A CHINESE LEGEND ABOUT MUSIC.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XIV, Issue VIII, 23 February 1895, Page 186

A CHINESE LEGEND ABOUT MUSIC.

HOW THE DIVINE ART WAS REDUCED TO A SYSTEM. * The legend tells us that Lyng-Lun wandered, deep in thought, to the land of Lijoimig, where the bamboos grow. He took one, cut a piece of it between two of the knots, and having pushed out the pith, blew into the hollow, whereby he produced a beantiful tone, like the sound of his own voice. At this moment, the river Hoang-bo, which ran boiling along a few paces off, roared with its waves, and the noise it made was also in unison with the sound of LyngLun’s beautiful voice, and the sound of the bamboo. ‘“Behold them,” cried Lyng-Lun, “the fundamental sonnd of nature I” And as he was musing on this wonderful coincidence, the magic bird Foung-hoang and his mate came flying along. They perched on a tree, and began to sing. Imagine the delight of our musician when he found that their song was also in nnison with the sounds of the river, the bamboo and his own voice. Then all the winds were hushed, and all the birds of the air were silent, as they listened to the song of the magic bird and his mate. * As they sang, Lyng-Lun, who had found his opportunity and, like a wise man, meant to use it, kept cutting bamboos, and tuning them to the notes of the birds, six to the notes of the male and six to the notes of the female. When they had finished singing, Lyng-lun had twelve bamboos cut and tuned, which he bound together and took to the king, and they gave forth the twelve notes of our modern chromatic scale. • The odd notes, F, G, A, B, C sharp, D sharp were the mate notes, and the even notes F sharp, G sharp, A sharp, C, D, E, were the female, and with that partiality for the masculine sex which is not peculiar to the Chinese, they pronounced the six odd or male notes perfect, and called them “Yang,” and the six even or female notes they pronounced imperfect, and called them “Yu.” *

The writer thinks that, with an origin so poetic, we might certainly have expected music to develop into something which would justify its being called in China, as with us, * the Divine Art,’ but, according to her account, a Chinese orchestra is the most atrocious, ear-splitting performance one could possibly listen to. Still, as she remarks, there are two sides to every question, and the Ch’-»se and Japanere trained musicians listen to the efforts of W< - *ern artists with a tolerance born of a sense of lofty superiority. The gourd, or ching, is said by the writer to be the most pleasing of Chinese instruments, and she tells us, apparently without the slightest attempt at humour, that ‘it seems to be something akin to the Scotch bagpipes.’ Another instrument, the ou, is a very poetic conception. It is described as in the form of a crouching tiger, with twenty-seven teeth on its back, like the teeth of a saw, and is played by scraping these with a stick.