General

In chapters 1 and 2 we described some of the radical innovations that took place within neolithic cultures. The transition from societies based on hunting and gathering to farming and cattle-raising communities led, as we have seen, to:

• settlement in villages;
• economies capable of producing a surplus;
• the development of relatively sophisticated tools and utensils;
• population increase;
• greater division of labour;
• the establishment of a warrior class and patriarchy;
• social stratification.

Villages became larger, some of them developing into fortified cities, such as Jericho (c. 7000 BP) or Susa (Iran, c. 6000 BP). This is the start of civilisation, not in the meaning of good manners or enlightenment but in the real sense of the word, civitas being Latin for `city state' or `city folk', civis meaning `citizen' and civilis meaning relating to people living in cities (citizens) or to public life in cities.1

Together with a climatic change leading to the dehydration of vast areas from North West Africa through the Middle East to Central Asia, Kirghizia and the Gobi, increases in population forced people to migrate to fertile river valleys. Such cultures, a.k.a. `hydraulic societies', developed into riverine civilisations2 in Egypt along the Nile and in its delta (from c. 4000 BP), in Mesopotamia3 along the Tigris and Euphrates (from c. 3000 BP), in China along the Huang Ho (from c. 2500 BP) and in India along the Indus (from c. 2000 BP). Common denominators for these cultures were:

• agrarian economy;
• skills in working metals;
• high division of labour and hierarchical social stratification;
• cities as centres of trade and administration, as well as of cultural, religious and political power;
• monarchy of warriors with courts composed of family and close associates;4
• systematisation of weights and measures;
• knowledge of astronomy and mathematics;
• priesthood derived from the rainmen and magicians of earlier cultures;
• scribal traditions established at court and in religion;
• totem images of animals and other fertility symbols as gods with their own names and temples;
• prayers and epic stories of heroic deeds and other occurrences to cement the state religiously, culturally and historically; such epics recited or sung to instrumental accompaniment;
• music considered an important phenomenon, able to influence people's state of mind and to create balance and harmony in the social hierarchy as well as between heaven and earth;
• class differences parallelled by differences in musical styles and habits;
• music as a profession;
• theory and aesthetics of music amongst ruling classes.5

 

Egypt

1. Old Kingdom tomb fresco representing a feast for the dead. Each musician is led by a cheironomer. According to Hickmann (1961), the hieroglyphics above the musicians mean `sing and make the sign to play' for flute, clarinet and harp.

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It is perhaps appropriate to start this account of music in ancient riverine civilisations with Egypt for two reasons: (i) it is probably the earliest of such civilisations; (ii) many of the general observations about Ancient Egyptian civilisation apply to the other riverine cultures accounted for subsequently.6

The history of Ancient Egyptian civilisation is usually divided into five main periods: (i) The Two Kingdoms (c.4000-2850 BP), (ii) The Old Kingdom (2850-2052 BP), (iii) The Middle Kingdom (2052-1570 BP), (iv) The Empire or New Kingdom (1570-715) and (v) The Late Period (715-332 BP). It is The Old Kingdom, including its several dynasties of Pharaoh kings, that is of particular interest here. Before presenting a brief summary of music during that period, however, it is important to bear in mind that sources of information from the period are, by virtue of their almost exclusively iconographic character, open to considerable interpretation and that the following account constitutes no more than a summary of just one set of such interpretations.

Egypt during the time of the Pharaohs was a complex society. Agriculture, the basis of Egyptian prosperity, was totally dependent on the right amount of water coming down the Nile. Unfortunately there was often too little (drought) or too much (flooding).7 The waters had therefore to be regulated. This meant carrying out works of civil engineering for purposes of irrigation and flood protection, i.e. digging canals and ditches, erecting dams, dikes and embankments etc. Such construction demanded that some people -- the happy few with suitable education and `background' -- would specialise in measuring, planning, calculating and administrating, while others -- the majority -- would have to do the actual digging, lifting, carting and dragging.

As with many riverine civilisations, the ruling classes of Ancient Egypt imported cheap labour in the form of slaves from peoples living in areas conquered by their army.8 Some slaves (such as the Hebrew Joseph, son of Jacob) may have ended up as household servants, concubines, dancers and musicians at court or in the homes of the Egyptian rich and famous but the vast majority were forced to labour under extremely harsh conditions. It is they, not the Pharaohs, who built the canals, dikes, temples, pyramids, monuments and statues that Europeans visit as tourist sites. Such an oppressive and complex society presupposes some kind of social order regulating conflicts of interest between groups inside the society.

