THE Roman Lituus, the antique straight instrument with the curved end, is drawn from a reproduction in bronze of the original, found in the tomb of a warrior discovered in 1827, at Cervetri, the Etruscan Caere, and preserved in the Museum of the Vatican. The lituus took its name from the augur's staff, which it resembled in shape; it belonged to the cavalry of the Roman Empire. It produces the following proper notes or natural harmonics—
music
[audio/mpeg]
the seventh being flatter than the note which occurs in our modern
musical scale. The fundamental
music
[audio/mpeg]
which the length of this
tube—5 feet 4 inches—would give, cannot be produced. It was from a
minute description of the original instrument, by Signor Alessandro
Kraus junior of Florence, that Mr. Victor Mahillon was enabled to
make this interesting reproduction of an instrument which appears to
be the only antique trumpet known. The curved Buccina is from another
reproduction by him of an instrument preserved in the Museum at
Naples, and found in excavating Pompeii. It was passed under the left
arm of the executant and over his right shoulder, in a manner easily
adopted by a foot-soldier. This Buccina is in unison with the horn in
G, and has a bugle quality of tone. Its notes are—
music
[audio/mpeg]
the seventh and eleventh harmonics not being in tune with the corresponding notes in our received scales, and the fundamental being again impracticable. To sound the lituus and buccina is to awaken the echoes of the ancient past; but, whether blown by Roman or Greek or Egyptian, we may be sure the harmonic division of a column of air into vibrating sections knows no change, and was the same then as now.
The Cornet with two valves shows one of the earliest adaptations of the now dominant pistons as introduced by C. Saxe of Brussels.
One Trumpet, by Johann Wilhelm Haas of Nuremberg, is of obsolete make; the other, also by Haas, is curved in half-circles to facilitate the production of stopped notes, and is curiously engraved.
These five instruments belong to the Brussels Conservatoire Royal.
THE Flageolet is the last example in present use of the "flûtes douces," or "à bec" (German Blockflöten), bored with reversed cones, that is to say, with the embouchure at the larger end. It is referred to by Pepys in his Diary (1st March, 1666): "Being returned home I find Greeting, the flageolet-master, come, and teaching my wife, and I do think my wife will take pleasure in it, and it will be easy for her, and pleasant;" and again (20th January, 1667): "To Drumbleby's the pipe-maker, there to advise about the making of a flageolet to go low and soft; and he do show me a way which do do, and also a fashion of having two pipes of the same note fastened together, so as I can play in one and then echo it upon the other, which is mighty pretty."
The double flageolets in the Plate were made by W. Bainbridge, London, who had a speciality for such instruments. The flûtes douces—in Shakspeare's Hamlet the "Recorders"—were made in families like viols, cromornes, shawms, and other well-known Elizabethan instruments, a fashion that modern instrumentation shows a tendency to return to. Evelyn, in 1679, mentions them as "now in much request for accompanying the voice." A bass and treble flute is drawn, also a one-keyed German or transverse flute which, in the last century, from its beauty and tone, although defective in intonation, was a favourite instrument, and supplanted the flûte douce in public favour. In the concerts of ancient music given in July, 1885, by members of the Brussels Conservatoire in the Music Room of the Inventions Exhibition, South Kensington, a movement from a Concerto by Quanz (music-master to Frederick the Great) was played by Mr. Dumon on a single-keyed ivory flute. In the same concerts, Mr. Dumon and his pupils played a March of the Lansquenets, of the time of the Peace of Cambrai (1519), on eight flûtes douces (flauti dolci), in parts, accompanied by a drum. This was the military music of that period.
The German flute is the second instrument in the Plate; the flûtes douces are the third and fifth from left to right. These instruments and those drawn in the next Plate are the property of Messrs. J. & R. Glen, Edinburgh.
