Such a detailed examination of the Chinese performances of our collection forms the foundation of the present discussion. I have to thank President Low for the permission to carry on this work at Columbia College. An account of the method employed and of a set of experiments made to determine its accuracy and that of the phonograph will form the subject of an appendix to this paper. (See next number of the Review.)[1]
The fixation of a definite interval-order which shall serve as the scale of their performances is the starting-point of Chinese musical theory. All the different pitches which are used in a given piece of music, taken together embody a certain set of intervals arranged in a certain order from low to high. The fact of scale in music is the fact that in general in the music of one age and race different pieces embody in this way the same order of intervals, or one or other of a few different orders. Scales are the generic interval-orders of compositions. According to the prescriptions of Chinese theory all their music embodies one interval-order or scale, which may be varied by the omission of one or both of two subsidiary notes. This scale consists of notes repeated in octaves. A note and its octave are called by the same name in China, and are apparently looked upon as essentially the same thing.[2] Evidence of this identification of octaves in the Chinese mind is given in the song, Yen-jee-quaw-chang, where among the slight variations of the second performance in one place the melody follows its previous course for several notes at an octave below the original pitch. Five primary intervals span an octave in the Chinese scale, the two intermediate notes which are used in a subsidiary way increasing this number to seven. These pentatonic and heptatonic octave divisions originated according to Chinese
- ↑ Chinese musical practice has been hitherto very little studied. Père Amiot gives in European notation a part of a temple hymn. Père du Halde in A Description of the Empire of China, London, 1791 (translation), vol. ii, p. 125, gives the notes of five songs. John Barrow, in Travels in China, 2 ed., London, 1806, pp. 316-322, gives the notes of ten songs, and p. 81, a boatman's chorus exhibiting a rudimentary canonic imitation. Van Aalst gives nine pieces, expressly stating, p. 22, that they can only be approximately rendered in European notation. None of these songs are included in our collection.
- ↑ Van Aalst, p. 18.