Egyptian society in the time of the Pharaohs was singularly hierarchical. At the top of the social pyramid was Pharaoh, hereditary king, incarnation of the god Horus (`hawk') and revered son of the sun god Ra (or Re). This position as god in state religion was instrumental in ensuring that the monarchy seemed to be as immutable as the gods and other powers who were supposed to hold sway of life, death and life beyond death. Executive power was wielded on an absolute basis by Pharaoh, his court and its officials. This organisation of power included a complex legal system upheld by courts of law and religious institutions. It also meant extreme centralisation and the hierarchical ordering of society into sharply differentiated classes. These were, in descending order, Pharaoh (as God), other rulers, priests, warriors, officials, craftsmen, traders, peasants, servants and slaves. Since economic life was based on the exchange of natural produce, the state's revenue came from taxation on grains and domestic animals as well as from the obligatory labour services subjects were obliged to contribute. Underwritten in this way by the labour of the slaves and general populace, the centralised state administration could employ officials, known as writers or scribes, serving under a chief minister, all of whom were chosen from the nobility by Pharaoh and appointed by him. Such organisation of the state also meant that professional musicians could also be hired and fired by the court.

Although very little is known about the music of peasants and slaves during the time of the Pharaohs, information about the music, and to some extent the musical views, of the ruling classes has reached us, thanks to their belief that you could take what you had in this life to the next one. There is plentiful evidence of music from the time of the Pharaohs in the form of wall paintings, frescoes, writings, instruments etc. found in the graves, pyramids and mausoleums of the elite. In fact our scanty knowledge of the music of the people in Ancient Egypt comes also from such sources, e.g. that flutes were played at harvest time, that there was sometimes music during pauses in manual work, that grape treading was accompanied by music, that rowing was made easier and more efficient if music was played and that herders were wont to sing during their labours.9 Similar sources also suggest that the ruling classes had a clear view of differences in musical style and habit between themselves and the popular majority, e.g. that highly popular music of foreign origin performed by women in inns and in public places was to be frowned down upon (see picture).10

The ruling classes imagined that a god had created the world with a hand sign, i.e. the same gesture that Pharaoh might make to command an action or the same hand gesture -- the cheironome -- used by musicians portrayed in paintings and reliefs on the walls of tombs (see Old Kingdom tomb fresco).11 Some researchers have used the visual connection between different cheironomes and particular fingering or hand positions on different instruments to interpret the cheironomes of Ancient Egypt in the following way. With the cheironomer seated on the ground, thumb against index finger, elbow on knee and forearm at 45° meant `tonic' or `drone note'; the same hand sign with the forearm at 90° meant the octave above; an open palm meant the melodic `dominant' or main recitation tone and so on. On the rhythm side, an open palm brought down on to the thigh has been interpreted as denoting an accentuated beat or a long note, while other beats or note values are thought to be signalled by bringing together the thumb and each of the four fingers of the hand (Uddling 1976: 318).

We can only speculate as to why the music of the ruling classes in Ancient Egypt needed such a system of hand signs to regulate their music. One plausible reason is that in an ordered society those doing the ordering feel the need to maintain that order and to keep control not just economically and socially but also culturally and musically. This is especially true if more than several musicians are performing at the same time and if, as already mentioned, the power of the state is explicitly related to notions of the supernatural and eternal. Thus, official music associated with either state religion or the royal court (remember Pharaoh is a god) must be seen and heard to have lasting qualities that outlive and seem to transcend the changing social and economic conditions of individuals and groups of individuals within the state. Even with forms of musical notation or sound recording it is difficult enough to preserve musical practices from one generation to another. The ruling classes of Ancient Egypt never really developed any form of notation and cheironomes were used not only as direct instructions to musicians but probably also as aides-memoire to help regulate music so that it would sound the same each time it was performed. Indeed, it is worth remembering here that the Egyptians also worshipped music gods, one of whom was Hesu, characterised as both musician and cheironomer or conductor. In his presence, not to mention Pharaoh's, it must have been worth trying to get the music `right' and cheironomes were used to help do just that.

This ordered and regulated music was primarily destined for ceremonies of state religion, to glorify Pharaoh, the gods and the spirits of the dead.12 The Royal Being was even woken up with song so that his day would pass in peace and musicians (along with harvesters, craftsmen, soldiers, his harem and dancing girls) followed Pharaoh into the grave so that he could live his afterlife in the manner to which he was accustomed this side of death.

1. Female musicians from the New Kingdom (1580-1090 BP) (a) Young women, sumptuously clothed, playing long-necked lutes, double shawms and drum. Perfumed wax cones on their heads would melt in the heat, giving off pleasant odours. (b) Girls waving lotus flowers and shaking sistra to the honour of the god Hathor. The sistrum was a holy rattle instrument. Girls were taught arts of sistrum playing and hand clapping..