THE shawm of the English Bible is the schalmey, the treble instrument of the old Pommer or Bombardo family and the origin of the modern oboe. The oboe da caccia, derived from the alto pommer or Bombardo piccolo of the sixteenth century, has gone out of use, the Italian corno inglese (French cor anglais) having taken its place. There being some confusion about the description by different writers of the oboe da caccia and oboe d'amore, I fall back upon Dr. W.H. Stone's authoritative definition that the oboe da caccia is a bassoon raised a fourth in pitch, while the oboe d'amore is an oboe lowered a fifth. The bassoon, the centre figure in the Plate, has been regarded as a development of the bass pommer or Bombardone, and the transformation has been generally attributed to a canon of Ferrara named Afranio, a native of Pavia. This question has now been definitively settled by Count L.F. Valdrighi, the librarian of the Biblioteca Estense at Modena. He has proved (Musurgiana, No. 5, "Il Phagotus d'Afranio"), that Afranio's invention, ante 1539, was of the nature of a corna musa (cornemuse or bagpipe), the bag being most likely combined with soft bass melody pipes, called from their quality of tone "Dolcisuoni," whence the dolcino bass of church organs. This invention was improved by Giambattista Ravilio, also of Ferrara, and thirty years later was perfected by Sigismund Scheltzer of Nuremberg, who, rejecting the cornemuse bag, united the two tubes into the "fagotto," so named from the fascine of beech (fagus), or fagots. The fagotto is the same as our bassoon. This clearing up of a disputed invention has been discovered in a very unlikely place—in an Introduction to the Chaldee language, published in 1539, written by the nephew of Afranio, Teseo-Ambrogio Albonesio, Professor of Chaldee and Syriac at the University of Bologna.
The dolciano, to the extreme left of the Plate, will be thus seen to owe the suggestion of its name to the original bassoon. But this instrument has a clarinet or beating reed, not the double reed of the oboe and bassoon. I state this fact upon the high authority of Mr. Henry Lazarus, the clarinet-player, who names it "tenoroon," but Dr. Stone has accepted this name as a synonym of the oboe da caccia, and calls this instrument with a clarinet reed, "dolciano." Mr. Lazarus, when in the Band of the Royal Military Asylum, played upon such an instrument, as he informs me, made by Garrett of Westminster, at a date that must have preceded Sax's invention, which combined the conical tube and clarinet reed in the Saxophone. The basset horn, or corno di bassetto, to the extreme right of the Plate, is the alto clarinet, a fifth lower in pitch than the clarinet in C. It is said to have been invented at Passau in Bavaria in 1770, but the name of the inventor is not recorded. It was improved by Lotz of Presburg in 1782, and again by Iwan Müller in 1812. Mozart wrote two parts for basset horns in his famous Requiem. The relative positions in the Plate of the Oboe and Oboe da Caccia are indicated above.
THE Sitár is the favourite instrument of Upper India, and was
reintroduced and perfected by the poet-musician Amir Khusru of Delhi
in the thirteenth century. The name is Persian, and implies "three
strings," although the Sitár has now usually five, six, and sometimes
seven strings. Sitárs called Taruffe have sympathetic strings of
fine wire attached to the side of the neck and passing underneath
the frets and bridge, to vibrate in unison with the notes of the
same pitch that are played. This contrivance, although of recent
date in Europe, is of great antiquity in the East, being mentioned
in the Sangíta Ratnâkera, the earliest known work in Sanscrit upon
music. The principal strings of the Sitár are sounded by a wire
plectrum worn upon the forefinger of the player's right hand; and
their accordance, which was noted when given to Mr. A.J. Ellis and
myself by H.H. The Rájah Rám Pál Singh, an Indian prince residing
in England, who played upon a fine Sitár now in my possession, is
music
[audio/mpeg]
.
Here the keynote, or khuruj, is F. This method of tuning,
although not so common as tunings given later, is employed in the
north of India and the Punjab; and a similar employment of the
second and third for open strings may be found in the tuning of the
Sur-s'ringâra. The F string is the melody string stopped by the
frets. The other strings are occasionally struck, but are rarely
fretted, and never to produce harmony. The brass frets are secured
to the neck by catgut ties, and are movable, so that by changing
their positions different modes are obtained. The classical Sanscrit
name for the Sitár, the instrument drawn on the left, was Tritantri
(three-stringed) Vína. A form of Sitár, with a flat body, was called
Káchapi (Kacchapa, a tortoise) Vína, now known as Káchwâ Sitár. The
usual tuning of Sitárs having from three to seven strings is to these
intervals:—
music
[audio/mpeg]
In these tunings C is the khuruj or keynote, the melody string being máhdyamâ or F. Sitárs have usually seventeen to eighteen frets. The five methods of arranging them, so as to produce different modes, styled Thât, are as follows:—
The word "Thât," employed to signify scale or mode, should not be confounded with "Râga," the foundation of all Indian music. Râga has no equivalent in European musical language, but may be described as a melody type founded upon the intervals of a mode, and having a succession of notes so arranged as to excite a certain feeling of the mind. There may be many melodies in the same râga, differing distinctly from each other. Methods for the Sitár have been written in Bengâli by the Rájah Sir S.M. Tagore, a well-known amateur, and in Mahrátti by a Brahmin musician of Poona, Anna Ghárpure, a fine performer now in the service of H.H. the Thâkore Sahib of Wadhwân. Besides the Rájah Rám Pál Singh, I had an opportunity of hearing a player from Jeypur, at an exhibition called "India in London," in 1886. The technique and charm of his performance are not easily forgotten. The resonance body of an ordinary Sitár is a gourd, but he had one with two gourds, known as the "Been," or Vína Sitár.
