melody with turns, trills and vibrato, and a Yangqin (hammered dulcimer) hides the melody under cascades of arpeggios, runs and variations. The resulting “simultaneous variation” or “heterophony” produces a rich spectrum of harmonic sound. At any given time, the notes of the melody are present but surrounded by other notes appropriate to the phrase and the mode thus making audible the “modal context” discussed above.

Heterophony in Chinese music is usually heard as a texture every bit as much as a harmonic effect. Just as one can listen deep down into the textures of European counterpoint, one can listen to the complex simultaneities of a Chinese ensemble playing a traditional piece. Each line remains separate and audible, with its unique instrumental timbre and its idiomatic style, yet together they produce a remarkably rich, harmonious and complex listening experience.

Temperament

To an uninitiated ear, one of the most salient characteristics of much Chinese music is its temperament or “tuning.” Despite the venerable mathematical and cosmological theories, actual Chinese music displays an astonishing range of scales, tunings, and resulting timbres. The popular scales of one region may differ from those of another. The tunings of pitches within a scale may vary, creating “flavors” unique to a region or to a musical genre. In particular, those two pitches not in the old five-note scale, namely the fourth and seventh scale degrees (fa and ti) are particularly likely to be treated as “color” tones. In certain regions or musical traditions they may be consistently altered to be a bit sharp or flat, providing a pungency to the musical dialect. In other cases, they may vary up and down in pitch within a piece depending on the musical context of the phrase. (A western equivalent of this practice might be the “blues third” which varies in pitch depending on the phrase but is rarely an “equal-tempered” third.) Pitch bending is a ubiquitous phenomenon in much Chinese music (probably partly the result of the melodious quality of the spoken language) and this too contributes to a sense of flexible pitch. Most Chinese instruments are capable of considerable pitch bending- from the portamento slides of the Erhu to the embouchure manipulation of the double reeds to the wide vocal vibrato of the opera singer. When groups of similar instruments play in unison (for instance Jinghus and Erhus in an opera orchestra, or several Suonas in a Luogu ensemble) the resulting discrepancies in pitch can be startling for the western ear. But the Chinese musician delights in such pungent moments and indeed creates them deliberately as a timbral ornamentation.

Rhythm, Meter and Phrasing

Traditional Chinese music utilizes a looser and therefore wider concept of rhythm than does the western classical tradition. Like vibrato, timbre and the subtle variations of tempo and dynamics used constantly in western classical music, rhythm in the Chinese tradition is considered an expressive tool of the performer, to be applied in accordance with the traditions of the genre and the instrument. Just as those western techniques were traditionally considered “beyond notation” and thus not precisely indicated in a western score, in the various systems of musical notation developed in China rhythm was less precisely notated than was pitch. Far from being a “weakness” in the notational systems (as westerners have frequently assumed) this looseness of rhythmic notation indicates just how important to the Chinese musician rhythm was as an expressive device- too subtle to be precisely indicated in notation.

The term ban means beat, usually indicating a “strong beat” similar to the western notion of a “downbeat.” Weak beats are called yan and define the subdivisions of the ban. The term you ban “has beat” refers to passages which are played in a steady tempo. In contrast, san ban “loose beat” refers to passages played with an expressively flexible tempo, somewhat analogous to recitative passages in western opera. Often, compositions begin with an introductory san ban section, move into a main theme section in you ban, and then conclude with a cadential passage in san ban.

Meter in traditional Chinese music is almost always duple. Yuan ban “primary meter” is equivalent to 2/4 time, man ban “slow meter” is equivalent to 4/4 time. Other meters include 1/4 time, “fast 2/4,” “fast 4/4,” and 8/4. Meters often imply tempi as well- 1/4 being the fastest, followed by 2/4 and then 4/4 and 8/4.

Whereas in the Western Classical tradition phrases are most often of uniform length, in traditional Chinese music phrases are very often asymmetrical- containing varying numbers of measures. This irregular “phrase rhythm” is a prominent characteristic of Chinese melody and may date back to the “Ci” poetry of the Tang and Song dynasties which expressively utilized uneven poetic line lengths. (See Lao Liuban above for an example of effective asymmetrical phrases.)

