"like middle life between youth and old age," to use the expression of a friend who has listened to this music.[1]
The intermediate intonation of pien-Koung involves, as we have seen, a conspicuous violation of Chinese theoretical principles. Leaving now this note out of consideration, most of the intervals formed by the remainder still differ noticeably in these Samien songs from those of the prescribed Chinese scale. In the seven-step order, as given by theory, while fifths and fourths are perfectly embodied, no combinations of notes give more than an approximation to the other harmonic intervals, thirds and sixths.[2] For this reason diatonic thirds and sixths were not admitted by early theorists among the consonances. The Venetian musician, Zarlino, the first conspicuous authority to demand the abandonment of the Pythagorean theory of the scale, speaks in his Institutioni Harmoniche (1558) of the habitude of "participatione," by which the musicians of his day found it necessary to modify the theoretical thirds and sixths in practice for the better "contentment of the ear."[3] The European ear has never found itself contented by any Chinese performances, and Van Aalst seems to attribute this as well to the Pythagorean scale of the music as to the want of technical precision among the musicians of China.[4] Yet in these Samien scales we are unexpectedly confronted with a deviation of practice from the theoretical intervals, similar in character to the "participatione" of the Italians. The examination of the foregoing table (leaving pien-Koung out of consideration) shows that of the combinations of notes which are perfect fifths and
- ↑ In Professor J. P. N. Land's discussion of the Arabian scale (quoted by Mr. Ellis) he names the interval of about 350 cents, exemplified therein and in our songs, a neutral third. Mr. Ellis in describing the effect of a third of 355 cents reports it as so nearly a musical mean between the just major and minor thirds that a friend, on whose delicacy of perception he seems to have placed much reliance, "was quite unable to determine to which it most nearly approached in character" (p. 525).
- ↑ KChKpTTYpKK
In the scale2042042049020420490
FaSolLaSiDoReMiFa
Sol-Do = 498 c = Fourth, Do-Sol = 702 c Fifth, etc.;
Fa-La = 408 c = Major third + 22 c, La-Fa 792 c = Minor Sixth — 22, etc.
La-Do = 294 c Minor Third — 22 c, Do-La = 906 c = Major Sixth + 22 c, etc. - ↑ Ila Parte, Cap. 41.
- ↑ pp. 8, 21, 71, etc.
