American Musicological Society

Historical Interdependency of Music: A Case Study of the Chinese Seven-String Zither

Author(s): Bell Yung
Source: Journal of the American Musicological Society, Vol. 40, No. 1 (Spring, 1987), pp. 82-91
Published by: University of California Press on behalf of the American Musicological Society
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 Historical Interdependencyof Music: A
Case Study of the Chinese Seven-String
Zither*
BY BELL YUNG

N IMPORTANT ISSUE IN MUSICOLOGYis mutual influence and

interdependency among musical cultures, caused by their direct
and indirect contacts. The repertories representing the various music
cultures form the principal source materials for this mainly
synchronic study; the methodology involves analytical and compara-
tive studies of these repertories. This paper proposes that, in some
musical cultures and for some musical genres, the question of mutual
influences and interdependencies could be approached diachronically
rather than synchronically, intraculturallyrather than interculturally.
The study of how one generation of performers on the guqin (the
Chinese seven-string zither) influences the music of other generations
can offer one example of what I shall call the historical interdepen-
dency of music.
In any continually evolving music tradition, the old inevitably
influences the new. Musicians grow up in the shadow of their
teachers; the new compositions they create cannot completely escape
the language and style of their forerunners. Sometimes musicians may
consciously strive to imitate or to break away from the past. Such
conscious efforts to follow or to deny are further proof of the strong
force the past holds over the present. The study of the history of
music is, to a considerable extent, a study of these forces and their
manifestations in the repertories preserved from different historical
periods. Diachronic study of music is generally assumed to trace the
development of music from the past forward into the future.
But does the present also influence the past? The question might
appear metaphorical, since the past is frozen in time, and apparently
cannot change. But if one distinguishes between the actual past and a
perceived past, the question becomes a real one. The actual past can

* This is a revised version of a

paper entitled "The Historical Interdependency in
the GuqinMusic of China" read at the Symposium on National Music Cultures and
Intercultural Dependencies in West Berlin, June 6-9, I985.
 HISTORICALINTERDEPENDENCYOF MUSIC 83
probably never be known entirely by later generations,while a
perceivedpast is constantlybeingconstructedand revised.A musical
compositioncreatedin the past and preservedin notationmight be
perceivedin differentways by latergenerations.A notationalsystem
is capableonly of preservingsome aspectsof the music, leavingthe
rest to the discretionof a laterperformer.Whenbringingthe notation
to life in real musical sound, the performeroften instills into the
performanceaestheticprinciplesand techniquesthat reflecthis gen-
erationratherthan that of the composer.His versionis nevertheless
often perceivedby his contemporariesas representingthe past. To
cite a by-now familiarexample,the use of a modem grandpiano to
performMozart, with the implicationthat Mozart'smusic is being
recreated,is a case of the nineteenthand twentieth centuriesinflu-
encing the eighteenth. Problemssuch as this in Western art music
havearousedattentionandvigorouscontroversyamongmusicologists
and concertaudiencesin recentdecades.
The musicof theguqin,an instrumentwith a long andcontinuous
tradition spanning at least two and a half millennia, presents a
somewhatdifferentpicture.New compositionshave, of course, been
createdthroughoutits history.On the otherhand,the creativeenergy
of musicianshas also traditionallybeen directedtowardsthe alter-
ation, sometimes conscious, of preexistent compositions through
reinterpretationand modificationof musicalnotationpreservedfrom
the past. The past is thus constantlybeingreconstructedand revised
by successivegenerations.Whatis noteworthyis that this practiceof
reinterpretingand modifying preexistentcompositionsappears al-
ways to have been acceptedand even encouragedby guqinmusicians
and listeners.Often the reinterpretedand modifiedversionswere in
turnpreservedin notationalform.Thus a recordof how one historical
period has influencedthe repertoryfrom an earlierperiod-that is,
how the presenthas affectedthe past-is availablefor study.
The most importantkind of sourcematerialfor such study is, of
course, the repertorypreservedin printednotation.In a systematic
searchconductedthroughoutChinain the I950S, aboutone hundred
and fifty guqin handbooksfrom roughly the last five and one-half
centuries were located (Zha 1958, 6). These contain an extensive
repertoryof overthreethousandcompositionspreservedin a tablature
notation unique to this music. Some pieces are identicalcopies of
earlierones. Significantfor this study, however,is the largenumber
of compositionswhich bear the same titles but are variantsof one
another. For example, one of the most popular compositions,
Yangguan Sandie[The three strainsof Yangguan],survivesin thirty-
84 JOURNALOF THE AMERICANMUSICOLOGICAL
SOCIETY

