Pipa Lute Had Established a Position As the Primary Instrument in the Tradition of “Banquet Music” (Yànyuè 宴樂)
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JTC1/SC2/WG2 N4848 L2/17-311 2017-09-07 Universal Multiple-Octet Coded Character Set International Organization for Standardization Organisation Internationale de Normalisation Международная организация по стандартизации Doc Type: Working Group Document Title: Proposal to encode old Chinese lute notation Source: Andrew West and Eiso Chan (Chén Yǒngcōng 陈永聪) Status: Individual Contribution Action: For consideration by JTC1/SC2/WG2 and UTC Date: 2017-09-07 1. Introduction This is a preliminary proposal to encode the system of tablature notation used to represent the music of the medieval Chinese lute (琵琶, Chinese pípa; Japanese biwa). This system, known in China as Dūnhuáng pípápǔ 敦煌琵琶譜, was in use in China during the Tang (618–907) and Song (960–1279) dynasties, as well as in Japan during the same period. This system is not in modern use, but is required for encoding for the use of scholars studying music manuscripts of these periods. A total of 46 characters are proposed for encoding. 2. The Chinese Lute The Lute family of instruments was not part of the native pre-Han musical tradition of China, but spread to China from Central Asia. From the time of the Han dynasty (206 B.C. to 220 A.D.) the word pípa 琵琶 (supposed etymology being 琵 = pī 批 “to strum the string outwards”, and 琶 = bǎ 把 “to pluck the string inwards”) began to be used for various lute- like musical instruments, but it was not until the period of the Northen and Southern Dynasties (420–589) that there is any evidence of the introduction of the distinctive lute proper into China. By the Tang dynasty (618–907) the pipa lute had established a position as the primary instrument in the tradition of “banquet music” (yànyuè 宴樂). The Chinese musical tradition was also exported to Korea and Japan as part of the wholesale cultural Sinicization of these countries that took place during the Tang dynasty (this musical tradition is in fact known as Tōgaku 唐樂 “Tang Music” in Japan), and some important musical texts, as well as actual instruments dating from this period, are preserved in Japan. Two closely related varieties of the medieval Sino-Japanese lute were in use (as well as other more distant relatives, such as the “moon lute”, for which no musical scores are extant): JTC1/SC2/WG2 N4848 Page 1 The typical four-stringed lute, which has a pear-shaped body and a short neck with four frets. Distinctively, the pegbox at the end of the neck is bent back at a sharp angle (as was also the case with the medieval European lute). The less common five-stringed lute, which is narrower than the four-stringed lute, and has a straight neck with five frets. Fig. 1: Tang dynasty lutes preserved at the Imperial Storehouse at Nara in Japan 4-Stringed Lute 5-Stringed Lute The lute could either be played on its own as an accompaniment to popular songs, typically by a female lutenist who would both sing and play, or as part of a larger orchestral arrangement. The lutenist is usually depicted as plucking the strings with a large plectrum (see Figs. 3 through 6). JTC1/SC2/WG2 N4848 Page 2 Fig. 2: Another four-stringed lute preserved at the Imperial Storehouse at Nara in Japan Fig. 3: Detail of a mural at the Mogao Caves near Dunhuang This mural shows a pipa-player dancing and playing with the four-stringed lute behind the back, to the accompaniment of drums and other instruments JTC1/SC2/WG2 N4848 Page 3 Fig. 4: Detail of Night Revels of Han Xizai by Gù Hóngzhōng 顧閎中 (937–975) Fig. 5: Palace Concert by an unknown Tang dynasty artist showing palace ladies at a banquet playing various musical instruments (pipa at top centre) JTC1/SC2/WG2 N4848 Page 4 Fig. 6: Detail from a Liao dynasty (907–1125) tomb mural in Inner Mongolia showing a Flutist and Lutenist The pipa lute has continued to be an important instrument for popular music up to the present day, but the modern Chinese pipa lute, which has a rounder body, a straight neck and up to seventeen frets, evolved during the Ming dynasty (1368 – 1644), and is not at all the same instrument as the medieval lute. Nor do musical scores for the modern Chinese lute use the same system of tablature that is found in Tang dynasty and contemporaneous Japanese manuscripts. 