Ancient China
All of Chinese music relates to the unchanging Primal Vibration, which is represented as the fundamental tone of the harmonic series (the drone). This Primal Note changed through the centuries, so while one could compose Chinese-style music grounded in F (as it was for many centuries), other kingdoms re-measured their world and re-pitched their instruments to G or other notes. Thus, the Primal Note changes depending on who is in power! The huang chung foundation tone was created by a pipe generating that perfect “yellow tone.” The pipe’s length became the standard unit of Chinese measurement. The Chinese unit of volume was determined by the amount of rice it could contain. The weight of all that rice in the pipe became the standard unit of weight. The volume of the sounding of the pipe’s pitch became the unit of volume. Thus did music become the “Holy Grail” of Chinese civilization (David Tame, The Secret Power of Music, 1984)
The ancient Chinese also developed a twelve-note chromatic scale around the same time as their original pentatonic scale. This became the basis for the first known astrological system (as well as the I Ching). Each sign of the zodiac had a note associated with it, and movement from one sign to another was a kind of “cosmic” modulation. Depending on which dynasty ruled in China, the twelve houses of the moon were associated with the following notes of this 12-note chromatic 3-limit ancient Chinese scale (we’ll use G as our starting point as some of the later emperors did):
Figure 6-2 Scales and Astrology
Chinese Lu Chromatic Scale, 3-limit lattice: C –G – D – A – E – B – F# –C# –G# — D# — A# — E#:
Lu Chromatic Scale bottom to top: G – G# — A – A# — B – C – C# — D – D# — E – E# — F# — G
*Simple* [A chance to hear ancient scales in their original tunings]
The noble-minded man’s music is mild and delicate, keeps a uniform mood, and enlivens and moves. — Confucius
To talk about the tunings of ancient scales without some understanding of the central role their music played in their ethical, spiritual and political systems would seem somehow incomplete. Without going too deeply into the world’s esoterica as we explore these ancient scales, we’ll also say a few words about why these musical traditions were important to them. This is not to encourage an attempt to recreate the music of the ancients, but simply to offer the opportunity for you as a composer to decide whether you want to imbue your music with at least a whiff of the ancient culture from which your chosen scales are derived. My choice so far has been to offer a musical glimpse into these cultures but to stand in the 21st century, writing music that is not primarily guided by the traditions of the ancients. You may want to stay closer to the ancient traditions and write dronal music that never changes keys,
If you’re a historical purist, you will never mix musical cultures via multi-cultural scales in a single work, etc. If you see yourself as a 21st century composer moving forward from the past, you may choose to just take all these scales from around the world and run with the ones that sound really cool too you!
As I mentioned in Chapter Two, around 2700 B.C., the Chinese Ling Lun, court musician to Emperor Huang-Ti, standardized a 3-limit pentatonic (five-note) scale. He considered this to be the only true consonance and rejected the harmonic possibilities of the fifth harmonic (thirds) and higher. His bamboo pipes employed the ratios 1/1 (In the key of C, this would be C), 9/8 (D), 81/64 (E four perfect fifths up from C), 3/2 (G), 27/16 (A three perfect fifths up from C), and 2/1 (C an octave higher). Figure 6-1 is a visual and auditory representation of this most ancient of scales.
Figure 6-1: Ling Lun’s 4700 year old Three-Limit Pentatonic Scale
C (1/1) – G (3/2) – D (9/8 – A (27/16) – E (81/64) or as a pentatonic scale in C: C – D – E – G –A –C
Almost everyone discovers this pentatonic scale at the piano. Starting at F#, just play all the black notes going up. Notice that when you play only black notes at the piano, there is no dissonance. Every note blends with every other note, and you can noodle your way forever through beautiful chords, clusters, melodies without ever hitting a wrong note. And here is how close the piano keys are to the pure tunings of just intonation: from C, G = 2 cents sharp, D = 4 cents sharp, A = 6 cents sharp, E = 8 cents sharp. I’d grade the 3-limit approximations in 12-eq with a “B”!
Music was seen by the Chinese as a raw force of Nature, which humanity could use for good or ill according to their free will. The symbol for the word for music, Yüo, is the same as the Chinese symbol for serenity, which is the goal of Chinese (and much of traditional Asian) music. This is why the ancient Chinese theorists who worked out the math for a 12-eq scale rejected it: there’s no serenity in it. Music could affect emotions, physical health, and spiritual well-being. One Chinese text asserts that “To sing well will strengthen the spine.” Confucius condemned several of his musical contemporaries for their deleterious effects on listeners: “The music of Cheng is lewd and corrupting; the music of Sung is soft and makes one effeminate; the music of Wei is repetitious and annoying; and the music of Ch’I is harsh and makes one haughty.” Ideal music “is mild and delicate, keeps a uniform mood, enlivens and moves. Such a man does not harbor pain or mourning; violent and daring movements are foreign to him… If one should desire to know whether a kingdom is well governed, if its morals are good or bad, the quality of its music will furnish the answer.” Imagine Confucius voting at the Grammys today!
The outer four strings of the Chinese zither connect to the four seasons and the four aspects of humanity: the abstract mind, the concrete mind, the emotions and the physical body (European alchemists further connected these aspects to Fire, Air, Water and Earth). The central Kung string represents one’s spiritual nature.
All of Chinese music relates to the unchanging Primal Vibration (which is represented dronally as the fundamental tone of the harmonic series). This Primal Note changed through the centuries, so while one could compose Chinese-style music grounded in F (as it was for many centuries), other kingdoms re-measured their world and re-pitched their instruments to G or other notes (thus, the Primal Note changes depending on who is in power!!). The huang chung foundation tone was created by a pipe generating that perfect “yellow tone.” The pipe’s length became the standard unit of Chinese measurement. The Chinese unit of volume was determined by the amount of rice it could contain. The weight of all that rice in the pipe became the standard unit of weight. The volume of the sounding of the pipe’s pitch became the unit of volume. Thus did music become the Holy Grail of Chinese civilization.
The ancient Chinese also developed a twelve-note chromatic scale around the same time as their original pentatonic scale, which became the basis for the first known astrological system (as well as the I Ching). Each sign of the zodiac had a note associated with it, and movement from one sign to another was a kind of cosmic modulation. Depending on which dynasty ruled in China, the twelve houses of the moon were associated with the following notes of this 12-note chromatic 3-limit ancient Chinese scale (we’ll use G as our starting point as some of the later emperors did):
Figure 6-2 Scales and Astrology
Chinese Lu Chromatic Scale, 3-limit lattice: C –G – D – A – E – B – F# –C# –G# — D# — A# — E#:
Lu Chromatic Scale bottom to top: G – G# — A – A# — B – C – C# — D – D# — E – E# — F# — G
Houses of the Moon: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 1
Hours of the Day: 3 5 7 9 11 1 3 5 7 9 11 1 3
Audible sound was believed to be a physical manifestation of these twelve “Cosmic Tones.” They also believed that every human, animal and plant body has a sound, and that musical harmony is about relatedness and balance of the forces of yin and yang (masculine and feminine). The Chinese, and other cultures, also cared very much about pitch. In this book I usually start at the note C for simplicity around accidentals etc., but Chinese music (or for that matter, ancient music of India and Arabia etc) did not generally use the pitch of C as their preferred Primal Vibration. The individual pitches themselves were vibrant, real, radiant, living forces bursting with feeling.
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