The ou is an image of a sleeping tiger, and is a symbol of the power which man has over all other creatures. It is placed at the north-west of the other instruments, and is played at the close of a piece of music. Along the back of this image is a row of pegs; when the instrument is well played, six tones can be extracted from these wooden pegs, but usually the performance is ended by the player running the stick, by which the pegs are struck, swiftly along the whole row, and finishing with a couple of blows upon the tiger’s head. This is repeated three times as finale.
The tchung-tou cannot really be classed among musical instruments, since they are only the wooden plates upon which music was sometimes written; their moral is obvious; they bring back to memory the great invention of communication by means of written characters. But they also participate somewhat in the general clatter produced by the other wooden instruments; they are about fourteen inches long, and one inch wide, are twelve in number, to commemorate the twelve sounds of the scale, and serve to beat the measure of the music, by being struck lightly against the palm of the left hand. The twelve pieces are attached to each other by means of cords.
There is besides, a military instrument of wood (though also scarcely to be classed as musical) which is carved in the form of a fish, and is suspended in front of the general’s tent. When any person requires to see that official, he has but to strike this fish with two wooden sticks which are lying near by, and the audience is immediately granted; so greatly have the Chinese reduced language to various musical sounds, that by the mode of striking with the sticks, the applicant intimates, in a general manner, concerning what description of business the audience is requested.
There also exist in China a few other instruments of wood, from which regular series of tones can be produced, and upon which tunes can be played, but these latter seem not to be really Chinese in their origin, and are spoken of by the musical commentators of the country, as “strange instruments which have come into use in China.”
THE SOUND OF BAMBOO.
It seems, at first sight, as if this class of instruments should be placed under the head of “wood;” but the Chinese draw a very wide distinction between wood and bamboo, holding the latter in especial esteem, as being of all vegetation, the most useful to man; and they claim that nature in producing it, fitted it especially to the art of music. It is true that it required no great inventive faculty to extract tones from the hollow sticks of bamboo, and it is possible that music drawn from the bamboo was the earliest of the Chinese empire. One of the most famed of instruments made of this reed, is called the Koan-tsee. This is simply a set of pan’s pipes, arranged according to Chinese tonality; the superior (male) tones, called yang being given to one instrument, and the inferior (female) called yn to another, so that to have a melody in any modulations performed, two instruments and two musicians were required. This arrangement was too awkward to last forever; finally the two instruments were united in one, and instead of being weakly bound together by cord, as were the twelve pipes of the koan-tsee, two strips of thin board held the tubes in place; the number of pipes was also increased from twelve, to sixteen, and the new instrument called the siao.[113]
Of course the Chinese possess flutes, as well as other instruments of bamboo. The yo and ty are in some respects similar to our flutes, save that they have usually but three holes, and the tones have therefore to be produced by a more skillful use of the breath than is required on the European flute. An instrument of the flute family the use of which has become somewhat obsolete, is the tche. This is different from all other flutes, and is now but little played in China. The embouchure is exactly in the middle, both ends are stopped, and on each side of the embouchure are three holes. It was considered the most difficult of all flutes to play.
THE SOUND OF CALABASH.
The calabash is a gourd of pumpkin shape, but somewhat smaller. In the instrument which we are about to describe, we shall see that the calabash (called pao by the Chinese) really emits no sound, but serves only as an air reservoir for one of the most wonderful instruments of ancient times. The cheng, which is the only instrument in which the calabash is used, is in fact a portable organ, and when we consider that this intricate instrument was invented about four thousand years ago, we are lost in astonishment that the invention did not lead to greater results; yet the Chinese have frequently, in other sciences as well, advanced to the threshold of great discoveries.
We will not detail to the reader, all the legends, symbols, and mythology attached to the cheng; suffice it to say that animal, mineral and vegetable nature is represented by it, and that to each part of it is appended some mystical meaning. The gourd is pierced and cleaned, and an aperture made for the air to enter, then the ends of from thirteen to twenty-four pipes of bamboo are inserted into as many holes cut in the gourd; each of these pipes contains in it a tongue of copper or gold, the vibration of which causes the sound; beneath this is a hole cut in the bamboo, through which aperture the air rushes without giving any sound, but when the hole is stopped by pressing a finger upon it, the air having no other outlet, is forced up the pipe, and striking the metallic tongue, gives out an agreeable reed sound. A curved mouth-piece through which the performer is to blow, is introduced at the centre of the gourd. The cheng contains all the elements of the reed organ, and it would be a simple matter to produce harmonies with it, and yet with this instrument in the world for four thousand years, it remained for moderns (comparatively speaking,) to discover the art of combining different sounds; but the invention of so well-conceived a reed instrument in such remote ages, certainly entitles the ancient Chinese to the utmost respect of their unconscious imitators, the Europeans.