three notated exemplars spanning several centuries, the earliest one

from 1491, the latest from 1922. Xu Jian of Beijing has determined
that these versions group themselves into seven major families (Xu
198I, I I 8), but each of them differs in detail from the others.
To understand how such a large number of printed versions of a
"single" composition could arise under the same title, one must
consider the ideology and performance practice of the guqin tradition.
Perhaps the most important factor here is the close and exclusive
association between the instrument (and its music) and the literati of
China, an association that dates back to the time of Confucius, who is
said to have studied the instrument and enjoyed it. Among the many
ramifications of this association is the emphasis which the
musician/scholar places on the literary content of a composition. As
Robert van Gulik writes, "special care is given [in the handbooks] to
describing the mood the composer was in when he created his music,
and what thought he wished to express in his composition. It is the
highest aim of the player in his execution of the tune to reproduce
faithfully the mood of the composer" (Gulik 1969, 88).
The "mood" of a composition is prescribed by its programmatic
title and, in most zither handbooks, also by a literary preface to the
notation. The primary aim of a performance is to evoke that pre-
scribed mood; the musical sound itself is but a vehicle by which to
arrive at that aim. The musician/scholar acknowledges that there is
more than one way of performing a composition, so long as the
prescribed mood is evoked.
The emphasis on the literary content of the music rather than the
musical sound itself is closely related to the nature and the function of
the notation used by guqin performers. It is well-known that the
notation, peculiar to this instrument, is a tablature which defines the
string to be plucked, the position along the string to be stopped, and
the manner in which the strings are to be stopped and plucked.1 It
provides, however, only rather vague suggestions on the metrical,
rhythmic, and phrasal aspects of the music. There is much that is
indeterminate as far as the structure of the music is concerned, leading
some critics to call this notation "inadequate"and "incomplete" (Zha
I953, 32-33).
A notation should, of course, be judged only according to how
well it serves its intended function. In the case of guqin notation, this
is not simply to record and instruct; it must also allow the performer
a certain degree of individual freedom and creativity in manipulating

1 For a detailed account of the notation, see, for example, Lui 1968.
 HISTORICALINTERDEPENDENCYOF MUSIC 85
aspects of the musical material, namely meter, rhythm, and phrase.
Since the ultimate aim of a performance is to evoke the prescribed
mood of a composition, and since individuals respond to musical
sound differently, this freedom is necessary if the performer is to
evoke the correct mood through the music. The notation merely
serves as a guide suggested by the composer to achieve that aim; its
nonspecificity is crucial to this particular aspect of the ideology and
the performance practice of guqin.
This particular function of the notation can be further illustrated
by the process of a student learning from his teacher. Traditionally, a
student acquires his repertory by receiving that of his teacher through
oral-aural transmission; he learns a composition phrase by phrase by
imitating his teacher'sperformance. A common form of learning is for
the teacher and student to play the same composition together in
unison, thereby insuring that the student inherits the nuances of the
music, especially its rhythm and phrasing, from the teacher. The
notation, which the student copies from his teacher and keeps, plays
a secondary role in the learning process; it serves mainly as a memory
aid for finger positions and plucking methods. When a student has
achieved a certain level of proficiency-particularly if he is recognized
as an accomplished performer in his own right-he may consciously
modify the composition according to his own liking by changing the
rhythm and phrase structures of the music, aspects not specified in the
notation.2
It follows that, in approaching the guqin repertory, one has to
redefine the concept of identity as applied to a musical composition.
The "mood" of the music, specified in the programmatic title and
literary preface, is of the utmost importance to a composition. Meter,
rhythm, and phrasing, taken for granted in Western art music as
important factors of identity, are, in guqin music, accorded more
flexibility from one performer to another, and from one performance
to another by the same performer, so long as the mood is evoked.
Furthermore, because guqin performance is largely a personal and
private activity (Yung i984a), there is little consensus on what should
and should not be done as far as the musical sound is concerned.
Personal versions of preexistent compositions are therefore widely
cultivated.

