In the Land of China.
THE OUTSPREAD PHŒNIX.
The Chinese have always been fond of seeking the similitudes and
contrasts existing between everything in heaven and earth. So far as
they had attained in astronomical knowledge, the number of the planets
was five; consequently there could be only five colours, five points of
the compass, five elements, five primitive sounds, etc. Music was made
the subject of many allegorical comparisons, as twelve moons, twelve
sounds, twelve hours, twelve strings. And this strange propensity
has quite perverted many of their records of history upon art and
science; for whatever remained unknown or doubtful, appears to have
been supplied with the utmost confidence upon some imaginary basis of
affinity or relation of numbers mystically inevitable. The poetry of
the symbol was lost in the pedantry of its exposition.
Certain facts we may accept, but not the garnishing with which
the Chinese philosophers and teachers have surrounded them. Each
instrument, according to their logical demand, had an inventor, and the
scholastic notion has been to attribute the honour of the invention to
an Emperor, and forthwith to account for every detail in it upon some
system conformable to the wisdom of the scholastic mind.
Learning has always been greatly honoured in China, and the colleges
of the mandarins held with rigid formalism to the doctrines they had
received from the past, although it may have been a near past compared
with the nation’s history; and so the mystical teachings of similitudes
and affinities, and the occult control of nature by numbers, became
to the students fixed verities of science, not to be questioned. What
concerns us is that these teachings, as regards Chinese music and
musical instruments, confront us with a mass of statements incongruous
and contradictory. Something like our heraldic descents; the centuries
pass, and the links are manufactured to give a factitious coherence to
satisfy the desire for truth.
The _P’ai-hsiao_, here illustrated, is one of the ancient instruments
belonging to the Chinese, who hold it to be symbolic, and to represent
the phœnix with outspread wings, even as the _Sheng_ represents the
sacred bird sitting upon her nest. In both, no other reason can
be assigned for the particular forms assumed by the instruments,
the mystical idea is evidently deeply rooted in the race, and is
ineffaceable.
Except for the questions of origin and development, the music of the
Chinese can have but little attraction for us. But what I would point
out as of interest, is that there have been periods of history during
which particular musical systems held sway, with certain instruments
in vogue, and with special methods devised in relation to them. In one
age the tetrachord, in another the pentatone, in another the fusion
of these, and in another the filling in of semitones to complete a
scale seemingly akin to our chromatic. In the earlier periods the wind
instruments prevailed, and determined the musical systems; and in later
times the instruments with strings gave rise to new and elaborate
discriminations.
[Illustration: _Fig. 26._
_The Chinese P’ai-hsiao._]
The stone chimes and the great bells should be adjudged to very ancient
times, although in the rise and fall of dynasties the traditional
tones have been changed, and perhaps newer traditions have usurped
the old; until in the confusion, systems that in their origin were
many centuries apart became mixed up together as of one growth.
The abstruse theories with which the treatises of the learned are
occupied, and the fantastic accretions of symbolism which seem to form
the foundations of Chinese literature—all these make the way of the
investigator difficult. The rational course is to leave them aside and
go to the facts. The instruments themselves represent the past, and are
valid evidence.
Père Amiot, of the French Jesuit mission, according to his works,
published in 1780, appeared to be so well grounded in everything
relating to Chinese history and customs that his statements upon
their music passed without contradiction; and, indeed, so intimate a
knowledge did he seem to possess that even confirmation of his views
would have been considered needless. Such misplaced reliance has given
a century’s permanence to misconceptions; and men of sagacity, in
dealing with the matters in question, have blindly followed where Amiot
led, each succeeding writer repeating the errors of former writers.
Western theorists prejudge questions of Asiatic music by being so
wedded to one particular conception of what a scale ought to exhibit.
