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.