2As a student of Cai Deyun of Hong Kong and of the late Yao Bingyan of
Shanghai, I observed that both of them exercised this liberty to modify the music
which they learned from their teachers.
86 JOURNALOF THE AMERICANMUSICOLOGICAL
SOCIETY

Besides learning one's repertory from one's teacher, one might also
learn new compositions from reading guqin handbooks. The vast
majority of compositions preserved in the known handbooks are no
longer played today. That is to say, the music exists only in notated
form. It is obvious that, due to the nature of the notation, to perform
a composition from notation alone is not simple. A special process
called da pu is generally undertaken to transform notation from the
past into live music of the present (Yung I985). The process involves
the correct reading of the symbols in the tablature, research on the
literary content of the composition, and, finally, personal creative
contributions to those aspects of the music not specified in the
notation. These creative contributions are guided by the literary
content of the composition, which prescribes the mood that the
performance is to evoke. They also inevitably reflect the musical style
and taste of the performer and his time. Because of differences in
literary backgrounds and musical sensibilities, two performers play-
ing the same composition from notation will most probably arrive at
different interpretations of the meter, rhythm, and phrasing of the
music. If the performers were from two different eras, sometimes
centuries apart, the differences in their interpretationswould likely be
considerable. The notation allows for this difference, and the ideology
accepts it.
But a performer sometimes exerts his liberty beyond what the
notation leaves unspecified, going so far as to modify finger positions
and playing techniques. Consequently, one may hear a performance
in which notes, phrases, even whole sections have been deleted from,
added to, or otherwise altered from the original notation. Sometimes
these new versions are in turn notated and published, which explains
why the same composition may appear in many, sometimes drasti-
cally different versions dating from different historical periods.3 With
rare exceptions, a new version retains the programmatic title of its
model; in most cases, the literary preface also remains unchanged.
This practice of reinterpreting and modifying the past can be
illustrated by a specific example. One of the most celebrated compo-
sitions in theguqin repertory is Guanglingsan,of which thirteen printed
exemplars in tablature survive from between 1425 and I93 I. Of these,
four are exact copies of earlier versions (Zhongyang Yinyue Xueyuan
1956, I:26). The originof this composition is shrouded in myths; it is

3 Both of
my teachers, Cai and Yao, have their personal versions in notational
form of the repertory that they had learned either from their teachers or from zither
handbooks.
 HISTORICALINTERDEPENDENCYOF MUSIC 87
commonly attributedto the legendaryguqinplayer Xi Kang (A.D.
223-263), one of the mostoriginalartistsin Chinesehistory.The style
of the notationof the 1425 versionhas led scholarsto postulatethat
this version,the earliestin existencetoday, was probablya copy of an
even earlierversiondatedaroundA.D. 900 (Wangand Qi 1982, 29).
Throughthe ages a considerablenumberof literarysourceshave
mentionedthis composition,the earliestdatingfromthe thirdcentury
A.D. (Wangand Qi 1982, 18). Almostall of these sources,including
a seriesof articlespublishedin the last few years, discussand debate
the somewhatcontroversialliterarycontent of the composition.4In
the I950S, the prominentguqin performerGuanPinghuundertookthe
dapuprocess on the 1425version. His performancewas recorded,and
subsequently transcribed and published (Zhongyang Yinyue
Xueyuan I958). While basicallyfaithful to the notation, he made
some changesin the fingerpositions,with the consequencethat a few
crucialtoneswere altered.These tones, outsideof the pentatonicscale
in the originalnotation,were replacedby Guan Pinghu with notes
within the pentatonicscale. Amongthe consequencesof such replace-
ments is a changeof tonal mode at a few points in the composition.5
A prefaceaccompanyingthe publishedtranscriptionexplainsthat
Guan Pinghu changedthe originaltablaturenotationfor three rea-
sons:to makeambiguousfingerpositionsspecific,to correcterrorsin
the tablature,and to changemelodicprogressionsat specificplacesin
the composition,as demandedby Guan'spersonalinterpretationof
the music(ZhongyangYinyueXueyuan 1958, 8). Whilecopyingand
printingerrorsare sometimesfound in the originalnotation,Guan's
"corrections"and other changes consistentlyreplace the few tones
outsideof the pentatonicscalewith ones in the pentatonicscale. This
consistencysuggestssome other reasonfor the changes.Although I
never met Guan Pinghu, who died in the I960s, others who have
undertakenthe da pu process, includingmy teacher, the late Yao
Bingyanof Shanghai,haveacknowledgedto me thatthey considerthe
chromatictones in Guanglingsan too strangefor their listeners'com-
prehension.Indeed,they themselvesclaimednot to understandthem,
and felt that such tonessounded"wrong."A quicksurveyof the most