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Some extant wall paintings found in pyramids are in fact so meticulous that it is possible to see and recreate the instruments of the time, complete with accurately measured fretboards, finger-hole placement, string fixtures etc., even to the extent that such re-creations tally exactly with the corresponding archaeologically preserved artifacts rediscovered later than the paintings representing them. Moreover, some frescoes can be seen as representing a sequence of movements -- ancient animation drawings or comic strips, so to speak -- so that, for example, dancing girls playing tambourines are portrayed in slightly different positions, one following another, this giving a hint of the kinds of movement used in one sort of dance at the royal courts.13

It is also possible to deduce from observations of images portraying music making that there were changes in the construction of instruments and in the way they were played. In fact it seems as if gapped pentatonic scales (of doh- and la-pentatonic type, as found in Nilo-Sudanic areas of Africa and as preserved in the music of the Coptic church), which were very common during the Old and Middle Kingdoms (2850-1570 BP), were superseded in the New Kingdom by scales containing intervals of a semitone or less (more `Arabic' and less `African' to our ears).14

Such changes in tonal system were almost certainly due to frequent Egyptian warmongering which brought about continual contact with the musical cultures of neighbouring peoples such as the Hebrews and Assyrians. Complete court ensembles belonging to foreign potentates were acquired in this way and brought to Pharaoh's court, where the appearance of foreign artists was always regarded as an extra treat. Soldiers, however, were warned by state moralists of the time against the sweet sounds of foreign music and against the good looks of foreign women, perhaps with `good' reason, for, as we just mentioned, at some time during The Middle Kingdom the music of Asia Minor and the East appears to have made substantial inroads in Egypt, to the extent that the old pentatonic system had virtually disappeared by the middle of The New Kingdom. This is also the period during which the lyre, lute and shawm entered Egypt. It is also the time when, with the rising importance of trade as a basis for economy, the middle classes started using music as sonic-aesthetic decoration, i.e. as entertainment to listen to or to hear in the background, rather than as a set of practices intimately connected to state religion or the court.

Perhaps this course of events confirmed the fears of learned men in the old Pharaonic court: that the order and rule of God or gods on earth, upheld by the self-appointed keepers of divine seals here below, will crumble and fall when the old order of divine music falls into disarray. There is something disconcertingly familiar about this line of thought ...

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Fresco of nomads (c. 2000 BP, found in an Egyptian aristocrat’s burial chamber). Note the armed men, the finely clad women and the young man playing a lyre.

Mesopotamia

Mesopotamia ( μεσος = middle, ποταμος = river) is the ancient Greek name for the once highly fertile land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in what is now Iraq. The history of Mesopotamian civilisations is usually divided into three main periods: (i) the Sumerian (c. 3000 BP); (ii) the Babylonian (c. 2500 BP); (iii) the Assyrian (c. 500 BP). Our knowledge of these ancient civilisations is based mainly on archaeological and iconographic sources, including reliefs, panels (see Relief from palace of King Assurbanipal), sculptures, seals (see Bull bodied lyre) etc. and, to a lesser extent, on literary evidence.'

PICTURE - SEE PDF VERSION. Bull bodied lyre a from a Sumerian seal

Kinder & Hilgemann (1978:27-28) summarise political, religious and cultural life during the Sumerian period (c. 3000 BP) in the following terms.

`The land was divided into city states. The centres of the cities were the monumental temples erected on rising terraces of bricks, the walls decorated with coloured plugs of clay in mosaic fashion. They were located in districts dedicated to the god to whom the land belonged. Possessors of political power and the chief of the high priests were the local princes'... `They dominated both priesthood and city. Writing (first pictographs, later abstract symbols, scratched into tablets of soft clay with slate pencils -- cuneiform)15 was used in the administration of the temple'... `The sexagesimal numerical system divided the time of the day (24 hours, 60 minutes, 60 seconds) and the circle (360º).

The Sumerians seem to have been fervent animists. Their god of thunder, Ramman, destroyed crops with his storms, while Ea, god of wisdom, music and the deep, flooded their fields. To appease these gods, the Sumerians used musical instruments in temple rituals: a reed pipe which they believed to represent Ramman's breath and an hour-glass drum marked with the sign of Ea. They also seem to have used string instruments quite extensively, most notably the lyre. This instrument seems to have been associated with the bull, a fertility symbol of divine power, as can be seen from the numerous finds of lyres with tearing shaped soundboxes. Similar lyres are also found on seals that were used to guarantee safe delivery of supplies within the temple area of the city (fig. See Bull bodied lyre a from a Sumerian seal).

