In China the music of the past was looked after by “The Sect of the learned” and the responsibility for authenticity rested with the Emperor, who by dynastic right was chief of the Sect.
The Chinese attribute to an unknown antiquity the music performed at their great Confucian celebrations, and it may well be that this music is the oldest written music in the world.
Some musically-minded folk have besought me for specimens of Chinese music, wanting to see how it looks. This demand I cannot supply, for Chinese type would be necessary and Chinese compositors; moreover it would not enlighten, would to us look as columns of hieroglyphs.
This is a bit of Chinese ritual music. It is called the Guiding March, and is played by two Sheng, four other instruments also in pairs, two drums, and two pair of castanets. The music is played when the emperor, with the princes, dignitaries, and attendants, passes the second gate to enter the temple. The circles and dots at the side of several of the notes are signs that the drums and castanets are to sound. As you would not understand the march by the Chinese symbols, I have done it into English, and you have to read from the top of the right hand column, and then down each column beyond in succession—the gaps only indicate the holding on longer of the note preceding:—
| go. | Do | co. | A | C. | a | d | |
| a | ao | co | d. | ||||
| co. | go | d | a | M | |||
| Co | d | f. | d | co | co | A | |
| ao. | co | D | co | a | d | R | |
| C | a. | Co. | a | C | |||
| Do. | ao | co. | go | H | |||
| C | go | d | f | d. | |||
| ao. | f. | d. | co. | D | co |
The small letters are notes within the treble and the capitals for notes below it. Looks like a very early anticipation of tonic sol-fa. If you write this down on the treble stave you soon become proficient in Chinese scoring,—that is, provided you translate the Chinese characters correctly, and comprehend also the multitude of little signs used in addition, which to the native are easy of recognition.
I take up a little book that I have of Japanese songs and open it, beginning at the end, which with them is the commencement, and it looks, as I scan the page, very much the same in fashion as the English columns which I have set up before you. The characters are printed in black, and the signs in vermilion, on a beautiful silkworm paper that glistens with silvery sheen like a cocoon, and has impressed lines separating each column of characters; and each page is as a double page without inner margins, six columns to a page. Strange to say, the little book, although it measures only six inches by two inches and five eighths, is quite six feet long, for it folds backwards and forwards after the fashion of the child’s Jacob’s ladder. And this is the little book that a little Japanese maiden will take out of her sleeve and therewith caress her thoughts with music, opening it to and fro as her fancy leads her, and perhaps finding there her song of songs, where hiddenly folding there, too, may be felt some flower token that she cherishes for remembrance, even as we treasure crushed pansies and violets. Be sure, the nature that we call human nature is much the same all the world over; in one land it is but a variant of that which it is in another. The love songs as usual come first in interest, and occupy a large share in the national music, both of Japan and China; but sentiment expends itself in many ways. One song is entitled the “Haunts of Pleasure,” it is an early composition and a still popular work, the theme of which is ever new in London as in Kyoto and Peking. Then in due course sentiment displays itself in nuptial songs and in songs of domestic life,—life, its comedies, tragedies, and what not; and then in funeral odes and lamentations. I notice how old the custom is of giving one or two lines of song for the voice, followed by an interlude for orchestra.
The ritual music of the Chinese is held to rest upon tradition mainly for its due performance, as there are no distinguishing signs for time and movement, and little or no attempt at expression; indeed, all meaning is left to be shown by the attitude of the singers, and what we should call theatrical movement.
All their music is, in fact, subordinated to the vocal performer, singer, or reciter; for dancing is with them as much a religious function as it was to the tribes of Israel in the days of Miriam or David. The singing as always in unison, or attempted unison, relieved occasionally by a few fourths. For of harmony they have no idea; no feeling for it. These people have no conception of the purpose of an orchestra, as we understand it. The Chinese orchestra is merely a combination of instruments which for ceremonial use alternate with the vocal music, each instrument having its allotted place for sounding at the end of some strophe or line of the hymn, and comes in much as our snatches of instrumental melody or harmony in recitative. There is generally some mystic reference understood by the hearers, as well as the indication of the particular point reached in the ritual ceremony; such as is conveyed, for instance, in the Catholic service when bells are sounded a precise number of times, or when at certain places only is the organ allowed to be heard. So with the Chinese, only at a certain stage of the progress of the ceremony are the stringed instruments ordered to play, and at another only the wind instruments, and at others the instruments of percussion of which they have so many varieties,—drums and chimes, gongs and cymbals, castanets and tambours, and tigers. The music exists for the ceremony; not for itself.