In the Flowery Kingdom.
THE BIRD’S NEST.
Music by inspiration. Yes, that is it,—the very thing we want, what we
are all longing for; so little of the truly inspired music comes newly
to refresh us as the birth of the days we live in. Only the old seems
the ever new. How inspiring it is to listen to the themes of the old
masters, and feel the old melodies pass through us like a current of
life, awakening thrills of delight, the memory of the first hearing
of them blending with and enhancing the emotions of the present. To
inspire, “to drink in.” How we drink in the life renewing melodies
of Beethoven and Schubert: their potency never fails, and in our
exultation we call them divine. How strangely inevitable are the ideas
we associate with the words “divine” and “inspiration.” Apply them as
we will to frail human effluences, there is no escape from the higher
exalted sense, from the ideal signification. Inspiration,—it is a grand
word. Somehow the ideal clings around words, in however “matter o’
fact” way they come to be used; like the eastern vase that has been
filled with roses, in after time
“The scent of the roses will cling round it still.”
One thought leads to another thought. I have a little instrument before
me, dignified by the name “organ,”—a very little organ, but the name
comes to it because it is one of the earliest of the race from which
our present day organ has sprung. Was its inventor a genius? A poor
human nomad wandering the wilds of Tartary, inspired to begin the
foundations of that which was to be an empire of sound,—one of those
“Who builded better than he knew,”
Was he inspired, I wonder? True it is that the invention has been
claimed for some emperor, but that is so natural an appropriation that
we give no heed to it. Certainly it is the unknown man who is the true
great man, though history has obliterated his name and graven a royal
cartouche in its place. The mythical is always later than the real.
This curious instrument: what a juggle of words it has led me to. The
inspiration I have to talk of is done by inspiring,—its music is made
as the lark’s music is, by inspirating. Note you how the bird sings by
drawing in breath, by _inspiring_; and higher and higher he mounts,
filling the air with melody for a half mile around him; soaring,
singing and singing as he soars, never tiring for the hour together,
because every effort invigorates the little body instead of exhausting
its strength; he drinks in oxygen at every note, and so is refreshed
by singing. Would that human singing were equally refreshing to the
singer and the hearer!
[Illustration: _Fig. 28._
_The Chinese Sheng._
(_Quarter Size._)]
The _Sheng_ was formerly called the “bird’s nest,” and the peculiar
arrangement of its pipes—the longest of which pipes exceed
considerably the real sounding length—is held by the Chinese to
represent the tail of the phœnix as she sits upon her nest; indeed,
unless we accept the symbolism, the method shown in the construction is
unaccountable.
According to the Chinese there are eight sound giving bodies
corresponding to the eight symbols of Fu Hsi, which they believe are
the expression of all the changes and permutations which take place in
the universe. These eight are stone, metal, silk, bamboo, wood, skin,
gourd, clay, with symbolic relations to the eight points of the compass
and the eight seasons of the year. The _Sheng_ is the representative of
the gourd principle. Originally the bowl was formed of a portion of a
gourd or calabash, although in later times made of wood and lacquered.
This gourd is in shape like a teacup, the top of which is covered by
the insertion of a circle of wood, having a series of holes around
the margin, into which the pipes are fixed; then there is a neck or
mouthpiece shielded by an ivory plate, through which the performer
draws the wind. My instrument is an old one, has been in this country
eighty years or more; and as it has been here photographed to a scale
of one fourth, all the proportions are preserved in the engraving. The
instrument is placed to the mouth with the pipes slanting to the right
shoulder, the right hand forefinger being placed within the opening
seen in the circle of pipes, and the thumb so placed as to be ready
to cover the hole seen on the second pipe, counting to the left from
this opening. The bowl is held in the hollow of the left hand, with the
fingers reaching upwards to the pipes.
A noticeable feature is that it is the left hand that fingers the
instrument, indicating a very early custom, in that respect. The pipe
engraved here is of full size, and shows the little metal free reed
affixed, which also is drawn at the side full size in its frame. The
slot determining the speaking length of the pipe is at the back, and is
here indicated at the proper position by the side diagram, the length
of pipe above the slot having no particular relation except an average
one of about the same length as the bottom portion reckoned from the
lowest end of the cut. The pipes numbers 3 and 4 have their holes at
the inside or back of the pipes in a position to be covered by the
forefinger of the right hand.