The Sitár in the centre, with fiddle-shaped body, is the Súrsanga, or
Esrar without sympathetic strings, a bowed instrument combining the
Sitár with the Sárungí. It is a modern instrument, and is intended
to accompany women's voices. It has four strings, tuned, upon the
authority of the Rájah Sir S.M. Tagore, as given by Mr. Victor
Mahillon in his admirable Catalogue of the Museum of the Brussels
Conservatoire,
music
[audio/mpeg]
.
The third instrument, upon the right, attached to two gourds, is
the Mahati or great Vína—known now as the "Been." It is the most
ancient and finest Indian instrument, and is also the most difficult
to play. It is composed of a bamboo resting upon two gourds, and has
seven strings—two at the side nearest the F or melody string, four
over the frets, and one at the side away from the melody string. The
tuning, the pitch varying with the size of the instrument, is as
follows:—
music
[audio/mpeg]
.
The string × is tuned E or A as required in the
"râga" played. In the drawing five strings have been shown over the
frets; the string, however, from the peg above and nearest to the
nut, should pass over a small ivory head, not shown, but placed on
the side of the bamboo, between the second and third frets, to the
small bridge shown at the farthest end of the instrument at the side,
and not over the main bridge. The frets, twenty-two in number, are
at semitonic intervals, and fixed. The instrument is played with two
plectra upon the first two fingers of the player's right hand; the
two side strings are struck by the nail of the little finger moved
upwards; the single side string, upon the other side, is struck by
the little finger of the left hand when required. The instrument is
held with the gourd nearest the nut resting upon the left shoulder,
while the right gourd rests beneath the right arm. It should be noted
that the disposition of strings is, in Vínas, reversed from that of
Sitárs. There is a peculiarly soft and plaintive quality of tone in
the Vína that is altogether wanting in the Sitár.
There are two systems of music in vogue in India at the present day—the Karnâtik or southern system, and the Hindustâni or northern. The latter is chiefly in the hands of Mahomedan professors, who have borrowed from the Arabian and Persian systems. The Karnâtik is more melodious, and possesses fewer traces of foreign innovation. Instruments used by Karnâtik professors employ only the intervals of the tonic fourth and fifth (or their octaves) upon the open strings. Hence we find the southern Indian Vína—an instrument with only one resonance gourd, and a wooden body like a lute—tuned to the following intervals:—
music
or
[audio/mpeg]
music
[audio/mpeg]
the first method being known as "Pánchamâ s'ruti," the latter as "Máhdyamâ s'ruti," from the relative intervals between the strings.
The illustrations of the Súrsanga, Mahati Vína, and three-stringed Sitár, are from a fine Indian collection, divided by the Rájah Sir Sourindro Mohun Tagore between the Brussels Conservatoire and the London Royal College of Music.
For completing this information concerning Indian stringed instruments, as well as that of the Indian Drums in Plate XLI., I am indebted to one of the highest authorities on the subject, Lieutenant C.R. Day, Oxfordshire Light Infantry (late 43rd), whose recent personal experience and searching studies have been generously placed by him at my disposal.
PAINTED instruments consisting of a wooden drum, one of earthenware, and a Tam-Tam. The employment of such instruments is necessarily rhythmic, and they occupy a place on the borderland of music and mere noise. Mr. Rowbotham, however (History of Music, vol. i., London, 1885), in formulating the stages through which instrumental music has passed, according to a development theory as applied to music, considers the drum first responded to the nascent conception of music in the prehistoric man, and has since been tenaciously preserved as an adjunct to religious service among partially civilised races. The Nautch girls, at "India in London," London, 1886, performed their soothing gyrations to the gentle Sárungí, a bowed instrument with sympathetic strings, accompanied by the beating of such drums.
