Yuèlǜ biǎowēi 樂律表微
Bringing Forth the Subtleties of Music and Pitch by 胡彥昇 (Hú Yànshēng)
About the work
An eight-juan music treatise by the YōngzhèngQiánlóng era jìnshì and Dìngtáo magistrate Hú Yànshēng. The structure is a carefully balanced four-part division: 2 juàn on dùlǜ 度律 (length-and-pitch), 2 on shěnyīn 審音 (tone discrimination), 2 on zhìdiào 製調 (mode construction), and 2 on kǎoqì 考器 (instrument examination). Hú’s most significant doctrinal contribution is his sustained argument that the orthodox tradition of biànlǜ 變律 (derived pitches — the additional pitches beyond the twelve standard pitches needed to close the zhònglǚ-back-to-huángzhōng cycle) is unnecessary: every pitch needed for performance, he argues, is provided by the natural correspondence between the half-pipe (octave) and the principal pitches, and the speculative systems of Jīng Fáng’s 60-pitch, Qián Lèzhī’s 300-pitch, Dù Yòu’s 12-pitch, and Cài Yuándìng’s 6-pitch biànlǜ schemes are all in his judgment “seeking penetration but ending in obstruction.”
Tiyao
[Your servants] respectfully report: Yuèlǜ biǎowēi in 8 juàn, by Hú Yànshēng of our dynasty. Hú Yànshēng’s zì was Zhúxuān; he was a man of Déqīng. Jìnshì of Yōngzhèng gēngxū (1730), he held office as Magistrate of Dìngtáo. The book is in two-juan sections: dù lǜ (length-and-pitch), shěn yīn (tone discrimination), zhì diào (mode construction), kǎo qì (instrument examination). His corrections of earlier writers’ errors are exemplified by the following: he holds that the xiāngshēng (mutual generation) of the twelve pitches ends at zhònglǚ, and that zhònglǚ’s further generation back to the clear huángzhōng — taken as the zhǐ of zhònglǚ and jué of yízé — is what Huáinánzǐ calls “biàngōng generates zhǐ, biànzhǐ generates shāng, biànshāng generates yǔ, biànyǔ generates jué, biànjué generates gōng” (note: “biàngōng generates zhǐ” means the zhǐ tone is generated from the variation of the gōng tone — not the biàngōng of the seven-pitch system; biànzhǐ and biànshāng should be similarly understood. Huáinánzǐ “Tiānwén xùn” itself takes yīngzhōng and ruíbīn as “hémóu” — accord-and-discord — and does not name them biàngōng and biànzhǐ). The tones derive from the variation of the five tones, not from the number of zhònglǚ; if one tries to make zhònglǚ generate back to huángzhōng, the number falls short. The five-tone xiāngshēng ends in jué; the further generation of biàngōng, with each pitch generating the next on to the zhòng-lǚ-of-jué — this is what Huáinánzǐ calls “jué generates gūxǐ, gūxǐ generates yīngzhōng, yīngzhōng generates ruíbīn”. The tone derives from the pitch, not from the number of jué; if one tries from jué to generate first biàngōng and then again biànzhǐ, the number falls short. Therefore the twelve-pitch xiāngshēng does not count residuals; the five-tone xiāngshēng does not count derived tones. — His argument is sound. The xuángōng method is qīngzhuó (clear-and-muddy) by gradation: clear-extreme reverses to muddy, muddy-extreme reverses to clear. This is a fixed principle. When zhònglǚ serves as gōng, the clear huángzhōng serves as zhǐ; in string music this is the huángzhōng half-pitch, in pipe music the tàicù half-pitch. The string-bow generates pitch and the pitches differ in their fractions, but they take only consonance of high-and-low, not loss-and-gain by number. Necessarily exhausting the number is what produced the pitch-pipe schemes of Jīng Fáng’s 60 pitches, Qián Lèzhī’s 300 pitches, Dù Yòu’s 12 derived pitches, and Cài Yuándìng of Xīshān’s 6 derived pitches — all of which have residuals not exhausted — and may be called “seeking penetration and falling into obstruction.” The ancients had only twelve pitches in xuángōng — most simple. Just so on the qín with seven strings, each string has three nodes (zhǔn) whose tones all match the open-string sound; the