[Illustration: _Diagram of the Length of Slot at the Back._
_Fig. 29._
_A Pipe of the Sheng_ (_Full Size._)]
The little free reed is of copper, is of very delicate workmanship,
the tongue is about half an inch long having its tip slightly loaded
with beeswax, and the corners rounded off, thus leaving passage way for
the air, otherwise the tongue would not be set in vibration, since the
reed tongue is quite level with its frame, a condition in which modern
reeds would not speak. It is a peculiarity worth noticing. Another
strange contrivance is that the hole which we see on each pipe a short
distance above the cup, is designed to prevent the pipe from speaking;
is not the opening for the sound of the note as in other pipes is the
usual purpose; although the air drawn in comes simultaneously through
all the pipes, not a single pipe will sound that has not the side hole
covered by a finger. The position of the hole has no relation to nodal
distance, it effects its purpose by breaking up the air column when
it is open, and so prevents the pipe from furnishing a reciprocating
relation to the pitch of the reed. Over these holes the four fingers
play in the order the music requires.
[Illustration: _The Reed_ (_Full Size._)]
The _Sheng_ is considered to be one of the most important of the
Chinese musical instruments; no other is so perfect either for
sweetness or delicacy of construction. It is indispensable in the
ritual music of their temples.
At the Confucian ceremonies there are six _Sheng_, three on the
east and three on the west side of the hall. They play exactly the
same music as the _ti-tza_ or flute, yet they are not used in the
popular orchestras. At nuptial and funeral processions the _Sheng_ is
played, but it is then merely for form’s sake, in accordance with the
requirements of the rites, and the hired coolie who carries it simply
simulates playing.
One rarely hears the _Sheng_ now-a-days, on account, some say, of a
curious superstition that a skilful performer becomes so wedded to its
music, that he is ever playing, and that, as the instrument is played
by suction or drawing in of the breath, a long continuance in practice
brings on inflammation of the lungs; so no performer is believed
to live more than forty years! Others however, and these are the
philosophers, maintain that the ancient music and the ancient methods
of playing are lost, and the construction of the instrument after the
ancient plan is a lost art. This one can well believe of an instrument
belonging in its prime to so early a period of history. Of all the
ancient music nothing remains but abstruse theories. Van Aalst says:—
The Emperor Che Huang-ti B.C. 246 the destroyer of
books came. He ordered the annihilation of all books
with the exception of works on medicine, agriculture,
and divination. The decree was obeyed as faithfully
as possible by an uneducated soldiery, who made it a
pretext for domiciliary visits, exactions, and pitiless
destruction. Music books and instruments shared the
same fate as every object which could give rise to
remembrance of past times; and a long night of ignorance
rested on the country to such an extent that at the rise
of the Han dynasty the great music master Chi, whose
ancestors had for generations held the same dignity,
scarcely remembered anything about music but the noise of
tinkling bells and dancers’ drums.
I have possessed four of these little _Sheng_ organs (pronounced
“sung”) and it became to me a fascinating problem how the instrument
originated. I compared one with the other, and where one was imperfect,
the other possessed the notes to perfect the scale. At that time but
little was known of the instrument, for we had only some flowery
accounts given in Chinese history, and one description of it very
fully set out in Père Amiot’s work on the Chinese, published in Paris,
1780, in six vols. The description is found in the sixth volume, but
I soon discovered that the good father had but very imperfect means
at his command, and that the scale he gave was not to be relied upon.
For my own satisfaction I was led to make a closer examination of the
instrument, and to glean whatever particulars I could for the better
understanding of the organ and its place in history.
We are accustomed to regard the Chinese as a very conservative people,
unchangeable in modes and customs, and indisposed to vary in routine
after tradition has fixed it. Closer view of their history shows that
this is a mistake, and we have been drawn into it because the range
of their change has been limited; and in their inventions, numerous
and important as they have been, they nevertheless seem not to have
the aptitude to advance them to higher grade of utility. Their musical
scales have been constantly fixed, and have been as constantly
changing. Mr. A. J. Ellis has shown that at B.C. 1300 the scale had
only five notes, that the invading Mongols introduced an additional
scale, that Kublai Khan A.D. 1259 combined the two, that in the
thirteenth century the Ming dynasty excluded all semitones, that the
Tsing dynasty (which has existed from 1644), reverted to the former
scale; and these are comparatively modern changes. And yet one may
say that ages earlier changes began, and this _Sheng_ has at various
periods been subject to change; at one time it had nineteen pipes,
at another twenty-four pipes, and now has settled down to the form,
still very ancient, which is illustrated here with seventeen pipes,
two of these being dummies—as some modern organ fronts are—and two are
duplicates of others for convenience, leaving therefore eleven sounding
pipes to represent the working scale of the instrument.
