Chinese music

“ From the point of view of what we call music, the hymn is childish enough; but we must keep in mind the definition of Confucius. According to the Chinese, music includes that phase of sound which we call mere noise, and the harmonizing of this noise is Chinese art. We must admit, therefore, that from this point of view their orchestra is well balanced, for what will rhyme better with noise than more noise? The gong is best answered by the drum, and the tomtom by the great bell.
China also has its folk song, which seems to be an irrepressible flower of the field in all countries. ”

“ In the accompaniment of songs, the Chinese seem to stand, as regards their harmony, about where Europe stood in the middle ages, for they use as sole and only harmony, when playing on the kin, a succession of fourths and fifths. [124]
The constant use of instruments of percussion, in slow and monotonous songs, is one of the most tiresome institutions of the Chinese music; almost all the tunes are taken at an andante or adagio pace, and it is but just to say, that the Chinese chiefly dislike European music because it is often played quickly. ”

“ It is interesting to place these remarks beside the reiterated opinion of many writers that the Chinese music is not worthy of being called “music” at all; and then to turn to that most proper definition of the art,—“Music is the art of moving the feelings by combinations of sounds.”
The same obstacles exist to-day against change in the music of the Chinese, as in the days of Kang-hi. ”

“ No music of chords appears to exist among them, nor even a music of different simultaneous melodies. Nevertheless, what information we possess about later Chinese musical theory gives reason to believe that the Chinese recognize either of two notes as the fundamental one in their diatonic scale; that these two are Do and La; and that in theory, therefore, music in China exhibits the same division into a major and a minor system which it appears to have reached in Europe only after a long course of development into an entirely different form from that of the Chinese art. ”

“ To go deeply into the more technical side of Chinese music would be a thankless task, for in the Chinese character the practical is entirely overshadowed by the speculative. All kinds of fanciful names are given to the different tones, and many strange ideas associated with them. Although our modern chromatic scale (all but the last half-tone) is familiar to them, they have never risen to a practical use of it even to this day. The Chinese scale is now, as it always has been, one of five notes to the octave, that is to say, our modern major scale with the fourth and seventh omitted. ”

“ The calendar was regulated anew, and the science of music was reconstructed; in fact, modern Chinese music may be said to approximate closely to the music of ancient Greece. Because of the difference of scale, Chinese music does not make any appeal to Western ears; at any rate, not in the sense in which it appealed to Confucius, who has left it on record that after listening to a certain melody he was so affected as not to be able to taste meat for three months. ”

“ Few travellers have heard a musical Chinese lady sing, and those who have enjoyed this rare event, say it is the most torturing of all Chinese music; from the nose and throat issue the most droning and hideous sounds, and they seem to pile Ossa upon Pelion in the way of unnatural tones. ”

“ There Sarostro would not be a stage magician, but a priest; from Papageno and the lovers to him would be only the change from Ming to Sung, which would seem no change at all. Chinese art, in fact, is the world of the magic flute, the world where silver bells hang on [94] every flowering tree and the thickets are full of enchanted nightingales. It is the world of imps and monsters, and yet of impassioned contemplation, where the sage sits in a moonlit pavilion and smiles like a lover, and where the lovers smile like sages; where everything is to the eye what the music of Mozart is to the ear. ”

“ In music it must be admitted that China lags as yet far behind Europe. It has been reported of one of the foremost pianists and composers of the present day that when he visited California and heard Chinese music for the first time, he volunteered the opinion that "it really was music," a truth which some of us perhaps might be inclined to doubt. ”

“ With their views as to what constitutes the beautiful in music it is not strange that the Chinese find our music detestable. It goes too fast for them. They ask, “Why play another entirely different kind of sound until one has already enjoyed to the full what has gone before?” As they told Père Amiot many years ago: “Our music penetrates through the ear to the heart, and from the heart to the soul; that your music cannot do.” Amiot had played on a harpsichord some pieces by Rameau (“Les Cyclopes,” “Les Charmes,” etc.) and much flute music, but they could make nothing of it. ”

“ China, I believe, is the only country that has produced music from stones. It is naturally gratifying to me to hear that Chinese airs are now having a vogue in London, and that they will soon be heard in New York. It will take some little time for Westerners to learn to listen intelligently to our melodies which, being always in unison, in one key and in one movement, are apt at first to sound as wearisome and monotonous as Madame Patti's complicated notes did to me, but when they understand them they will have found a new delight in life. ”

“ Chinese music can, of course, be rendered on the violin or other instrument of the viol tribe, upon the trombone, or by the human voice, but it cannot be exactly reproduced on a piano or other keyed instrument, or upon a European fretted stringed instrument, as there is a slight difference between the intervals of the Chinese scale and that used in the West. ”

“ A very, very small minority, about one man in a million, say, “True, it sounds to us like a din, but to a people of extraordinary civilization it is music; the matter is worth investigating,” and on investigation it would be found that Chinese music from time immemorial has been under state supervision. ”

“ There is little doubt that he made improvements in Chinese music, and, by exaggeration, was called its inventor. A Chinese writer in giving to the invention a greater antiquity, beautifully says “Music had its cradle in the heart of man.” ”