There are many varieties of drums to be found in India, the names varying in different parts of the country. The largest of the three Drums here shown is not used by professional musicians, but in bands of street music found in all bazaars, and over the gateways of temples, etc., called Nahabat, or Nakkera Khaneh (in South India, Perya méla), and composed of low-class Mahomedans, or Hindus of the barber caste. Such bands consist of drums of various shapes and kinds, and primitive instruments of the oboe kind, with drones and cymbals. Musicians in the East are usually placed over the gateways, nearly all of importance having galleries for that purpose.
Professional musicians and Nautch girls generally use the M'ridang or Tabla. The Drum with the striped body and leather braces is a kind of M'ridang. The genuine Drum bearing this name is longer in proportion to its diameter, and has one head larger than the other. The two heads are tuned to the tonic and fourth or fifth as required. The pieces of wood between the braces and shell are used to assist in the tuning, and should be noticed. Tabla are small copper kettledrums tuned similarly. Drum-playing upon such instruments is a great art, and can only be learned by years of study. A good Tabla or M'ridang player will earn from 100 to 150 rupees per month. The wrist, flat of the hand, and fingers are employed. Such instruments should not be very noisy, the skill of the player being the first consideration. The M'ridang is considered to be the most ancient of Indian Drums; its origin is popularly ascribed to the god Mahadeo (S'iva).
The earthenware Kettledrum or Tam-Tam, here shown, is used by beggars and fakirs to attract attention as they wander from house to house. A similarly shaped kettledrum of copper, but very much larger—about three or four feet in diameter—is known by the name of Nagara or Nakkera, and is much used in the bands attached to the service of temples, and found over the gates of forts and palaces of native chiefs. Such drums are beaten in a peculiar way with short curved sticks; and, although when heard close the sound is anything but pleasing, yet, when heard from a distance among the mountains, in company with shrill oboes and deeper drones, the sounds rising and falling with the breeze and echoing from hill to hill, the effect is in character with the wildness of the country, and the hearer often listens, rapt, in spite of himself.
The three Drums, here represented, belong to the Music Class Room of the University of Edinburgh, and have been drawn by the permission of Professor Sir Herbert Oakeley.
THESE instruments belong to H.M. the King of Siam, and were drawn by the gracious permission of H.R.H. Prince Narés Varariddhi, then Siamese Minister in England, and brother of the King.
The Saw Tai, or Siamese fiddle (centre figure), has the lower part of the neck of carved ivory, and the upper part of gold enamelled. The back is of cocoa-nut shells, jewelled. There is a jewelled boss on the sound membrane, which is of parchment. It is the same instrument as the Javese Rabáb, and is of Persian origin. The strings, three in number, of silk cord, meet at the top beneath the pegs, and pass under a ligature, whence they diverge to the bridge. It has no finger-board, and the length of string to vibrate is not marked off, as is usual with bowed instruments, by pressure upon the finger-board, but by pressing the independent string with the entire width of the finger, which leaves the intonation a little uncertain. The player squats cross-legged, and holds the instrument in a sloping position.
The Saw Chine, or Chinese fiddle, is shown in two varieties, the Saw Duang (left of centre figure) with jewels round one of the pegs, and the Saw Oo (right of centre figure). Like the Saw Tai, these fiddles have no finger-boards. The bowstring, as in the Chinese Urh-hsien and Hu-ch'in, is inserted between the strings so as to play either. The wind instruments here shown are a Klui, or flute (on the left), which has a membrane over one hole, resembling the Basque galoubet; and the Pee (on the right), a kind of oboe, very harsh, and resembling in tone a very powerful bagpipe, a resemblance assisted by the peculiar heptatonic scale of the Siamese, being not far off the Syrian scale, noticed in the Scotch bagpipe. (See Introduction, page xv., and Plates V. and XLIII.) The Pee is considered to be of Javese origin.
There are four kinds of Bands in Siam, the precise details of which are given in Notes on Siamese Musical Instruments, a work prepared at the Siamese Embassy and published in London, 1885. The Lao Phān Band, peculiar to the north of Siam, includes the reed instrument called Phān, mentioned in the Introduction, page xviii.
THESE instruments, like those drawn in Plate XLII., belong to H.M. the King of Siam, and were also drawn for this work by the gracious permission of H.R.H. Prince Narés.