4 Xu and Wu i979; Liu 1980; Xu I982b.

5 Chen Yingshi has counted more than two hundred and sixty changes of the
original tablature in Guan's performance as presented in the published transcription
(Chen I985). He also points out that Guan made an error in the tuning of the strings,
resulting in further departure from the original notation. The modal changes in
Guan's performance of Guanglingsanare discussed in Yung i984b, currently under
revision for publication.
88 JOURNALOF THE AMERICANMUSICOLOGICAL
SOCIETY

widely performed guqin repertory today reveals that, with very few
exceptions, the tonality is basically pentatonic. Thus it appears that
today's musicians are unable or unwilling to accept a musical style
that does not conform to the aesthetic sense of their own time, and
that they proceed to make changes and to reinterpret the notation
where they see fit.
If Guan Pinghu had simply performed Guanglingsanwithout its
being recorded or transcribed, the changes he made would have had
a less significant and lasting effect. As it is, another version of the
piece has entered the tradition, though some authors seem unaware of
this. A recently published article discusses the musical structure of
Guanglingsanbased upon the 1958 performance and transcription
(Wang and Qi I982). The authors do not make specific reference to
the tonal alterations made by Guan. Ignoring the freedom possible in
dapu, they implicitly accept his version as being not just based on that
of 1425, but identical to it.
In reinterpreting and rewriting existing compositions to conform
to the aesthetic sense of their own time, Guan Pinghu and other
performers like him seem to be following a long-established and
accepted tradition in the transmission of guqin music.6 My own
experience with masters ofguqin confirms this, as do the many notated
versions of the same composition which survive from different
historical periods. Thus, in the case of guqin, the "present" of any
given period can, and often does, affect its (perceived)past, even to the
extent of rewriting it.
Despite the apparent general acceptance of the above-mentioned
performance and scholarly practices in the guqin tradition, criticisms
of such practices probably existed throughout history. A recent
example of this is an article on Guan Pinghu's performance of
Guanglingsanby Chen Yingshi, who points out that "Since Guan's
version has changed the style of the original composition, even
altering the melodic and modal characteristics, it should not be taken
as representing that of the originally published composition, but
should be considered only as a revision by Guan of the original
notation" (Chen 1985, 2I).
I hasten to point out that I do not intend here a criticism of Guan's
performance. I mean simply to observe that while historical interde-
pendency is probably inevitable in any musical culture preserving the
6 Xu
Jian, in his discussion of the contemporary scene in guqin music, writes that
"in order to accommodate the tastes of the contemporary audience, some of the
traditionalguqin compositions were amended (jiagong)and adapted (gaibian)[for other
instruments]" Xu I982a, I94.
 HISTORICALINTERDEPENDENCYOF MUSIC 89
music of one time for a much later one, it plays a particularly
important role in guqin music because of the ideology, performance
practice, and notational system of this music. I mean further to
observe that the large number of compositions which survive in many
variant notated forms from different historical periods offers a chal-
lenge and an opportunity to the study of music history. It also offers
material for the study of the creative-or recreative-process of the
musician. Comparative studies of the different versions of the same
composition should shed light on the stylistic characteristics and
aesthetic principles of the periods in which the versions were created.7
On the other hand, one must note that a considerable amount of
notation simply copies earlier versions, sometimes several centuries
old. What was published in a particular period did not necessarily
reflect the creative output of that period. Why a particular set of
notation was published thus becomes another important question.
And a considerable amount of basic research work remains to be done
in order to clarify the dating of the sources and to verify the
attributions of the compositions.
Finally, guqin music allows us to compare intraculturaldiachronic
interdependencies with intercultural synchronic interdependencies.
Two cultures may interact through migration, trade, and other kinds
of contact. While the influences are almost always reciprocal, they are
seldom symmetrical; that is, due to political, military, social, and
cultural differences, the flow of influence in one direction is always
greater than that in the other. In the historical interdependency of
guqin music, both oral transmission and written notation are means by
which generations of musicians influence each other. Here, too, the
influences flow in both directions. In new compositions, the past
influences the present; when notation from the past is reinterpreted
and even consciously modified, the present reconstructs the past.
Because of political and social factors, the strength of the flow of
influence in either direction changes through time. For example,
when the collections of notation preserved from the Qing dynasty
(1644-191 I) are compared with those of the preceding Ming dynasty
(I368-1644), one sees that the Qing dynasty produced a much larger
number of copies and variants of preexistent compositions than the
earlier period, and a smaller number of original compositions (Mitani
1981, ioo). Similarly, the 1950S, the early i960s, and the I980s have

