Zhōnglǜ tōngkǎo 鐘律通考
Comprehensive Examination of Bells and Pitch-Pipes by 倪復 (Ní Fù)
About the work
A six-juan music treatise in 27 chapters by the obscure mid-Míng music-theorist Ní Fù of Sìmíng 四明 (Níngbō). The book opens with the Huángzhōng běnyuán dìngfǎ (“Method for fixing the foundations of the huángzhōng”) and ends with the Fēngyǎ shí’èr shī túpǔ (“Diagrammatic notation for twelve Shī-odes from the Guófēng and Yǎ”). It was completed in autumn 1526 (Jiājìng bǐngxū) and provided with a preface by Zhāng Bāngqí 張邦奇 in winter of the same year. Ní’s working method is to anchor every doctrine in the Yílǐ jīng zhuàn (ZhūCài tradition), to compare it with Cài Yuándìng’s Lǜlǚ xīnshū (KR1i0003), then to cross-examine the historical institutions and the disputes of the schools. The work is competent and erudite but lacks the doctrinal force of 韓邦奇’s contemporary Yuànluò zhì yuè (KR1i0007).
Tiyao
[Your servants] respectfully report: Zhōnglǜ tōngkǎo in 6 juàn, by Ní Fù of the Míng. Fù’s zì was Rǔxīn; he was a man of Níngbō. The book is in 27 chapters, beginning with the Huángzhōng běnyuán dìngfǎ chapter and ending with the Fēngyǎ shíèr shī túpǔ chapter. Among the chapters, some are headed with the juànmù (chapter-table-of-contents heading) and others are not — evidently a flaw of the editorial sequence, or a copyist’s combining of chapters. At the head is a preface dated Jiājìng bǐngxū (1526) by Zhāng Bāngqí, which says that Ní worked from the Yílǐ jīng zhuàn, took the doctrines of Master Cài of Xīshān (Cài Yuándìng) as his cross-reference, exhaustively examined the institutions of past and present, adjudicated the gains and losses of the hundred schools, and so sought to bring matters back to “the foundations of sound and breath.” — Now examining the book: in main outline it is faithful to the ancient instruction, but in places he is also given to a love of speculation. As the Lǚshì chūnqiū gives the huángzhōng as “3 cùn 9 fēn” while the historical pitch-treatises uniformly give “9 cùn,” the two cannot be reconciled into one. Ní therefore says: “‘3 cùn’ means 3 × 3 = 9 cùn; ‘9 fēn’ means 9 square-fēn.” His argument follows that of Hé Táng 何瑭 and the Zhèng shìzǐ (Zhū Zàiyù), but is forced and unprincipled — what does it have to do with classical instruction? — On the five tones plus èr biàn, the Guóyǔ gives the discourse of Líng Zhōujiū which can be cited; this book however says: “Gōng belongs to the jūn (lord) — Zhōu added biàngōng because of the execution of King Zhòu; zhǐ belongs to the shì (servant) — Zhōu added biànzhǐ to mark the abolition of Shāng’s old policies.” Both arguments are fabricated. — In the 60-mode chart, for the five modes of huángzhōng he likewise has wúyì as shāng, yízé as jué, zhònglǚ as zhǐ, jiāzhōng as yǔ — the old account. Hán Bāngqí 韓邦奇 of his own day expounds Master Cài’s old chart in great detail; this book however does not consult Hán’s, and is open to charges of omission. — Yet there are also passages worthy of selection: as for example the Zuǒzhuàn dictum that “after the central tone descends, after the five descents, no further strumming is permitted,” Cài Yuándìng read as “the five tones, after which the èr biàn cannot be modes,” while Master Zhū took it as “from ruíbīn downwards [i.e. positions 6–12] none can be gōng”; Ní holds that Master Zhū’s reading does not square with the Lǐjì’s “xuán xiāng wéi gōng” (rotating modes) and so specially follows Yuándìng. As for his treatments of “huángzhōng generates the eleven pitches,” “doubling its volumetric basis is four-times-its-basis-thirded,” the jué-tone 64 transformations, and the biàngōng and biànzhǐ, his ability to set out side by side the differences between Master Zhū’s and Master Cài’s methods, examining them in mutual contrast and detail, is far from carelessness. He may be called industrious in this matter. Respectfully edited and presented in the tenth month of Qiánlóng 46 (1781). Editor-Generals: Jì Yún, Lù Xīxióng, Sūn Shìyì. Editor-in-chief: Lù Fèichí.
Abstract
The Zhōnglǜ tōngkǎo is a learned but second-rank Míng synthesis of the CàiZhū lǜlǚ tradition, completed in 1526 and prefaced by the Sìmíng official Zhāng Bāngqí. Its principal interest is comparative: Ní Fù carefully sets out the disagreements between Zhū Xī and Cài Yuándìng on technical points of pitch-pipe theory and adjudicates between them, generally in favour of Cài. The Sìkù compilers note three serious failings: (1) the speculative reading of the Lǚshì chūnqiū “3 cùn 9 fēn” as 9-cùn-times-9-square-fēn (a mathematical-arithmetic dodge already proposed by Hé Táng and Zhū Zàiyù); (2) a politically allegorical reading of the biàngōng and biànzhǐ as Zhōu commemorations of the execution of King Zhòu and the abolition of Shāng policies; (3) failure to consult 韓邦奇’s contemporary Yuànluò zhì yuè (KR1i0007). Despite these the work is regarded by the compilers as the product of a serious and industrious mind, and is preserved in the SKQS in part because Míng-period writings on the technical detail of xuángōng and biànshēng are otherwise scarce. The catalog meta gives no precise date; the 1526 dating from Zhāng Bāngqí’s preface is the firm bracket.
Translations and research
- 楊蔭瀏. 1981. 中國古代音樂史稿. — Treats the Zhōng-lǜ tōngkǎo as a representative second-rank Míng synthesis.
- No further substantial secondary literature located.