Harmonicons of wood and of metal, such as the Ranat and Khong, are the foundation of music in Siam, Burma, Java, and the Indian Archipelago generally. They also extend into India, and even, in another direction, to South Africa. Tuned in Siam to a heptatonic scale, not founded upon an harmonic conception of chords, they present, at least ideally, a ladder of seven equal steps, with which the native ear is satisfied. The performances, some years ago, of the King of Siam's band in the Royal Albert Hall, South Kensington, allowed this scale to be heard, and afforded full scope to the remarkable technical skill of the Ranat players.
The instruments drawn are a Ranat Ek of twenty-one wooden bars, in a cradle-like stand beautifully ornamented with ivory; a Khong Yai of eighteen metal kettles, of a kind of bronze or bell metal known as "gongsa," in an ivory stand painted like tortoiseshell, with brass edgings; and the very peculiar Ta'khay, or crocodile, with three strings and twelve bridges, including the nut, to fret them. The last-mentioned instrument is played with a plectrum, and ornamented with a crocodile's head and ivory ornaments.
WE learn from Mr. J.A. Van Aalst's comprehensive treatise on Chinese Music, published, it may at first sight appear somewhat oddly, by the Imperial Maritime Customs (Shanghai, 1884), that the Hu-ch'in, the left-hand figure in the Plate, is one of the most popular musical instruments in Peking. The strings, four in number, are of silk, and are tuned in pairs a fifth apart. This instrument is in fact a double-strung Erh-hsien or Urh-hsien (Van Aalst and Dennys; Ur-heen, Engel), and has the same peculiar arrangement by which the bow is fixed between the strings for playing. It is of cane and horsehair, and the rosin for it is stuck upon the body, a hollow cylinder of bamboo, wood, or copper, through which the long neck of the instrument is thrust. The upper end of the body is covered with snakeskin, while the lower is left open. The Erh-hsien, which has a similar bamboo body but two strings only, is more generally popular than the Hu-ch'in, and is met with all over China. The Ti-ch'in, according to Dennys the favourite instrument with blind men, is also similarly bowed, and has half a cocoa-nut shell for the body, covered by a thin board. These bowed instruments, it is believed, found their way into China with the Buddhist religion.
The name for the next instrument, the reed mouth-organ, Shêng, sounds like "shung," rhyming with "sung." From this ancient instrument have come the modern popular developments of the "free-reed" organ, first applied about 1780, at the instance of Professor Kratzenstein, to organ reed-stops by a Copenhagen organ-builder named Kirsnick, who had settled at St. Petersburg, an invention soon afterwards carried to Germany by the celebrated Abbé Vogler. The French Harmonium and American Organ, the concertinas and accordion, are well-known examples of the "free-reed" principle, which differs from the Church organ beating-reed inasmuch as the reed or vibrator of metal does not overlap any part of its frame. The Shêng is a gourd with its top cut off and a flat cover cemented upon it. Twenty-one bamboo pipes are inserted round the cover, but four, being intended for convenience in holding the instrument, do not sound. Those intended to sound are provided with small brass reeds. By a peculiar arrangement, unique in reed instruments, the wind, attacking all the reeds simultaneously, at once escapes by ventages in the pipes, until stopped by the fingers for the pipes that are to sound. The lengths of the pipes are merely ornamental, the actual lengths required being determined by slot-like cuttings in the pipes, not seen in front. There are seventeen sounding pipes, as already said, but only eleven notes, as some notes are repeated in the unison or octave. The scale, which the à peu près musicians are satisfied with, may be thus noted—
music
[audio/mpeg]
The succession of notes in the first octave resembles that of the ancient Phrygian mode and that church mode in which Thomas Tallis's famous service is composed. The exact measurements of the intervals heard at the Health Exhibition are to be found in Mr. A.J. Ellis's Paper On the Musical Scales of Various Nations, published in the Journal of the Society of Arts, London, 25th March, 1885.
Mr. N.B. Dennys, in his valuable notes on Chinese Musical Instruments
read before the North China Branch of the Asiatic Society, 21st
October, 1873, gives the name of the three-stringed instrument in
the drawing, with a long neck like a tamboura, as San-hsien, with
which Mr. Van Aalst agrees. The Peking musicians called it Sien-tzê
(pronounced like Shen-zy). Like the Japanese Siamisen the San-hsien
has no frets. The drum-like body is covered on the upper side with
snakeskin, the under side being left open as in a tambourine or
banjo. The three strings were tuned ascending a minor tone between
the first and second, and a fifth between the second and third
strings: the outer strings being consequently a major sixth apart.