xiāo and dí have six holes plus one mouth-hole making seven, and the high-blown 四 character is precisely 五, the high-blown 合 is precisely 六 — by which the high and low, clear and muddy of the tones naturally correspond — what need have we of derived pitches? — As to biàngōng and biànzhǐ — both lie outside the five tones, hence the term biàn. Jīng Fáng, finding that zhònglǚ generated back to huángzhōng could not match the original number, named them differently as “starting-point” pitches, transformed them, and generated 48 further pitches. Later authors followed him, and the doctrine of biànlǜ arose. Even granting that the huáng-zhōng-of-biàn and the principal huángzhōng differ in fēn, the biàn cannot independently constitute its own pitch. Hú Yànshēng’s argument here may be called both subtle and precise. — Hú further holds that Xún Xù’s twelve flutes are the ancients’ surviving method, and that today one need only fashion the huángzhōng and dàlǚ flutes, with all twelve pitches thereby provided. The method: the huángzhōng flute uses the seven pitches huánglíntàinángūyīngruí; the dàlǚ flute uses dàyíjiāwúzhònghuánglín. The dàlǚ flute is constructed by comparison with the huángzhōng flute: the holes for huáng and lín are not shifted; the other four holes plus the mouth-hole are all moved down by half a hole from the huángzhōng positions. Of its seven modes, huáng and lín coincide with the huángzhōng flute’s, and the five remaining (dà, jiā, zhòng, yí, wú) plus the huángzhōng flute’s seven modes give the twelve-pitch / twelve-mode set. Compared with the ancients’ “60 modes” or “84 modes” — much simpler and to be commended. Among the modern music-theorists, his is one of those with genuine personal insight. Respectfully edited and presented in the sixth month of Qiánlóng 46 (1781). Editor-Generals: Jì Yún, Lù Xīxióng, Sūn Shìyì. Editor-in-chief: Lù Fèichí.
Abstract
The Yuèlǜ biǎowēi is the most coherent eighteenth-century Chinese argument against the entire post-Hàn tradition of biànlǜ (derived-pitch) speculation. Hú Yànshēng’s case is twofold: (1) philological — the biàngōng / biànzhǐ terminology of Huáinánzǐ refers to the variation of the orthodox tones (the zhǐ tone as varied from the gōng tone) and not to the seven-tone system’s two extra positions; (2) practical — actual flute and qín performance generates all needed octave-shifted pitches by half-pitch fingerings and by string-node positions, without need for a 60- or 300- or 12-pitch biànlǜ system. The four-part structural balance (dùlǜ, shěnyīn, zhìdiào, kǎoqì) makes the work a model exposition of mid-Qing music theory, and the proposed two-flute (huángzhōng and dàlǚ) instrument set, attributed to Xún Xù, is one of the most elegant solutions in the entire Chinese music tradition to the problem of producing all twelve modes from a small set of instruments. Composition cannot be precisely dated; Hú’s jìnshì date (1730) gives the terminus a quo, and the work was already mature by the time of the Sìkù compilation in 1781. Bracket: 1735–1755 spans his active scholarly career.
Translations and research
- Joseph Needham. 1962. Science and Civilisation in China, vol. IV.1. — Brief notice, treats Hú as the principal mid-Qīng critic of speculative biàn-lǜ schemes.
- 戴念祖. 1994. 中國聲學史. — Discussion of Hú’s two-flute system.
- 楊蔭瀏. 1981. 中國古代音樂史稿. — Treats the work in its mid-Qīng context.
- No further substantial Western-language secondary literature located.
Other points of interest
Hú’s two-flute solution to the twelve-mode problem is the same problem to which Zhū Zàiyù’s equal-temperament was an alternative answer; Hú by contrast reaches a similar practical end (twelve usable modes) by retaining orthodox 12-pitch theory but limiting it to two complementary instruments — an unusual combination of philological orthodoxy with technical pragmatism.