upon the art, the contents of which are but slightly known to us. The details of music at state and religious functions are supervised by an imperial bureau, and degrees in music are given on examination. Yet the popular use of music is limited, being largely in the hands of traveling beggars (often blind).
The tone-system is theoretically complicated. Its basis is
probably tetrachordal, like the Greek, but in practice it tends
to a pentatonic scale, discarding semitones. But the division
of the octave into twelve semitones is also known and in theory
is applied somewhat intricately. The rhythms of song are
emphatic and almost always duple. Some rudiments of harmony
are known, but are rarely used except for tuning.
The tones of the pentatonic series may be roughly represented by our
tones f, g, a, c, d. They bear fantastic Chinese names—'Emperor,'
'Prime Minister,' 'Subject People,' 'State-Affairs,' 'Picture of the Universe.'
For each there is a written character, so that melodies can be
recorded in a letter-like notation, written vertically. Many melodies
have been transcribed by foreign students. Their pentatonic basis gives
them a peculiar quaintness, recalling old Scottish songs. In 1809 Weber
took one of these as the theme for his overture to Schiller's Turandot,
but such adaptations are extremely rare.
One peculiarity of Chinese speech has musical significance. The language consists almost wholly of monosyllables, each of which has different meanings according to the 'tone' or melodic inflection with which it is pronounced. It is possible that these 'tones,' which are four or five in number, have relation to song. At all events, dignified or poetic utterance tends towards chanting or cantillation.
It is interesting that in cases where European music has been introduced by missionaries it has sometimes been adopted with astonishing ease and enthusiasm, extending even to elaborate part-singing.
Chinese instruments are numerous and important. But it is
uncertain which of them are indigenous and which are borrowed
from other parts of Asia. Native writers say that nature
provided eight sound-producing materials—skin, stone, metal,
clay, wood, bamboo, silk, gourd—and classify their instruments
accordingly.
Thus dressed skin is used in manifold tambourines and drums, with
one or two heads, the sizes running up to large tuns mounted on a pedestal.
Stone appears in plates of jade or agate, single or in graduated
sets, hung by cords from a frame and sounded by a mallet or beater, producing
a smooth, sonorous tone. Metal is wrought chiefly into bells,
gongs and cymbals of many shapes and sizes (the gongs sometimes
arranged in graduated sets), but also into long, slender trumpets. Clay
