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 fêng-huang, which appears to have been a sort of phœnix. When Confucius, who lived about B.C. 551-479, happened to hear on a certain occasion some Chinese music, he is said to have become so greatly enraptured that he could not take any food for three months afterwards. The sounds which produced this effect were those of K’uei, the Orpheus of the Chinese, whose performance on the ch’ing—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 Ch’i. Another assigns the invention of several stringed instruments to the great Fu-hsi who was the founder of the empire and who lived about B.C. 3000, which was long after the dominion of the Ch’i, or spirits. Again, another tradition holds that the most important instruments and systematic arrangements of sounds are an invention of Nü-wa, sister and successor of Fu-hsi.
According to their records, the Chinese possessed their much-esteemed ch’ing 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 ch’ing 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 ch’ing, by using different species of stones. Their most famous stone selected for this purpose is called yü. Yü includes the two varieties of jade, nephrite and jadeite. It is not only very sonorous but also beautiful in appearance. It is found in mountain streams and crevices of rocks. The largest known specimens measure from two to three feet in diameter, but examples of this size rarely occur. The yü is very hard and heavy. Some European mineralogists, to whom the missionaries transmitted specimens for examination, pronounce it to be a species of agate (ma-nao). It is found of different colours, and the Chinese appear to have preferred in different centuries particular colours for the ch’ing.
The Chinese consider the yü 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 yü is influenced neither by cold nor heat, nor by humidity, nor dryness.
The stones used for the ch’ing 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 appears to be the oldest form and is still retained in the ornamental stones of the pien-ch’ing, which is a more modern instrument than the
ch’ing. The tones of the pien-ch’ing are attuned according to the Chinese intervals called lü, 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 sung-ch’ing, for instance, is four intervals lower than that of the pien-ch’ing.
Sonorous stones have always been used by the Chinese also singly, as rhythmical instruments. Such a single stone is called t’ê-ch’ing.
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 chung. At an early period they had a somewhat square-shaped bell called t’ê-chung. Like other ancient Chinese bells it was made of copper alloyed with tin, the proportion being one part of tin to six of copper. The t’ê-chung, 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-chung. The musical scale of the sixteen bells which the pien-chung contained was the same as that of the ch’ing before mentioned.
The hsüan-chung 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 t’ê-chung; 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 hsüan-chung was about twenty inches in length;
and, like the t’ê-chung, 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.