To the right hand:—
Notice the prominent relation of the fourth ♭a, ♭d, and that there are two notes alike,—♭e. These would, I expect, if tested, prove to be slightly different, so that one might be a true fourth to ♭a above, and the other a true fourth to ♭b below; each derived by a different progression, in the way that I have pointed out in the evolution of the Sheng.
The Phan belongs to the same family as the Sheng, and it is for that reason only that it has been brought to notice here.
CHAPTER XVIII.
In the Land of Japan.
JAPANESE PITCH PIPES AND THE JAPANESE CLARIONET AND THE SHO.
The Japanese are a curious people, blending as they do in their manners and customs, in their ways of thought and mental tendencies, in their childish acceptances and intellectual eagerness, naive simplicity and artistic perceptivity; a strange union of the primitive, the ancient, and the modern, all instinct with present vitality. In their musical system and musical practice, they inherit a long past, prehistoric; and, in their way upward through the centuries, seem to have developed an absorbing power, enabling them to acquire the new without foregoing the ancient, and to blend all that they acquire with a spontaneous ease that is less art than happy nature, making in every sense the best of everything. Adhering to the traditional, yet unfettered by the pedantic formality which so cripples the progress of the Chinese, they are able to advance with freedom, and to affiliate whatever seems to them good. In the Japanese musical system, we find the ancient pentatonic scale, the old Greek scales, and the equal semitonal division of the octave, all coexisting; the latter being to them indistinguishable from our equal temperament, which we assume to be so modern. Hence our pianoforte is naturally acceptable to them for its progression of scale, although their ears do not yet make the demand for harmony which is characteristic of the western nations.
| Japanese Pitch Pipes. Full Size. |
Fig. 32. |