Percussion instruments also seem to have been important in both Sumerian and Babylonian music making. Apart from the sistrum (rattle) and clappers, both common in the music of ancient Egypt, the small drum ( tambour ) became widespread during the Babylonian period and was later adopted by the Arabs, Greeks and Romans. Larger drums also existed, as the table of ritual instructions from Uruk, shown in the next illustration., suggests in its instructions for the manufacture of a sacred kettle drum.16

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1. Instructions, in cuneiform text, for construction of a sacred drum (Uruk, c.2000 BP). Translation: ‘The bull, once tamed, is brought to the temple on a day deemed propitious by edict of the oracular priest. Gifts are sacrificed to Ea, the god of wisdom and music, and to other gods. The bull is placed on a red mat which is covered with sand. After the oblations and incense, a torch is lit and hymns are sung in praise of the bull, at which time twelve bronze images are laid upon a cloth. The images show the gods of heaven, earth and the underworld. The body of the instrument is then brought in. The priest speaks into the bull’s ear. The bull’s breath is sweetened by fragrant oils. Then the beast is killed, his heart burnt and, with due ceremony, his hide prepared as a drum skin. After fourteen days, new ceremonies are conducted, at which time the drum may enter into the collection of the temple god.’

1. Relief from palace of King Assurbanipal (883-859, Assyrian period). These sturdy harps contained as many as 22 strings strung at right angles to the resonance box, while Sumerian bow harps were relatively simple instruments.

During the Akkad dynasty (2350-2300 BP) and the third dynasty of Ur (2050-1950 BP), ultimate state power was in the hand of warrior kings whose rule was considered divine.17 The wealth of the ruling classes derived not only from exploitation of the local peasantry but also from trade (wars) with other peoples, for example Elamites, Canaanites and Egyptians. All land was owned by the temple, the crown and the nobility. Mass deportations were carried out to destroy the substance and the national consciousness of subjected peoples. The spoils of such aggression helped underwrite `a highly developed temple and state economy which involved a vast bureaucratic apparatus' (Kinder & Hilgemann 1978: 27) .

New city states were established, including Babylon itself ( Babili = God's gate), whose most stable period was around 1700 BP. It was around that time that 20,000 clay tablets were completed, most of them recording the appearance of prophets at sites of sacred cults, and that major literary works, such as The Epic of the Creation of the World and the Gilgamesh epic, were written down. Laws governing life and property were also formulated during this period on the principle `an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth'. Punishments, which originally ranged from whipping and maiming to execution (impaling, burning, drowning), were later extended to include castration, the puncturing of ear drums, and the application of boiling asphalt to faces.18

`Nothing is known', writes Stauder (1995: 199), `of any organised popular or secular music' [in Mesopotamia]; `depictions of shepherds or herdsmen playing instruments', he continues, `and corresponding cuneiform signs have been frequently misunderstood. They were symbolic and often connected with Tammuz, the god of plant life'. On the other hand, quite a lot seems to be known about the ritual uses of music among the ruling classes which was governed by clear rules of aesthetic procedure and education.

As with the Vedic chants of India (see here), the melodies of Sumerian temple ritual were orally transmitted, and skills of their correct performance were included as part of a priest's education. Although no specialised music schools seem to have existed, a few academic institutions, covering all disciplines, including music and its theory, were founded during the Babylonian period.

`The training of a musician was rigorous; for a temple musician, it lasted about three years and concluded with an examination. The subjects of instruction included the sacred texts that had to be spoken, recited or sung, as well as performance on a number of instruments' (Stauder 1995: 200) .

Just as in Egypt, music accompanied the rich and powerful from birth to death and beyond. Music was also an integral part of daily liturgy in the temple, it occurred at annual festivals, on special occasions, such as the completion of a temple, at funerals, etc. Detailed rules of procedure governed how which music on which instruments should be used for what purpose on which occasion. An example of this prescriptive function of court music occurs not long before the fall of Babylon.19

`Nebuchadnezzar the king made an image of gold, whose height was threescore cubits'... [He] `sent to gather together the princes, the governors, and the captains, the judges, the treasurers, the counsellors, the sheriffs, and all the rulers of the provinces, to come to the dedication of the image'... `Then a herald cried aloud, To you it is commanded, O people, nations, and languages, that at what time ye hear the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, dulcimer, and all kinds of musick, ye fall down and worship the golden image that Nebuchadnezzar the king hath set up; and whoso falleth not down and worshippeth shall the same hour be cast into the midst of a burning fiery furnace' (Daniel 3: 1-7) .

As Crossley-Holland (1959:16) notes:

`The mention of the instruments first separately and then together suggests a performance where prominence was given to the solo instruments before the ensemble got under way, as in the taqsim or prelude of Arabic classical music to this day.'20

Indeed, the influence of Mesopotamia on subsequent music cultures, especially that of the Arab world, goes a good deal further than just suggested. Such influence is particularly strong in the area of music education, theory and aesthetics, as we shall see shortly.

