The Chinese.
Allowing for any exaggeration as to chronology, natural to the lively imagination of Asiatics, there is no reason to doubt that the Chinese possessed long before our Christian era musical instruments to which they attribute a fabulously high antiquity. There is an ancient tradition, according to which they obtained their musical scale from a miraculous bird, called foung-hoang, which appears to have been a sort of phœnix. When Confucius, who lived about B.C. 500, happened to hear on a certain occasion some Chinese music, he became so greatly enraptured that he could not take any food for three months afterwards. The sounds which produced this effect were those of Kouei, the Orpheus of the Chinese, whose performance on the king—a kind of harmonicon constructed of slabs of sonorous stone—would draw wild animals around him and make them subservient to his will. As regards the invention of musical instruments the Chinese have other traditions. In one of these we are told that the origin of some of their most popular instruments dates from the period when China was under the dominion of heavenly spirits, called Ki. Another assigns the invention of several stringed instruments to the great Fohi who was the founder of the empire and who lived about B.C. 3000, which was long after the dominion of the Ki, or spirits. Again, another tradition holds that the most important instruments and systematic arrangements of sounds are an invention of Niuva, a supernatural female, who lived at the time of Fohi.
According to their records, the Chinese possessed their much-esteemed king 2200 years before our Christian era, and employed it for accompanying songs of praise. It was regarded as a sacred instrument. During religious observances at the solemn moment when the king was sounded sticks of incense were burnt. It was likewise played before the emperor early in the morning when he awoke. The Chinese have long since constructed various kinds of the king, one of which is here engraved, by using different species of stones. Their most famous stone selected for this purpose is called yu. It is not only very sonorous but also beautiful in appearance. The yu is found in mountain streams and crevices of rocks. The largest specimens found measure from two to three feet in diameter, but of this size examples rarely occur. The yu is very hard and heavy. Some European mineralogists, to whom the missionaries transmitted specimens for examination, pronounce it to be a species of agate. It is found of different colours, and the Chinese appear to have preferred in different centuries particular colours for the king.
The Chinese consider the yu especially valuable for musical purposes, because it always retains exactly the same pitch. All other musical instruments, they say, are in this respect doubtful; but the tone of the yu is neither influenced by cold nor heat, nor by humidity, nor dryness.
The stones used for the king have been cut from time to time in various grotesque shapes. Some represent animals: as, for instance, a bat with outstretched wings; or two fishes placed side by side: others are in the shape of an ancient Chinese bell. The angular shape shown in the engraving appears to be the oldest and is still retained in the ornamented stones of the pien-king, which is a more modern instrument than the king. The tones of the pien-king are attuned according to the Chinese intervals called lu, of which there are twelve in the compass of an octave. The same is the case with the other Chinese instruments of this class. They vary, however, in pitch. The pitch of the soung-king, for instance, is four intervals lower than that of the pien-king.
Sonorous stones have always been used by the Chinese also singly, as rhythmical instruments. Such a single stone is called tse-king. Probably certain curious relics belonging to a temple in Peking, erected for the worship of Confucius, serve a similar purpose. In one of the outbuildings or the temple are ten sonorous stones, shaped like drums, which are asserted to have been cut about three thousand years ago. The primitive Chinese characters engraven upon them are nearly obliterated.
The ancient Chinese had several kinds of bells, frequently arranged in sets so as to constitute a musical scale. The Chinese name for the bell is tchung. At an early period they had a somewhat square-shaped bell called té-tchung. Like other ancient Chinese bells it was made of copper alloyed with tin, the proportion being one pound of tin to six of copper. The té-tchung, which is also known by the name of piao, was principally used to indicate the time and divisions in musical performances. It had a fixed pitch of sound, and several of these bells attuned to a certain order of intervals were not unfrequently ranged in a regular succession, thus forming a musical instrument which was called pien-tchung. The musical scale of the sixteen bells which the pien-tchung contained was the same as that of the king before mentioned.
The hiuen-tchung was, according to popular tradition, included with the antique instruments at the time of Confucius, and came into popular use during the Han dynasty (from B.C. 200 until A.D. 200). It was of a peculiar oval shape and had nearly the same quaint ornamentation as the té-tchung; this consisted of symbolical figures, in four divisions, each containing nine mammals. The mouth was crescent-shaped. Every figure had a deep meaning referring to the seasons and to the mysteries of the Buddhist religion. The largest hiuen-tchung was about twenty inches in length; and, like the té-tchung, was sounded by means of a small wooden mallet with an oval knob. None of the bells of this description had a clapper. It would, however, appear that the Chinese had at an early period some kind of bell provided with a wooden tongue: this was used for military purposes as well as for calling the people together when an imperial messenger promulgated his sovereign’s commands. An expression of Confucius is recorded to the effect that he wished to be “A wooden-tongued bell of Heaven,” i.e. a herald of heaven to proclaim the divine purposes to the multitude.