For the origin of the _Sheng_ we must go back beyond these periods of
change. Its history begins with a woman, as is proper in tradition,
and the invention is attributed to a female sovereign in the mythical
age known as Nu-wo. Eve is said to have brought “woe” into the world,
but this lady evidently by her name was of later date, ancient though
that date is. She succeeded the Emperor Fu Hsi, who reigned 4745 years
ago, and who was the reputed father of music, for the Chinese are a
people who naturally consider that there is no music of any account
besides their own. Then Hwang Ti “the Yellow Emperor,” follows, and he
takes credit for the invention, its a way men have: this was about one
hundred and fifty years after the death of the lady aforesaid. Then the
great Emperor Shun four centuries later, he lays some claim; but the
probability is that these two emperors regulated the laws, which till
then had not been formulated into fixed rule. Indeed each emperor had
his own system, and did not agree with his predecessor’s systems. There
can be no doubt that the _Sheng_ is of great antiquity; it is often
mentioned in the great poetical books of the Chinese, the _She_ and
the _Shoo-king_, and the commentators on ancient musical instruments
invariably mention the great age of the _Sheng_, and seem to delight in
speaking of it as evidence of the inventive genius and musical talent
of the Chinese.
In my desire to place you abreast with the Chinese knowledge of the art
of music, I give you this beautiful elucidation from the treatise of J.
A. van Aalst:—
According to the Chinese ideas, music rests on two
fundamental principles,—the _shên-li_, or spiritual
immaterial principle; and the _ch’i-shu_, or substantial
form. All natural productions are represented by unity;
all that requires perfecting at the hands of man is
classed under the generic term, _wan_, plurality. Unity
is above, it is heaven; plurality is below, it is
earth. The immaterial principle is above,—that is, it
is inherent in natural bodies, and is considered their
_pên_, basis, origin. The material principle is below;
it is the _hsing_, form or figure of the _shên-li_. The
form is limited to its proper shape by _shu_, number,
and it is subjected to the rule of the _shên-li_.
Therefore, when the material principle of music—that is,
the instruments—is clearly and rightly illustrated, the
corresponding spiritual principle—that is, the essence,
the sounds of music—becomes perfectly manifest and the
State’s affairs are successfully conducted.
You will now be able thoroughly to understand something of the Chinese
systems of music, and their rigidly scholastic basis; and should
you think that the explanation that you have read requires to be
supplemented by explication, I may say that the authorities at the
British Museum have now shelved for public use in the King’s Library
the five thousand and twenty volumes of the Chinese Encyclopædia, to
which I refer you.
This is said to be the only complete copy known in Europe of a work
commenced how many centuries ago I forget; and as the Chinese had at
hand four hundred and eighty-two learned treatises on music, no doubt
the subject is exhaustively drawn out, and will repay your search in
the various sections and sub-sections. It is said that in 2277 B.C.
there were twenty-two authors on dance and music, twenty-three on
ancient music, twenty-four on the playing of the _kin_ and the _chi_,
twenty-four on solemn occasions, and twenty-six on scale construction.
The sages alone comprehend the canons, and the mandarins of music are
considered superior to those of mathematics. The College of Mandarins
at Pekin is within the imperial palace. The head musician in China
represents the five capital virtues,—humanity, justice, politeness,
wisdom and rectitude. How very old these people are! Certainly, we have
colleges—a few!—but for some reason or other we are not sufficiently
advanced to have such a head musician; and, in consequence of lack of
such representation, the profession may possibly be minus some of the
virtues in these ways: which, as the saying goes, accounts for it.
You know that old Confucius wrote about the ancient music in the
_Shoo-king_, and that was about 551 B.C., or about the time when Ezra
was occupied in collecting the parchments of the laws of Moses. In the
great destruction of books all copies of Confucius disappeared, but
happily one complete copy was found secreted in the wall of the house
that he dwelt in; and that was in 140 B.C., when the house was pulled
down. But you must think of a time far back, far as the times of the
Pharaohs who built the pyramids, a time when the Chinese were already
writing learned works on the music and the instruments, the existence
of which necessarily implied long periods of early civilization. The
earliest Chinese book that we know of is “The Book of Changes,” 1150
B.C. Ah, and what changes since! All history is a record of changes.
[Illustration]