Structure

Much Chinese instrumental music is narrative or descriptive. Like the tone poems of 19th century European classical music, pieces unfold according to their stories or images rather than following pre-existing formal patterns. Still, certain general principles were noted by theoreticians including an archetypal pattern for logical development which included four sections:

Qi- introduction

Cheng- presentation of theme

Zhuan- transition to new viewpoint

He- summing up

Composition

Unlike the Western Classical tradition which placed the composer as the central figure, the Chinese tradition considered composition an occasional, secondary activity of a skilled performer. Indeed, well into the 20th century, many pieces entered the standard repertoire anonymously, with no one particularly interested in the identity of the composer. The reasons for this lie in the nature of the compositional process.

Like so much else in Chinese culture, music was treated as a revered tradition, not to be tampered with lightly. Whether sacred ritual music or melodies for the opera, students were taught to replicate exactly the performances of their teachers in order to understand and master the tradition. Only after thorough mastery was it assumed anyone might possibly have anything of one’s own to add. Thus “composers” were invariably skilled performers thoroughly imbued with all aspects of their craft, for whom tradition tended to be more important than innovation. Those individuals who are named in history as having significantly altered musical traditions (such as Wei Liangfu, credited with refining the musical style of Kunqu opera) are conspicuous by their rarity.

Just as much original literature, poetry and philosophy was created as a “gloss” on a revered traditional text, so much music was created by improvising or elaborating on an existing tune. Some tunes were so frequently used for this kind of process that they largely lost their identity as pieces in their own right and became formulas or templates for composition. Lao Liuban (see above) is such a tune from Northern China, which is the foundation for literally hundreds of pieces, including tunes for Chinese opera. All pieces derived from an original tune are considered related to the original Qupai “labeled tune” and share features in common such as melodic contours, rhythms and phrase lengths.

The process by which an individual player “composes” is rarely discussed in traditional written sources. Of course, most musical traditions were oral and never produced written sources at all. Even those that did, such as the Qin tradition, rarely allude to such advanced activities probably because it was assumed it would come naturally to an experienced player. Or, if assistance was given, it would have been given by word of mouth from teacher to student, rather than shared with the uninitiated in published form.

There is one brief description of the composing process of a scholarly amateur in The Story of the Stone (Dream of the Red Chamber), the great 18th century novel by Cao Xueqin. Here the young heroine Lin Daiyu has been playing the Qin in her garden pavilion and decides to “compose” a poem with music for recitation.

…”I’ll write four stanzas and set them to an air for the Qin. Then tomorrow I can make a copy and send it to Chai.” She told Snowgoose to bring in her brush and inkstone, which were on the table outside, and moistening the ink, began to write. When she had completed four stanzas, she took a Qin handbook from her shelf and looked through it. She decided to make a suite out of the two old melodies, Lonely Orchid Pavane and Saintly Virtue. Having done the pointing, she wrote out a copy of the words there and then to send to Bao-chai, and asked Snowgoose to fetch the three-quarter size Qin she had brought from home, which was stored in a trunk. She tuned the strings and did a few preliminary finger-exercises. Her natural aptitude compensated for her lack of practice, and it was not long before all that she had learnt as a child came back to her.

-The Story of the Stone

(translated by John Minford, vol. 4, page 166-7)

Clearly this is more of an adaptation of melodies to new words rather than the composition of a new melody, but it does serve to illustrate the freedom with which composers or poets dealt with previously existing compositions.

Notation

Most musicians in Chinese history learned their craft without the aid of notation. Students imitated their masters precisely, fostering the unaltered transmission of the revered musical heritage. Many musicians were illiterate, spending their lives as servants or itinerant entertainers and would have had no use for written notation. Only in those few cases where there was scholarly interest were notational traditions developed. These primarily included ritual music, Qin music, certain limited instrumental traditions, and Kunqu opera.

As mentioned above, these systems were far more precise regarding pitch than rhythm, which was often not notated at all. For average players, such notations served primarily as reminders of pieces already learned and thus did not need to be complete in all details. For master performers, such notations served as the basic skeleton for expressive improvisations which were far more elaborate and subtle than indicated in the score.