The fang-hiang was a kind of wood-harmonicon. It contained sixteen wooden slabs of an oblong square shape, suspended in a wooden frame elegantly decorated. The slabs were arranged in two tiers, one above the other, and were all of equal length and breadth but differed in thickness. The tchoung-tou consisted of twelve slips of bamboo, and was used for beating time and for rhythmical purposes. The slips being banded together at one end could be expanded somewhat like a fan. The Chinese state that they used the tchoung-tou for writing upon before they invented paper.
The ou, of which we give a woodcut, likewise an ancient Chinese instrument of percussion and still in use, is made of wood in the shape of a crouching tiger. It is hollow, and along its back are about twenty small pieces of metal, pointed, and in appearance not unlike the teeth of a saw. The performer strikes them with a sort of plectrum resembling a brush, or with a small stick called tchen. Occasionally the ou is made with pieces of metal shaped like reeds.
The ancient ou was constructed with only six tones which were attuned thus—f, g, a, c, d, f. The instrument appears to have become deteriorated in the course of time; for, although it has gradually acquired as many as twenty-seven pieces of metal, it evidently serves at the present day more for the production of rhythmical noise than for the execution of any melody. The modern ou is made of a species of wood called kieou or tsieou: and the tiger rests generally on a hollow wooden pedestal about three feet six inches long, which serves as a sound-board.
The tchou, likewise an instrument of percussion, was made of the wood of a tree called kieou-mou, the stem of which resembles that of the pine and whose foliage is much like that of the cypress. It was constructed of boards about three-quarters of an inch in thickness. In the middle of one of the sides was an aperture into which the hand was passed for the purpose of holding the handle of a wooden hammer, the end of which entered into a hole situated in the bottom of the tchou. The handle was kept in its place by means of a wooden pin, on which it moved right and left when the instrument was struck with a hammer. The Chinese ascribe to the tchou a very high antiquity, as they almost invariably do with any of their inventions when the date of its origin is unknown to them.
The po-fou was a drum, about one foot four inches in length, and seven inches in diameter. It had a parchment at each end, which was prepared in a peculiar way by being boiled in water. The po-fou used to be partly filled with a preparation made from the husk of rice, in order to mellow the sound. The Chinese name for the drum is kou.
The kin-kou (engraved), a large drum fixed on a pedestal which raises it above six feet from the ground, is embellished with symbolical designs. A similar drum on which natural phenomena are depicted is called lei-kou; and another of the kind, with figures of certain birds and beasts which are regarded as symbols of long life, is called ling-kou, and also lou-kou.
The flutes, ty, yo, and tché were generally made of bamboo. The koan-tsee was a Pandean pipe containing twelve tubes of bamboo. The siao, likewise a Pandean pipe, contained sixteen tubes. The pai-siao differed from the siao inasmuch as the tubes were inserted into an oddly-shaped case highly ornamented with grotesque designs and silken appendages.
The Chinese are known to have constructed at an early period a curious wind-instrument, called hiuen. It was made of baked clay and had five finger-holes, three of which were placed on one side and two on the opposite side, as in the cut. Its tones were in conformity with the pentatonic scale. The reader unacquainted with the pentatonic scale may ascertain its character by playing on the pianoforte the scale of C major with the omission of f and b (the fourth and seventh); or by striking the black keys in regular succession from f-sharp to the next f-sharp above or below.
Another curious wind-instrument of high antiquity, the cheng, (engraved, p. 46) is still in use. Formerly it had either 13, 19, or 24 tubes, placed in a calabash; and a long curved tube served as a mouth-piece. In olden time it was called yu.
The ancient stringed instruments, the kin and chê, were of the dulcimer kind: they are still in use, and specimens of them are in the South Kensington museum.
The Buddhists introduced from Thibet into China their god of music, who is represented as a rather jovial-looking man with a moustache and an imperial, playing the pepa, a kind of lute with four silken strings. Perhaps some interesting information respecting the ancient Chinese musical instruments may be gathered from the famous ruins of the Buddhist temples Ongcor-Wat and Ongcor-Thôm, in Cambodia. These splendid ruins are supposed to be above two thousand years old: and, at any rate, the circumstance of their age not being known to the Cambodians suggests a high antiquity. On the bas-reliefs with which the temples were enriched are figured musical instruments, which European travellers describe as “flutes, organs, trumpets, and drums, resembling those of the Chinese.” Faithful sketches of these representations might, very likely, afford valuable hints to the student of musical history.