We know that in early Sumerian times (fourth millennium BP), priests, mathematicians, astrologers and musicians had all worked together in the temple. We also know that, towards the end of the Mesopotamian period (first millennium BP), music theory was closely connected with astrology and mathematics. Just as in ancient Egypt, the idea was that if you knew the motions of the stars, if you believed in their sway over human destiny, then you understood the perfect harmony of the universe. If you believed humans to be part of the universe, you could then become one with the universe by making music which abided by the rules of its harmony. Of course, music conforming to such rules was that of the temple and court, while that of other classes and peoples presumably failed to make the grade. Thus, an oppressive political system could be identified with a system of musical organisation which coincided with the immutable system of the universe. Like the deification of the worldly system's kings, such metaphysical connections between the ruling classes, their music and the heavenly spheres, contributed to the illusion that their unjust political system was as great, as divine, as eternal, as unquestionable and as unchangeable as the universe.

The connection between music and the universe, just mentioned, was based on acoustic observation and mathematical speculation. One notion was that the primary divisions of a stretched string -- expressed as the mathematical ratios 1:1 (unison), 1:2 (octave), 2:3 (fifth) and 3:4 (fourth) -- not only define octaves and tetrachords, but are also related to the four seasons. Cuneiform texts also indicate that the Babylonians used an octave containing seven different pitches, that they were familiar with the circle of fifths, and that they used seven different modes, each based on one of the seven different pitches of the same octave. Several authors also state that there is reason to believe that Pythagoras (sixth century BP), after extensive studies in both Egypt and Mesopotamia, brought back knowledge of harmonics and scales to Greece, where he and his disciples developed their own theories of the harmony of the spheres, including the notion of ethos (modal character and affect) that was later, via Arabic treatises, to influence music theory in medieval Europe. It is in other words generally accepted that Mesopotamian notions of music theory were influential in Egypt, India, Palestine, Greece, the Arab world and medieval Europe. Even Chinese high culture may also have been influenced by them, at least if we are to lend any credence to the story of music's origins in the western boundaries of the Emperor Huangti's territory (c. 2000 BP)21...

China

Around 3000 BP life in China was mainly semi-nomadic. By 2000 BP, however, agriculture had developed and people had cultivated the fertile valleys of the Yangzi and Yellow rivers.22 This period is recorded in myths, subsequently written down, about demigods and legendary emperors, each of whom is said to have had his own musical system (Crossley-Holland 1959: 42).

The Shang dynasty (1766-1122 BP) was a feudal monarchy under a warrior king who, like the Pharaohs and many English monarchs, was also religious leader. As in Egypt and Mesopotamia, the cities, incorporating temple structures, were fortified by walls while script was developed and used by oracular priests in the Daoist religion. Dao, meaning `The Way', was the principle governing the ordered universe, the `sublime heavens', nature and the spirits of ancestors.

There are tangible remains from this period of Chinese history: the sonorous stone (qing) and the globular flute.23 The Shijing (`Book of Songs'), a compilation made in about 1200 BP, also mentions the drum (gu) and bell (zhong). The same source also mentions how important festivals were held at the junctions of rivers between seasons.

`On these occasions choirs of boys and choirs of girls from different villages challenged one another by singing sequences of distichs accompanied by gestures.24 Each half of the distich usually consisted of eight words, that is, eight syllables, a form well known in Chinese poetry. The contest of the sexes and the alternate singing (antiphony) were said to symbolise the two polar principles of the universe, Yang and Yin, and the sexual rites which followed brought harmony with nature and human harmony through the reunion of the two principles in the world. Musical form was closely connected with some such symbolism, for at one of the festivals two companies of musicians played one after the other and then both together.'
(Crossley-Holland 1959:42).

Some evidence for the origins of Chinese music theory is offered by the Shujing, `The Book of History', edited by Confucius (Kongfuzi, 551-479 BP). It describes how one of the legendary emperors from the Xia dynasty (2205-1766 BP) `took odes of the court and ballads of the village to see if they corresponded with the five notes'.25 This quotation raises two issues: (i) whether Chinese emperors employed music inspectors to cheek that people were singing and playing the `right' pitches and, if so, why such musical inspection might be considered necessary; (ii) how and why the `five notes' came to be regarded as the imperial norm. To answer these questions, it is necessary to provide a brief account of the development of music and theories of music in China up until around 200 BP.