Some of these notational systems indicated pitches through note names, some through symbols and some through descriptions of how to produce the given note on the particular instrument.

The most basic systems indicated a tune by naming its pitches either in absolute terms using the Lu-lu names such as Huang Zhong, Tai Chu, Gu Xien (C,D,E etc.), or using the Wu Sheng names such as Gong, Shang, Jue (Do, Re, Mi etc.). These were used primarily to notate ritual music and are now not in use.

Other systems used symbols to designate pitches of a scale, and often included other symbolic markings for rhythm and meter. The oldest of these systems comes from the 10th century AD and is the system used to notate the musical pieces from the Dunhuang Caves. (see chapter 4) A more recent version of this type of system is the Gongche notation used to notate Kunqu opera from the 16th century onwards. The following symbols were used to notate a scale:

These symbols may have originated as tablature for wind instruments since some of the symbols seem to refer to wind fingering technique. For example, the symbol used to indicate the first scale degree is the character He meaning “to close”, perhaps originally telling a player to close all holes. Several other characters for “six” and “five” also seem to indicate the order for opening holes to produce pitches. The following is an example of vocal music (Qu) notated in this system. Beneath the western notation is the libretto text. Beneath that are the pitch symbols and at the bottom are the symbols marking the rhythm, indicating the ban ( )and yan ( ) strong and weak beats.

(Transposed to F)

Other notational systems were specific to particular instruments and described how to produce a particular pitch. The most prominent of these is the system used for the Qin. As early as the Tang dynasty, pieces were notated in lengthy, detailed descriptions of left-hand finger placement, right-hand plucking technique and added ornaments such as vibrato or glissando. By the Ming dynasty, these descriptions had been reduced to a series of efficient “character complexes” containing parts of various characters- each complex containing all the necessary information for playing a note. This system is still in use by modern Qin players, though they may also read and use more modern notations as well. (For more on Qin notation, see Chapter 5.)

In the early 20th century, Chinese music educators began to adopt a numerical notation used successfully by a French musician in Japan. Commonly called Jianpu (simple notation) today, it substitutes Roman numerals for the Gongche pitch symbols and adds a more precise rhythmic notation. The following fragment illustrates its simplicity.

Scale degrees are indicated by numbers- 1 is Do, 2 is Re, 3 is Mi etc. Rhythm is indicated by lines underneath the numbers. No line indicates that the note takes one beat. Two notes with a line under them indicates that they are each half a beat or “eighth notes.” Two lines indicates “sixteenth notes.” A note followed by a dash indicates that the note sustains through the next beat. A “0” indicates a rest. Dots above or below a number indicate that the pitch is in the octave above or below the middle octave; middle octave pitches have no dots. Sharps or flats are placed in front of numbers to indicate their alteration, and grace notes are written in smaller numbers preceding the primary pitch. This system became the primary notational system in China in the 20th century and remains the preferred notation of most Chinese musicians today.

In the following chapter, we will examine a number pieces from the traditional repertoire across a variety of genres, and begin to understand how some of these concepts are applied in actual pieces of music.

Further Reading

Music of the Billion

Liang Mingyue, Heinrichshoffen, 1985

Musical References in the Chinese Classics

Walter Kaufmann, Detroit Monographs in Musicology No. 5, Information Coordinators Inc. 1976

Chinese Music and Orchestration: A Primer on Principles and Practice

Shen Sin-yan, Chinese Music Society of North America, 1991

From Confucius to Kublai Khan: Music and Poetics Through the Centuries

Lulu Huang Chang, Ottowa: Institute of Medieval Music, 1993

“Silk and Bamboo” Music in Shanghai: The Jiangnan Sizhu Instrumental Ensemble Tradition

J. Lawrence Witzleben, The Kent State University Press, 1995

The Way of the Pipa: structure and imagery in Chinese lute music

John Myers, Kent State University Press, 1992

Chinese Music

J.A. Van Aalst, Paragon Book Reprint Corporation, 1964

Sonq Dynasty Musical Sources and Their Interpretation

Rulan Chao Pian, Harvard University Press, 1967

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