Aesthetics and Precision in Court Ritual Songs, Ca. 266–272
CHAPTER THREE AESTHETICS AND PRECISION IN COURT RITUAL SONGS, CA. 266–272 Jue 角: The Turn The third step in the Chinese gamut, another whole step, is a “turn” – the jue note. It gives our ears the “major third” interval from gong. In early China’s circle-of-fifths, the major third’s length is assigned the fraction 7.111, whereas gong, shang, and zhi, have whole numbers. Nu- meric ratios begin to clash with the physics of actual musical instruments. A musicologist in early China would know that beyond jue lay not just hard-to- produce notes, but a world of competing modes. For Xun Xu, the “turn” turned out to be a time of com- plexity and competition. These several years were a turning point during which Xun Xu’s ca- reer went in a new direction. He challenged his peers intellectually and experienced forward motion. He gained appointments to reform the court’s music, starting with lyrics for ritual songs. We see for the first time his overarching principle as a reformer intent on a funda- mentalist Zhou restoration, which on several occasions in China’s past had served as an ideological frame in attempts to unify and shape the realm. A Zhou restoration, according to the most trenchant model, that of Wang Mang’s 王莽 (r. 9–23 ad) court, involved nominal and real changes in noble grants, official hierarchies, administrative and penal code, the calendar, architectural standards and shapes, and ritual song-texts and musical scales. As this book progresses, we shall see that Xun Xu directed many of these areas for the Jin court.
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