 

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1. (a) Stone chimes of type still used in Confucian rites in Taiwan (see Kishibe 1995: 250);
   (b) Chinese notation; (c) mouth organ (sheng).26

1. (a) Banquet music (yenyue) during reign of Emperor Xuandong (712-756): a girls' orchestra including [1] lutes, [2] angular harps, [3] long zithers (see here), [4] stone chimes (xing, see here again), [5] mouth organs (and again), [6] hourglass drums, [7] transverse flutes, [8] vertical flute, [9] clapper; (b) 25-string zither (se) from tomb of King Ma's wife (c. 193 BP).27

The Zhou dynasty (1050-255 BP) marks the period during which most of the institutions, manners and customs of China acquire the basic form that lasted until the twentieth century. As for music, recent catalogues describe several hundred instruments that date back to those already known in the Zhou dynasty. Amongst these are the stone chime (bianqing, see here), the bell chime (binqing), the reed mouth organ (see here), the panpipes (paixiao), the five- or seven-stringed zither (qin), the thirteen- or twenty-six-stringed zither (see here) and various drums. Music from the Zhou dynasty until the end of the Qing dynasty and the establishment of a nationalist government in 1911 was used in three main areas: (i) in agricultural festivals of ancient origin which combined poetry, music and dance, (ii) in imperial court rituals, (iii) in religious ritual. Between around 600 BP and the end of the Zhou dynasty (255 BP) there are some particularly important developments in Chinese culture: it is at this time that Daoism, including its comparison of musical tone to human essence, is formulated by Laozi (Lao Tsu, 604-517 BP). It is also during this period that Confucius (551-479 BP), traditionally associated with musical performance and the part played by music in the ritual of living, edited most of China's ancient books. These include the Shijing (`Book of Songs'), the Shujing (`Book of History'), the Liji (`Record of Rites') which contains a chapter called Yueji (`Memorial of Music') and the Yijing (`Book of Changes'), a metaphysical work including a section on the relationship between the basic principles of music and the cosmic elements. Confucius' editorial work laid the basis of all subsequent writing about music. One such subsequent work, the Lu Shi Chun Qiu or Lu Buwei (`Master Lu's Spring and Autumn Annals', 239 BP) helps answer the latter of the two questions raised at the end of the previous paragraph: how the `five notes' became a musical norm in imperial China.

According to the Lu Shih Chun Qiu or Lu Buwei the foundation tone of music is huang zhong, which literally means `yellow bell'.

`This was conceived simultaneously as a sacred eternal principle, the basis of the state and a note of definite pitch in music. Lu Buwei attributes it to the mythical Emperor Huangdi (third millennium BP) who sent the equally mythical Ling Lun (`Music Ruler') to the western boundaries of the kingdom where, in a mountain valley, he cut a node of bamboo in such a way as to give the foundation tone -- the pitch of a man's voice when he spoke without passion. It was considered important to find the correct pitch for each dynasty, or political disorder would be likely to ensue'... `From the foundation tone, other higher notes were derived by taking a tube of length one third less than the first, then a tube one third more than the second and so on, that is, tubes alternately two-thirds and four-thirds the length of each preceding one. The resulting sounds thus have alternately vibrations of G and H times the frequency of the preceding, which gives'... `alternating series of ascending fifths and descending fourths. It will be seen from this that the vibration frequencies in the Chinese system are all based on powers of the numerals 2 and 3'.28

The Yueji (`Memorial of Music') and Liji (`Record of Rites', both c.450 BP) put these figures in cosmic perspective.

`Music expresses the accord of Heaven and Earth'.

`Since 3 is the numeral of Heaven and 2 that of the Earth, sounds in the ratio 3:2 harmonise as Heaven and Earth.'

If we posit the note f as the huang-zhong foundation tone of Chinese music theory, the first five notes in the series of pipes just described will be f-c-g-d-a . ( for more, see here) Scalar rearrangement of these pitches produces f-g-a-c-d (see here), the Chinese five-note scale identical to the European major- or doh-pentatonic scale.

This system already existed in melodies from the time of the Zhou dynasty (1050-255 BP) and Chinese texts from the fourth and third centuries BP call the five notes gong, shang, jiao, zhi and yu. Any of these five might serve as centre for a new mode of the scale and each mode would be characterised by this note as its principal and final, for example the f of this example.. In other words, the procedure described thus far rationalised the origin of the `five notes', establishing a physical theory of the major pentatonic mode and of modes deriving from any of its constitutent pitches.29 However, ancient Chinese music theory did not stop at that.

`The symbolism underlying Chinese ritual required music's fundamental note to move... with the twelve months (and the twelve hours). In other words, the keynote (and the scale based upon it) had to be transposed for each successive period. To regulate this movement a series of twelve notes was generated by the method of ascending fifths and descending fourths already mentioned' (see this): `and each of the twelve notes so generated became in turn the starting point of the scale. In order to show all the notes in their musical firmament together the Chinese next arranged the twelve notes in stepwise order' (see this). `The resulting arrangement has all the appearance of a chromatic scale, but it was never used as such, only as a system for transposing the five-note scale' (Crossley-Holland 1959: 46-47).