7 Lin
i982 is such a study.
90 JOURNALOF THE AMERICANMUSICOLOGICAL
SOCIETY

seen a great deal of activity in the reconstruction of the past.8

Universityof Pittsburgh

LIST OF WORKS CITED

Chen Yingshi. "Ping Guan Pinghu Yanzouben 'Guanglingsan'Pu" [A

critiqueof Guan Pinghu'sperformanceof the Guanglingsan
tablature].
Yinyue Yishu [Art of music] 22 (1985): 18-23.
Lin Youren."Qixianqinyu Qinqu ShengyunFazhandeWojian"[My views
on the evolutionof the shengandyun of the seven-stringzither].Yinyue
Yishu [Art of music] 8 (1982): 48-56.
Liu Ling. "ToujianGongwubu"[A discussionon Guanglingsan
with Xu Jian
and Wu Zhao]. YinyueYanjiu[Music study] I7 (1980): 81-84.
Lui Tsun-Yuen. "A Short Guide to Ch'in." SelectedReportsi, no. 2 (I968):
I80-204.
Mitani Yoko. "Guqin Yinyuede Lishi Bianqian"[Evolution ofguqin music in
history], translated from the Japanese by Wu Wenguang. QinlunJuexin
[New essays on qin] 5 (March 1981): 63-109.
Gulik, Robertvan. TheLoreof theChinese
Lute,2d ed. Tokyo, I969.
Wang Di and Qi Yuyi. "QinquGuanglingsanChutan"[A preliminarystudy
of the guqin composition Guanglingsan].YinyuexueCongkanUournal of
musicology] 2 (1982): 18-5 I.
Xu Jian and Wu Zhao. "Tan Qinqu Guanglingsan" [On the guqin composi-
tion Guanglingsan].YinyueLuncong[ournal of music] 2 (1979): 162-73.
Xu Jian. "ZuiyiYangguanchang,
ZhenzhuYichuange"[A study of the three
strains of Yangguan]. YinyuexueCongkan[Journalof musicology] i (198 i):
112-27.
. QinshiChubian[A preliminary study of the history of the seven-string
zither]. Beijing, I982. (I982a)
."Guanglingsan Bian" [A debate on Guanglingsan].Yinyue Yanjiu
[Music study] 25 (1982): 55-59. (I982b)
Yung, Bell. "Choreographicand Kinesthetic Elements in Performance on the
Chinese Seven-String Zither." Ethnomusicology28 (1984): 505-18. (I984a)
. "Unusual Pitch Material in a Fifteenth Century Collection of Zither
Notation." Paper read at the Twenty-ninth Annual Meeting of the
Society for Ethnomusicology, Los Angeles, 18-21 October 1984. ( 984b)
. "Da Pu: the Recreative Process for the Music of the Seven-string
Zither." In Musicand Context:Essaysin HonorofJohnWard,ed. Anne Dhu
Shapiro, 370-84. Cambridge, Mass., I985.

8 Underthe
guidanceof Zha Fuxi, a systematicsearchfor andorganizationof all
sourcematerialsonguqinmusic(includingrecordedperformances) was carriedout in
the I950S and early i96os. A number of historically well-known and important
compositionswereresurrectedfromnotationintoperformance
by the processof dapu
(see Xu Jian I982a, 192-93). The activity was halted during the Cultural Revolution
(1966-75), but has recentlybeenresumedin the formof severalnationallyheld dapu
dahui[conferenceson dapu].
 HISTORICALINTERDEPENDENCYOF MUSIC 9I

Zha Fuxi, "Zenyang Kefu Guqinpu de Quedian" [How to deal with the
weakness of guqin notation]. ReminYinyue[People's music] 16 (December
I953): 32-33.
. Cunjian Guqin Qupu Qilan [A survey of extant guqin notation].
Beijing, I958.
Zhongyang Yinyue Xueyuan [Central Conservatory of Music]. Xianzai
Guqinqu ChuanpuJieti Huibian Chugao[A preliminary compilation of
extant editions and prefaces for the guqin repertory]. Beijing, I956.
Zhongyang Yinyue Xueyuan [Central Conservatory of Music]. Guanglingsan
[Guqincomposition Guanglingsan].Beijing, 1958.

ABSTRACT

In any continually evolving musical tradition employing some form of

written notation, old music inevitably influences the new. Less obvious is
that the new also affects the old. Temporal influence flows not only forward
through time, but also backward. This is "historical interdependency."
Through the process of da pu, the creative reinterpretation of older works,
the musical tradition of the Chinese seven-string zither offers an example of
this phenomenon.