Ideas of octaves and fifths and of minor and major, and tone and
semitone rule at every corner. The fortuitous nature of men’s devices
in art is scarcely conceivable when rule and logic claim to divine
how art developed. Europeans are ever prone to trouble in accounting
for everything, and to desire—almost to design—that facts should
fit theory, whether they will or not. The Asiatic mind is little
understood by the European mind; and human nature being outwardly so
much alike, we are puzzled at ways of thought and innate tendencies
diverging greatly from our own. Whilst acknowledging a difference
in organization, we yet deeming ours to be the proper standard; our
likings to be natural, and foreigners’ likings to be queer, if not
preposterous. John Chinaman’s ear is different to John Bull’s ear,
somehow, if we could only find out how.
I find that mostly the scientific man is as bigoted as the
superstitious man when he brings himself to talk of the beautiful
fitness of nature’s designs, and of the unerring guidance for our
behoof to be found in her operations, and so forth. Now, I know that it
is customary to vaunt “nature’s _teaching_ of harmony and _the diatonic
scale_,” in the unconscious training she gives us in compounding
quality of tone, and furnishing us with a chain of harmonics in a range
so nearly out of discrimination of our hearing that, in our average
daily life, we are blissfully unaware of the experiences to which
we have been subjected. Backed though this doctrine is by the great
name of Helmholtz, I confess that I find myself unable to admit its
relevance.
First and foremost in the consideration of Chinese music is the fact
that the Chinese have no care for our harmony: they will have none of
it. Neither will they take to our diatonic scale: it offends their
sense of art. Unisons and concords of two notes (as fourths and thirds,
and their inversions) satisfy their sense of the harmonious. In this,
certain other Eastern nations agree with them. The attempt to find an
equal temperament scale as we understand it, of twelve semitones, fails
as regards the old instruments.
The _P’ai-hsiao_ is reported of as possessing a scale of twelve equally
tempered semitones; the arrangement being of alternate notes right and
left, the deepest notes being at each end, and the shortest pipes in
the middle,—a plan adopted in organ building. Not having yet had an
instrument of the kind in my hands, I cannot say anything by knowledge;
but certainly the scale set out by Van Aalst is not semitonal. For he
expressly selects five notes, three being a quarter tone lower and two
a quarter tone higher than in a correct scale of the modern type. Even
these named had better, I expect, have been named as only approximately
a quarter tone wrong; there is no intentional quarter, but a fixed
relation to some other notes which by coincidence seem to make
agreement, but only more or less near. It is said that the pipes to the
right hand are the male or _yang-lüs_, and to the left the _yin-lüs_
or females; each class is in playing kept absolutely to itself, which
is anything but chromatic in its system. There are sixteen pipes, all
the odd numbers being _yang_, and all the even numbers _yin_. The pipes
are arranged upon an ornamental frame; they correspond to the twelve
_lüs_ and the first four _lüs_ of the grave series; and in notes said
to correspond to those of the bell and stone chimes, the highest being
treble _b_.
[Illustration: _Fig. 27._
_The Te-ching, or One of the Chime._]
The _Pien-ch’ing_, or stone chime, consists of sixteen stones shaped
somewhat as an L; all are of equal length and breadth, and differ only
in thickness: the thicker the stone the deeper the sound. That the
instrument is of very ancient origin cannot be doubted; but if we seek
to place it in its relation to any period of civilisation, we are at
fault for lack of data. Its style and weight indicate its design for
permanency of abode, and it has been and still is devoted to ritual
music. The number of the stones has varied under different dynasties
from fourteen to twenty-four. The use of sonorous stone for chiming
seems to be peculiar to China. The _Te-ching_ or “single sonorous
stone” is in shape similar to a carpenter’s square, and its relative
dimensions are rigorously adhered to. No doubt it was the best shape
for the production of musical sound, and was early discovered by the
Chinese to be so. The pitch is determined by the thickness. The best
stone for musical purposes is said to be jade, a material for which in
the East there is high veneration, though why it should be so esteemed
is not clear. The stone is suspended in a frame by a cord passed
through a hole bored at the angle, and it is the longer side which is
struck by the wooden hammer. The stone chime always takes part with the
bell in the ceremonial. Its use is to give a single note at the end
of each verse “to receive the sound.” It is one of the most ancient
of Chinese musical instruments. When an instrument is composed of a
number of these stones it is called _Pien-ch’ing_. Usually sixteen of
these stones all the same size are placed upon a frame of fantastic
ornamentation, set in two rows; the difference in pitch is secured a
difference in thickness of each: otherwise all are alike throughout the
scale.