“ On this subject we cannot refrain from re-quoting an article on Chinese music, which appeared in the “China Mail,” a Hong-Kong newspaper, in 1845. [123]
“One possessed of a musical ear, and at all conversant with the musical art, cannot fail, on his arrival in this country, to be struck with the peculiarities of what is esteemed music here. He notices at once, that the characteristics of western melody, are almost wholly wanting. Nearly every note seems out of place, and there is neither beginning, middle nor end, to the airs he listens to. ”

“ The great difference between the smooth and harsh tones, which are variable in different stanzas of Chinese poetry, some of which can be scarcely, if at all, enunciated in singing, renders it almost impossible to sing Chinese poetry with Western music, and a tune which was adapted to one stanza would not be appropriate for the next, though agreeing with it in the number and metrical arrangement of its syllables. ”

“ They have no objection to European music. On the contrary, they are pleased to express their approbation of it, but with the proviso that it is decidedly inferior to their own.
From Music we turn to Art. In their own line of art the Chinese are unsurpassed, not to say inimitable. Ignorant of perspective as they may be, there is a quaint force and vigor about their lines that is worthy of all praise, while their rich softness of color can scarcely be equalled. ”

“ 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. ”

“ There are many kinds of stringed and reed instruments used by the musicians of China. Bells, also, are very numerous, and excellent sweet toned bells are made. A careful watch is kept over the efforts of composers by the imperial board of music, whose duty it is to keep alive the music of the ancients and to suppress all compositions which are not in harmony with it. It is difficult for western ears to find anything truly beautiful in Chinese music. ”

“ They drew from the same musical roots as other nations yet remain stunted; socially and intellectually the Chinaman of to-day is the same as the man who was obedient to the rule of Yao, and Hwang-ti, and when the latter formulated the rules that were held to govern the music, the Chinese were content that for ever after music was fixed; they appear to delight in keeping things in a dwarfed state as they take a pride in dwarfed trees, and we of the Western world find it so difficult to understand them, but we still go on trying. ”

“ The peculiarity of Chinese music corroborates this notion of mine; for although, so far as we can tell, the structure of musical ears is the same197—yet likings of the ear vary widely with the difference in race.
One of the first needs of men in relation to one another in communities is a standard of measure of length, such as a cubit, a foot, etc. The oldest standard with the Chinese is the thumb’s breadth, and ten thumbs’ breadths make one Chinese foot; and they had a measure of millet seed, as we have our three barley corns making one inch. ”

“ The Chinese life and character, while apparently full of fancy, is in reality quite emptily rational and pragmatic. In all the scientific facts relating to music, the Chinese made early and thorough investigations, but in that inventive inspiration which is the soul of art, they seem to have been deficient. They possess a very full account of their music both of modern and ancient days. ”

“ A double quartet of college students furnished the music; and it was remarkable how well they sang the complicated part tunes. They have had no regular training, but have kept at it by themselves, and have surprised us all by their progress. But for the music, the real, soul-uplifting music, give me the native band! Imagine several bagpipes and flutes, diminutive drums, and two or three toy trumpets which sound only one note; and then conceive of each player carrying on an independent enterprise, and you may know something about the Chinese native band. It is too rare for words. ”

“ Mere beauty of sound is, in itself, purely sensuous. It is the Chinese conception of music that the texture of a sound is to be valued; the long, trembling tone-tint of a bronze gong, or the high, thin streams of sound from the pipes are enjoyed for their ear-filling qualities. In the Analects of Confucius and the writings of Mencius there is much mention of music, and “harmony of sound that shall fill the ears” is insisted upon. ”

“ It seemed to me that from moment to moment she was on the point of interrupting me, so I talked very rapidly, trying at the same time to make my voice and manner as easy and matter-of-fact as possible.
“I have come all the way to China to make phonographic records of Chinese music. I shall make at least two thousand such records, and when I have finished my work will be recognized as the one great contribution to the study of the Oriental tone sense. For I shall secure and preserve on my cylinders the primitive scale intervals that underlie all natural musical expression.” ”

“ Primitive races invariably express their emotions in primitive music. They try to tell me that the Chinese are a civilized people. 'Very well,' I say then; 'let me hear their music.' No nation has progressed far along the great highroad of civilization without coming into an understanding of the diatonic system. The Chinese civilized? When their finest musical instrument is the little sheng, a crude collection of twelve pipes that are not even in tune? When they have failed to arrive at even a rudimentary perception of tonality and scale relationships? ”

“ The Chinese have no modern music. The music in use is only their earliest music reappearing from day to day in immemorial custom, and it is to them a completely satisfying survival.
Their system of music is the oldest system that has been placed on record, and for this reason alone it has a special interest. ”

“ The Chinese style of music though lacking the refined ideal of art is on precisely the same lines, vocal with recitative and instrumental interposed phrases; and if the hymns of the old Confucian temple be transcribed side by side with the fragments we have of the worship of Apollo only exacting criticism could determine the different origin. They are equally capable of being harmonized with effective dignity. Further, I would remark also that the Chinese notation, like the Greek, consists solely of added signs written beside the words of the hymn. ”

“ Whereas we, as soon as we have defined a sound, pass to the consideration of intonation, duration, etc., the Chinese theoreticians, with rare keenness of perception, have worked out an elaborate division of the quality of sound, according to the phenomena governing its production, classifying it according to eight sound-producing materials provided by Nature—skin, tone, metal, baked clay, silk, wood, bamboo, and gourd. Harmony means to the Chinese what it meant to the ancient Greeks, a purely æsthetic combination of sound and dance. Duple rhythm predominates. ”