3. Lute Scores The four-stringed Chinese lute was a very widely played musical instrument during the Tang dynasty (618–907) and the Song dynasty (960–1279), and several manuscripts using a special system of tablature signs for writing lute music have survived in China and in Japan: A Tang dynasty Dunhuang manuscript, Pelliot chinois 3808, held at the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris, comprising 25 tunes, the first 20 written in one hand, and the last five written in a different hand (see Fig. 12). A Tang dynasty Dunhuang manuscript, Pelliot chinois 3719, held at the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris, comprising a fragment of a single tune, Huànxīshā 浣溪 沙 “Washing in the Stream” (see Fig. 13). JTC1/SC2/WG2 N4848 Page 5 A Tang dynasty Dunhuang manuscript, Pelliot chinois 3539, held at the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris, comprising a list of the twenty tablature signs (see Fig. 14). The Tempyō Lute Score (Tempyō Biwa Fu 天寶琵琶譜), a single-sheet manuscript preserved at the Imperial Storehouse at Nara in Japan, dated to circa 738 (see Fig. 15). The Fushiminomiya Family Lute Score (Fushiminomiya-hon Biwa Fu 伏見宮本琵琶譜), a 25 sheet Japanese manuscript dated 920–921, comprising a copy of lute scores composed by the Chinese lute master Lián Chéngwǔ 廉承武 at Yangzhou in the year 838 for Fujiwara Sadatoshi 藤原貞敏, who was an administrative officer of a Japanese embassy to China during the years 834–841 (see Fig. 16). Sango Yōroku 三五要錄, a 1328 manuscript copy of a text on lute tuning compiled by Fujiwara no Moronaga 藤原師長 (1137–1192) in the late 12th century. The Kikutei Family Scroll (Kikutei-ke Monjo 菊亭家文書), a composite manuscript scroll, including 3 sheets that give tunings for the lute to be used during the first, eighth and fourth lunar months, with a colophon dated 1386 (see Fig. 17). The Five-Stringed Zither Score (Gogen Kinfu 五弦琴譜), a Japanese manuscript dated 842 that comprises six modal preludes and twenty-two tunes for the five-stringed lute, using a system of tablature based on that used for the four-stringed lute, but extended with six additional tablature signs represented by ordinary Chinese characters (see Fig. 18). 4. Tablature Signs 4.1 Basic Tabalature Signs The four-stringed lute had four strings and four frets, allowing a total of twenty finger positions (open string and four fret positions for each string). There are twenty basic tablature signs in lute scores, each corresponding to one of the twenty possible finger positions. The absolute value of the notes represented by the tablature signs depends on the tuning of the lute required for the mode of the piece to be played. Different modes require different sets of notes, and so only a subset of the twenty tablature signs are ever used in any given tune (the complexities of the modal system used for lute music during the Tang dynasty will not be discussed here as it has no bearing on encoding). The five-stringed lute has one extra string and one extra “lonely fret” that is only used with the fifth string. This gives an additional six fret positions, which are represented by the Chinese characters 子 zǐ “son”, 九 jiǔ “nine”, 中 zhōng “middle”, 四 sì “four”, 五 wǔ “five” and 小 xiǎo “little” (see Fig. 18). The basic tablature signs used in scores for four-stringed lute and five-stringed lute are shown in Table 1. JTC1/SC2/WG2 N4848 Page 6 Table 1: String/Fret positions for 4- and 5-stringed lute String I String II String III String IV String V * Fret (宮 gōng) (商 shāng) (角 jué) (羽 yǔ) 0 = Open String I–0 II–0 III–0 IV–0 V–0 (散打 sàndǎ) 子 1 = Index I–1 II–1 III–1 IV–1 V–1 Finger 九 (頭指 tóuzhǐ) 2 = Middle I–2 II–2 III–2 IV–2 V–2 Finger 中 (中指 zhōngzhǐ) 3 = Ring Finger I–3 II–3 III–3 IV–3 V–3 (名指 míngzhǐ) 四 4 = Little I–4 II–4 III–4 IV–4 V–4 Finger 五 (小指 xiǎozhǐ) 5 V–5 小 * The assignment of the six extra tablature signs for the five-stringed lute follows Wolpert 1981b. Table 2 shows the the twenty tablature signs of the four-stringed lute, ordered in Fret/String order, with the corresponding glyphs from various Chinese and Japanese manuscripts. The first ten signs are derived from the Chinese ideographs for the numbers “1” through “10”. It is not certain what the derivation of the last ten signs is, although several of the symbols have intriguing graphic analogies with Jurchen characters for the numbers eleven through twenty, which suggests that Jurchen numbers and lute tablature signs may share a common derivation from cursive simplifications of Chinese numbers (see West 2012 for details). In later Japanese lute music manuscripts, some of the original tablature symbols are written as graphically similar Han ideographs, and are given Japanese readings as if they were these ideographs (e.g. is commonly written as the ideograph 也, pronounced ya in Japanese). However, most of these ideographic back-formations are not actually correct interpretations of the original forms of the tablature signs.