1. Theoretical basis of pentatonicism in ancient China, here with f as doh (gong): (a) the `five notes' as rising fifths [G ∞ frequency of previous pitch] and descending fourths [H ∞ frequency of previous pitch]; (b) the same notes arranged as standard major pentatonic scale with doh as principle note []; (c) same notes arranged as a minor pentatonic scale with la as principle note []; (d) as (a) except extending the sequence by seven more intervals to complete the octave and return to doh; (e) the notes of (d) arranged as a twelve-tone chromatic scale.

The above account explains the rationale behind gapped pentatonicism as the norm in imperial China but it does not answer the other question: did Chinese emperors employ music inspectors to check if people were singing and playing the `right' pitches and, if so, why would such musical inspection be considered necessary?

`An Imperial Office of Music ( Yuefu ) was founded under the Emperor Wu (141-87 BP) for standardising pitch, supervising music and building up musical archives. The Chinese had long previously recognised the relationship of musical pitch to the length and capacity of a tube and so it was that this organisation was attached to the Office of Weights and Measures' (Crossley-Holland 1959:48) .

`The basic lu pipe preserved in this office was also used as a standard measurement for length and weight. Thus, the music office was a bureau of the Office of Weights and Measurements and remained so through many dynasties' (Malm 1977: 152).

There is little doubt that the establishment of theories relating a particular population's use of particular musical pitches to unquestionable physical phenomena and the bureaucratic standardisation of pitch were two ways in which the high status and privileges of those practising what was `right', `natural' and well-regulated could be justified in comparison to those who did not: Confucius' distinction between ya-sheng (`right music') and jeng-sheng (`vulgar music') provides a pithy illustration of that same social and cultural standpoint.

For over 2000 years of Chinese imperial history, from the start of the first Qin dynasty (221 BP) to the end of the last Qing dynasty (1911), one set of musical practices was identfied by ideologues of the ruling classes as the `right music'. Ya-yue (`elegant music'), as it was called,30 refers both to court music of that long period and, more particularly, to court music associated with Confucian philosophy. In the Yueshu (`Book of Music', from 1101 CE), Chen Yang, chronicler of the Dang dynasty (618-907), records that court music featured a wide range of genres, including ya-yue (Confucian music), su-yue (Chinese popular music), hu-yue (foreign music), yen-yue (banquet music, see here).), jun-yue (military band music), san-yue (theatre music) and qin-yue (seven-string zither music). Ya-yue, the `elegant' Confucian music, was divided into two main categories: yue-xuan (`music chime'), performed by an instrumental ensemble outside the building where Confucian rites were conducted, and dang-go (`chamber song'), songs performed with an instrumental ensemble inside the building (Pian 1995: 250-251).

Yue-xuan (outdoor `music chime' subgenre of ya-yue), was further subdivided into four target-specific categories: kung-xuan for emperors, xien-xuan for lords, pan-xuan for ministers and te-xuan for lower officials (ibid. 251). Yue-xuan instrumentalists and dancers were placed according to strict stage instructions deemed appropriate to the status of the audience.

`The instruments were placed on four sides (east, west, north and south) for an emperor, on three sides (east, west, north) for a lord, on two sides for a minister and on one side (north) for an official' (Pian 1995: 251) .

 

PICTURE - SEE PDF VERSION. Kung-xuan Instrument placement for performance of ‘elegant’ outdoor music for emperors (c. 1300 CE).

The protocol of `stage' positioning instruments for a performance of kung-xuan (outdoor `music chime' for emperors) was, as the Kung-xuan shows, quite intricate, and `the two types of accompanying dances' were, continues Pian, `similarly classified'.31 For emperors there were 64 dancers arranged into a square consisting of eight lines and eight rows, for lords 48 (8∞6), for ministers 32 (8∞4) and, for lower officials 16 (8∞2).

Now, any regressive type of cultural regulation -- whether it be today's endless auditing of British teachers by managerialist bureaucracies (complete with their vague value words like `underachievement' and `excellence'), or whether it be benchmarking by the Bureau of Music (yue-fu) in imperial China (with its equally nebulous `right' or `elegant' versus `wrong' or `vulgar') -- has to rely on the description of practices established in the past to prescribe the sorts of action it can sanction now and in the future.32 Oppressive bureaucracy uses measurement and documentation, not to explain and enlighten but to establish rules, to lay down the law, and to regulate behaviour in advance on the basis of what went before. In order to perform such feats of conceptual illusion, bureaucracies need to ensure that whatever `best practice' they happen to promulgate is at least seen to be: [i] related to unquestionable and apparently immutable physical and/or moral precepts; [ii] related to concepts of `order' and governed by strict and often complex rules of procedure; [iii] in need of special skills and knowledge to be understood and performed; [iv] reproducible consistently over time by those who know the rules of the game; [iv] connected in some way with the authority of a respected historical tradition.

