Visible Music: Instruments

Author: Xi Hailin, Wang Zichu
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2001-01-01
Features: Zhongxiang Xianlu Wei Xiao Luo (a small gong) was unearthed in Zhongxiang City, Hubei Province in 1986 from Xianling. Xianling was built in the 19th year of the Jiajing era of the Ming Dynasty (1540 AD), serving as the tomb of Prince Xingshao, the father of Emperor Shizong of the Ming Dynasty. Other musical instruments unearthed alongside it include a set of small cymbals. The gong has a thick casting with visible forging marks. One side of the rim is wider and features two small holes for hanging a rope. Made of bronze, this instrument is smaller than similar musical instruments and is largely preserved. At the center of the gong surface, a hemispherical "pao" (navel) is cast, serving as the striking point. In musical activities, it can be used as a percussion instrument in various theatrical and instrumental performances, or as a signaling device in daily life. The history of Chinese music is a striking and exhilarating wave in the long river of Chinese cultural history; its history far predates recorded history. As early Homo sapiens in China, our ancestors began playing the earliest music of China in the early Neolithic period on the vast land where the Chinese nation has thrived. The Jiahu Bone Flute, as a convincing historical witness, traces the origins of Chinese folk music back to approximately nine thousand years ago. In this sense, the historical and cultural value of this instrument surpasses that of countless myths and legends! Music is a culture, and culture is a "verb." Musical culture is passed down from generation to generation and evolves over time. This continuous transformation of "civilizing and refining" is reflected in the field of cultural relics through the preservation of various musical instruments, their surviving musical forms and tones, the depiction and shaping of musical activities through images, and certain written records, enabling modern people to understand the music history of the past. As we have recognized, music exists in life as a living presence. This presence has conceptual, behavioral, and formal dimensions. At the formal level, in addition to auditory form, there is also the existence of material form. The material form discussed here belongs to "civilizing and refining," including various musical instruments. Of course, musical activities in historical life are also reflected through various art carriers (e.g., painting, sculpture, pottery) or symbols (e.g., musical scores), and such historical remnants also belong to musical cultural relics. Although musical instruments cannot speak, through our pitch measurement, recording, analysis, and understanding of related cultural relics and historical and cultural knowledge, these instruments can reveal much to us. Because these material forms of music, in different ways, embody the various conceptual and psychological aspects of musical culture. Therefore, when we measure the pitch scale of the Jiahu Bone Flute, we can understand the earliest seven-tone musical concept in China; the intervals and scales produced on some pottery ocarinas preserve the primitive yet precious auditory psychological structures and modes of thought of our ancestors; from an ethnological perspective, bone whistles may have initially been used as sound imitation tools in hunting. However, the long-term use of such tools developed the musical intelligence of our ancestors, cultivating their aesthetic auditory perception of pitch and intervals. Thus, in its evolution, it acquired a dual value of both practical and aesthetic significance—a quality shared by many primitive