The instrument is exclusively used in court and religious ceremonies,
and it is said that beyond those in the Confucian temples and imperial
palaces it is impossible now to find a complete specimen, though single
stones are sometimes met with.
There is a tradition that about two thousand years ago a complete
stone chime was found in a pool, and that this model was followed by
imperial decree. But this, if correct, does not afford any accurate
guidance or tell us what kind of stone chime was extant during the
old Hsia, Shang, or Chou dynasties; for not an instrument or book of
those periods escaped the great destruction ordered by the Emperor Che
Huang-ti; at least, there is no certain evidence against this belief.
So that, for the determination of the actual date of the introduction
of the supposed equal tempered twelve semitone scale, we remain in the
dark, without a clue. Moreover, when the existing stone chimes—or,
rather, the _Yün-lo_, or gong chimes constructed to correspond in scale
to the stone chimes upon the same twelve _lüs_ principle—are submitted
to examination of the necessary rigid enquiry by tests, they do not
bear out the true semitonal character that has been asserted. Mr. Ellis
tested two specimens in the South Kensington Museum, but both differed
greatly, and he failed to find anything like the assumed scale; and
such scale as he did find he was unable to give any theory for. Van
Aalst says that
It has become exceedingly difficult to find a _Yün-lo_
capable of giving a satisfactory gamut; besides, the
pitch is not uniform, so that two _Yün-los_ rarely agree.
And of the _Pien-ching_, or stone chimes, he states that
It is exclusively used in court and religious ceremonies,
and it would be considered a profanation to use it
elsewhere. It is impossible to find a complete instrument
for sale, although separate stones may be found. It is
not known to whom and to what dynasty the _Pien-ching_
may be attributed, but there is no doubt that it is one
of the most ancient instruments.
Where then shall we find this semitonal scale, this twelve notes series
comprised within the octave?
Considering how very ancient the stone chime is, the question may well
arise how the pitch was derived or ascertained, since in the material
and dimensions no certain reliance could be placed. Both the stone
chime and the _Sheng_ are attributed to an era some five thousand years
ago (about the time of Noah), and then in those days the Chinese had
long been a musical people. It would be but natural to conclude that
the _Sheng_ conforms most to the _lüs_ the ancient and the original
determinant of pitch, and we may be quite sure that the pitch given by
my pipe is the same to-day as in that remote age. Neither strings nor
stones can pretend to the same absolute fixity.
But now listen. “Music in China,” says Van Aalst, “has been known since
the remotest antiquity. The first invaders of China certainly brought
with them certain notions of music. The aborigines themselves had
also some kind of musical system, which their conquerors admired and
probably mixed with their own. These invaders were a band of immigrants
fighting their way among the aborigines, and supposed to have come
from the south of the Caspian Sea; remnants of the original _Li_, the
_Kuei_, and the _Feng_ tribes are said to be still in existence in
south China.” Is there not here the hint of a curious problem? By
what track came the Phœnix and the Pan’s pipes both to Greece and to
China? Dim, through sequestered years we should wander back, to some
immemorial age, moss grown with primæval traditions, long ere these
lands had their names, and in the deep recesses of forests untrodden by
the foot of man, peradventure we should find that dwelling place of the
great god Pan whence in the earliest of days he came bringing his river
reeds and his wild music with him.
[Illustration]