The music of imperial Chinese courts, especially ya-yue (`elegant music'), was presented as though it had all these qualities of `best practice'. It was, as we have seen, related to the cosmic values of the numerals 2 and 3 which, in their turn, were related to notions of heaven and earth, male and female, Yang and Yin, etc. It was certainly regulated by strict rules of performance, not only in terms of `stage' positions for instrumentalists and dancers, but also, as our account of the `five notes' and the imperial Music Office (yue-fu) shows, with regard to tonal norms. Intricate division and subdivision of genres in terms of both musical style and audience type illustrate further aspects of complex codification, as do the number of ancient texts setting out the history, aesthetics and metaphysics of imperial music-making. These sources also imply that knowledge of such intricacies was important for those producing and consuming the `elegant' music, whose history, as master Lu's annals stated in 239 BP, could be traced back to what was, even then, the distant past of an ancient dynasty (see here). Moreover, imperial Chinese music could be reproduced consistently from one time, generation or dynasty to another, not only because of the many treatises codifying its aesthetics and practice, but also because certain types of notation were used. Although such notation, either as characters indicating pitch (see here) or as tabulature for string instruments (see here) was probably used less prescriptively than the sheet music followed by a western European symphony orchestra, it at least helped ensure that singers and musicians could make the music they composed or performed conform adequately to prescribed patterns.

 

PICTURE - SEE PDF VERSION. Qianzi pu – abbreviated character tablature for the qin (7-string zither): tune ‘Water and Cloud of Xiaoxiang’ from Wuqi zai qin pu, compiled by Xiu Qi (1722). Columns 1-4 and 9 show the title and technical details, columns 5-8 and 10-12 contain notation.

 

That the musical tradition measured, recorded, documented and theorised in the manner just described was that of the ruling classes, not that of the popular majority, should be obvious.

[For over two thousand years] `China was dominated by a central imperial court (the imperial household), the aristocracy, bureaucracy and provincial powers. Under this stratified society, commoners (peasants, merchants, artisans) and slaves were responsible for [...] products and labour. Cultural expression in the graphic arts and music was generally the privilege of the élite, especially the court, although a folk music culture existed as well.' (Pian 1995: 250) .

Kept in illiteracy, unable to afford fancy burials or the expensive artefacts aristocrats took with them into their graves, and forced to work long hours in order just to survive, the vast majority of the population were unable to document their own musical history and traditions for posterity. The very little we do know about the music of those millions over thousands of years comes mainly from whatever seeps up into court life. Nevertheless, the fact that the ruling classes chose to document and justify their own cultural habits so rigorously as being `right' as opposed to `vulgar' (Confucian ya-sheng versus jeng-sheng) suggests that there was something strong and vibrant from which they felt it necessary to distinguish themselves.33

Whether or not Emperor Wu's Office of Music employed the equivalent of OFSTED34 inspectors to oversee standards of music in imperial China over two thousand years ago we may never know. The point is that such a bureaucracy for the regulation of music as a cultural practice did exist, and that its existence exemplifies the ruling classes' compulsion to measure, monitor and control not only actual cultural practices, including music, but also the way in which those various practices are understood, valued and ranked. It is also clear that similarly hierarchical efforts to regulate music elsewhere and at other times in cultures are found in conjunction with societies characterised by similarly hierarchical social stratification.

 

In Ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia and China, then, not to mention, as we shall see, India, Athens and feudal Europe, the ruling classes managed in various ways to relate their musical practices with the supernatural, the immutable, and the apparently suprasocial and unquestionable. In this way, an oppressive political system can market itself as if it were just and permanent, and its representatives can present themselves as the self-styled representatives of whatever god, gods, morals and manners their own closely guarded class interests compel them to identify as upholding and determining the fate of nature and society. Therefore, cultural practices associated with the ruling classes have to be rationalised as closer to the divine, closer to eternal values, less ephemeral than those associated with peasants, slaves or any other popular majority. This means (i) preserving the musical practices of religious rites intact; (ii) codifying relationships between music and the supposedly eternal, immutable or unquestionable; (iii) constructing aesthetics of music as theory and as practice debarring the uninitiated from both understanding and mastery of the music of the ruling class. It is by such means that music can contribute to maintaining not only the cultural but also the social, political and economic status quo of an unjust system.

India

PICTURE - SEE PDF VERSION. Painting of Raga meghmalhar, Jaipur school (18th century).35 Instruments (from l. to r.): rab˜b (lute), pakh˜vaj (drum), k˜sya (hand cymbals), flute (played by Krishna), bŸn (stick zither), t˜npura (lute).