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Page 22
China also has its folk song, which seems to be an irrepressible
flower of the field in all countries. This also follows the
precepts of the sages in using only the five-note or pentatonic
scale found among so many other nationalities. It differs,
however, from the official or religious music, inasmuch as
that unrhythmic perfection of monotony, so loved by Confucius,
Mencius, and their followers, is discarded in favour of a style
more naturally in touch with human emotion. These folk songs
have a strong similarity to Scotch and Irish songs, owing to
the absence of the fourth and seventh degrees of the scale.
If they were really sung to the accompaniment of chords, the
resemblance would be very striking. The Chinese singing voice,
however, is not sonorous, the quality commonly used being a
kind of high, nasal whine, very far removed from what we call
music. The accompaniment of the songs is of a character most
discordant to European ears, consisting as it does mainly of
constant drum or gong beats interspersed with the shrill notes
of the _kin_, the principal Chinese stringed instrument. Ambros,
the historian, quotes a number of these melodies, but falls
into a strange mistake, for his version of a folk song called
"_Tsin-fa_" is as follows:
[Figure 01]
Now this is exactly as if a Chinaman, wishing to give his
countrymen an idea of a Beethoven sonata, were to eliminate
all the harmony and leave only the bare melody accompanied by
indiscriminate beats on the gong and a steady banging on two or
three drums of different sizes. This is certainly the manner
in which the little melody just quoted would be accompanied,
and not by European chords and rhythms.
If we could eliminate from our minds all thoughts of music and
bring ourselves to listen only to the _texture_ of sounds, we
could better understand the Chinese ideal of musical art. For
instance, if in listening to the deep, slow vibrations of a
large gong we ignore completely all thought of pitch, fixing
our attention only upon the roundness and fullness of the sound
and the way it gradually diminishes in volume without losing
any of its pulsating colour, we should then realize what the
Chinese call music. Confucius said, "When the music master Che
first entered on his office, the finish with the _Kwan-Ts'eu_
(Pan's-pipes) was magnificent--how it filled the ears!" And
that is just what Chinese music aims to do, it "fills the ears"
and therefore is "magnificent."[03]
With their views as to what constitutes the beautiful in music
it is not strange that the Chinese find our music detestable. It
goes too fast for them. They ask, "Why play another entirely
different kind of sound until one has already enjoyed to
the full what has gone before?" As they told P�re Amiot
many years ago: "Our music penetrates through the ear to the
heart, and from the heart to the soul; that your music cannot
do." Amiot had played on a harpsichord some pieces by Rameau
("_Les Cyclopes_," "_Les Charmes_," etc.) and much flute music,
but they could make nothing of it.
According to their conception of music, sounds must follow one
another slowly, in order to pass through the ears to the heart
and thence to the soul; therefore they went back with renewed
satisfaction to their long, monotonous chant accompanied by
a pulsating fog of clangour.
Some years ago, at the time of that sudden desire of China,
or more particularly of Li Hung Chang, to know more of
occidental civilization, some Chinese students were sent
by their government to Berlin to study music. After about a
month's residence in Berlin these students wrote to the Chinese
government asking to be recalled, as they said it would be
folly to remain in a barbarous country where even the most
elementary principles of music had not yet been grasped.
To go deeply into the more technical side of Chinese music
would be a thankless task, for in the Chinese character
the practical is entirely overshadowed by the speculative.
All kinds of fanciful names are given to the different tones,
and many strange ideas associated with them. Although our modern
chromatic scale (all but the last half-tone) is familiar to
them, they have never risen to a practical use of it even to
this day. The Chinese scale is now, as it always has been,
one of five notes to the octave, that is to say, our modern
major scale with the fourth and seventh omitted.
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