The illustration given is full size. It is of a set of Japanese pitch pipes, consisting of six little bamboo tubes, threaded at the middle on a copper wire, which, merely flattened at the ends, serves to hold all the pipes together. At each end of each pipe is a little hollow plug, which fits in tightly; and at the point which is cut on the slant a small brass plate is fixed, as shown in the sketch at top, which is drawn twice the size of the original; and in the middle of the plate is a tiny reed, cut in the plate by a fine chisel. This reed lifts up its tip in a fine delicate curve, like the curve of “my ladye’s eyelash”; and each of these minute hairlike reeds is formed to give the desired pitch for one of the twelve semitones of the compass of the octave. To obtain exactness, the tips of some of the reeds have a tiny bit of beeswax, loading them to the degree of the slower movement of vibration which the artist’s ear demands.
The plate itself is fixed on the point of the bamboo plug by beeswax,—nothing more; so simple and efficient is this primitive construction, yet answering every purpose of the musician. At the twelve ends are the names of the notes in gold, stamped in Japanese characters; but these the engraver has not attempted, lest unknowingly some bend or twist or dot might be such as to give some signification not fit for ears polite: for we are aware in our own language how the omission or insertion of a single vowel may alter the whole meaning and be a source of lamentable error. The pipes turn on the copper rod, permitting either end of each pipe to be brought round to the lips as wanted. The reeds only sound by suction: you draw the breath through, and that sets the reed vibrating and sounding, whilst the note on an instrument is being tuned. To blow through on to the reeds would horrify the native musician, because the moisture of the breath would lodge and injure the durability of the reed. To have a set of pipes as these, is as it would be to us if we had a dozen tuning forks in a case to tune our pianos by for ourselves. All the stringed instruments in Japan require to be properly tuned every time they are played; so one can appreciate the utility of this pretty little companion in its simple case, and dagger fastening all complete for the pocket. Or, as one should say, for the sleeve; since it is the sleeve that is the receptacle for all the odds and ends, the impedimenta, which civilization carries with it in every land.
The scale as nearly as we can represent it is:—
A Sharp Fourth. | ||
| D, E♭, E, | F♯, G, G♯, | A♭, A, B♭, B, C, C♯. |
 A Flat Fourth | ||
We must not look at these as we do at our fourths and fifths. The intention in the scale is that the player, according as he is going up or down, should by some traditional rule be able to substitute a sharp interval for a flat one. Thus, he takes in the course of his melody a flat fourth D to G, or by taking G♯ gets a sharp fourth; or again a flat fifth from C♯ down to G; and the flat fourth B down to to F♯ seems a favourite essential interval. We should remember that the harmony or concord is confined to octaves, fourths and fifths, and that, the tones of the instruments being faint and quickly vanishing, a mistuned fourth or fifth is little worse than perfect intervals. The sharp thirds are not unpleasant, but have a peculiar breezy effect heard upon the Sheng, and the Sho.
There is a great tendency in Eastern scales to make flat fourths and sharp fifths. This same flat fourth is given by my set of Chinese bells, and I remember how Sir F. Gore Ouseley caught it instantly when he heard it. He had the keenest ear for pitch that I ever met. The A and A♭ depart from our relation of pitch. But the Japanese are so accustomed to freedom in altering their scales that the Koto, though tuned accurately, is during playing altered to the passing fancy of the player, who is allowed to pull the strings below the bridge or to press them just as the moment dictates, sharpening or flattening any interval. The classical scales used in religious and royal ceremonials and the popular scales are quite distinct, which shows how in course of time the music itself has changed.
My bells above named give F♯, A, B, C♯; the F♯ to C♯ making a fifth, the F♯ to B making a flat fourth, the A to C♯ a sharp major third. We may reckon bells to be true carriers of pitch, scarcely, if anything, affected by age.
Mr. A. J. Ellis traces the old Greek tetrachords in the Japanese scales, and remarks upon one, “it is interesting to observe that this hiradio-shi scale, which consists of a tone and two conjunct tetrachords, each divided approximately into a semitone and its defect from a fourth, presents us with a survival of the oldest Greek tetrachord. Perhaps Olympos himself tuned no better than the Japanese musician I heard.” He also infers that the pentatonic scale was later than that of the tetrachord. He says “that China and Japan introduced nothing new beyond the original limitation of the scale to five notes, which arose in fact from divisions of tetrachords into two parts only. For instance, a semitone and major third, like those of Olympos (whose very division we find in the popular music of Japan), or else into a tone and a minor third; the thirds arising in each case as defects of the first interval of a fourth. Such tetrachords were then either conjunct or disjunct; but they were always capable of being completed into Greek scales, as has been actually done in Japan and China. On the other hand, Japan at least, and China also, have attained a system of twelve more or less exact equal semitones.”
The Japanese have twelve semitones to the octave, as the Chinese have, the root of their civilization being the same. But in music ancient equal temperament and modern equal temperament are not quite the same thing; nevertheless, the approachments come very near. The scale, however, is not used to play music proceeding by semitones, but is used for the purpose of transposition of melody to high or low position, which changes never trespass beyond a range of fourteen sounds for such melody. Our necessity for equal temperament arose in like manner from the desire for transposition, but it was for the needs of harmony. This distinction we should never forget when considering Eastern systems of music. Moreover, our modern method of counting from the low note upwards seems to be an inversion of the more primitive method, which proceeded from above downward. Hence when the fourth below was taken it has been our custom to assume that the note was obtained as a fifth upwards from the octave note below, and much confusion of interpretation has resulted therefrom. There is a significant passage in Mr. A. J. Ellis’s notes to Helmholtz:
The fact that the Greek scale was derived from the tetrachord or divisions of the fourth, and not the fifth, leads me to suppose that the tuning was founded on the fourth, not the fifth.... It is most convenient for modern habits of thought to consider the series as one of fifths; but I wish to draw attention to the fact that in all probability it was historically a series of fourths.