The strings were plucked by two bone plectra extended like claws
beyond the ends of the fingers, and the player stopped a Pentatonic
or five-note scale, thus:
music
[audio/mpeg]
nearly in just intonation.
The P'i-p'a, according to Dennys and Van Aalst, or Balloon Guitar (the Peking musicians called it Phi-pe), has a body nearly a foot in diameter, from which it takes its English name, and four strings played usually with the fingers and tuned as fourth, fifth, and octave from the lowest note. The large semi-elliptical frets above the finger-board were not used by the player at the Health Exhibition; he restricted himself to the twelve frets upon the finger-board. The P'i-p'a is usually played by men who, in the South of China, are hired as minstrels or ballad-singers. The stopping of this instrument was pentatonic, as with the San-hsien, and the scale began upon the same note, but the tuning of the fretted instrument was less good than that noted of the unfretted one. Mr. Van Aalst informs us that the notes are reiterated by rapidly passing the long finger-nail or plectrum backwards and forwards across the string, to produce an effect of sostenuto similarly sought for in Europe for the Mandoline, Bandurria, and Dulcimer. These instruments belong to the Music Class Room of the University of Edinburgh.
THE Ti-tzu to the left in the Plate is the Chinese flute. It is usually bound round with waxed silk and ornamented with tassels. It has seven holes besides the embouchure, that nearest to the latter being covered with a thin membrane as in the Provençal galoubet, taken from the sap of the bamboo and melted at the moment it is applied, intended to make the quality of tone more reedy. The remaining six holes are stopped by the fingers. According to Mr. Van Aalst, twelve notes in a diatonic succession, beginning upon the A of the violin, form the compass of this instrument, but with much uncertainty of intonation, which may be as much due to the measuring for boring by the instrument-makers as to the peculiarities of an ideal Chinese scale. The scale played at the Health Exhibition, South Kensington, in 1884, by a native ti-tzu player, was a B flat scale with the third rather sharper than the minor but less than the major third, that is, a neuter third, which, as we have seen, is frequently met with in Eastern non-harmonic scales. However, there is great difficulty in determining wind instrument scales accurately, from the power the player has to alter intonation by blowing differently.
The Chinese So-na is a copper wind instrument—a kind of oboe—played with a double reed. On account of the shortness of the reed there is a disk below it to protect the lips of the player. There are two small pierced copper spheres like those in the trumpets in Fra Angelico's paintings, beneath which are the seven finger-holes in the front and two thumb-holes behind the pipe. A loose brass cone of considerable size covers the lower end and is fastened to the upper by a string. This instrument is possibly the Indian Soonai. There are nine notes, as in the Scotch bagpipe, which the So-na somewhat resembles in quality of tone, but it is more strident and disagreeable. The scale, as played by a native at the Health Exhibition, gave intervals of whole and three-quarter tones resembling the bagpipe, but as the performer succeeded in playing with other instruments that apparently differed in scale, the accommodation in blowing must be credited with the approximately satisfactory result.
The Yueh-ch'in, or Moon Guitar, so called from the shape of the sound-board, has four silk strings tuned as fifths in pairs. The strings are struck with the finger-nails, which the Chinese wear long, or a plectrum. The strings are sometimes of copper instead of silk. The instrument is chiefly used to accompany the voice, and the repetition of a note, as in the P'i-p'a, appears to be a favourite effect.
The next wind instrument in Plate XLV. is the Japanese Hiji-riki, a conical pipe with a double reed inserted in the larger end. From this cause the instrument sounds about an octave lower than a pipe that is cylindrical. The Hiji-riki is of bamboo, the interior being covered with a bed of red lacquer. It has seven finger-holes and two thumb-holes at the back. The scale, as given by Mr. Victor Mahillon, from whose Catalogue Descriptif et Analytique du Musée Instrumental du Conservatoire Royal de Bruxelles, I have been glad to borrow, here and elsewhere, is diatonic, with the occasional insertion of a sharp fourth. This interval is frequently heard in Chinese music, when there are ascending seven-note scales. The disk suspended at the top of the pipe is adjusted, when the Hiji-riki is played, to protect the player's lips—a precaution due to the shortness of the metal reed.
The long trumpet is the Chinese La-pa, with a sliding tube on the trombone principle. It gives four notes, the octave, twelfth, super-octave, and seventeenth, but not the prime. As may be imagined, it is a military instrument, but Mr. Van Aalst informs us it is a privilege of itinerant knife-grinders to blow it in the streets to announce their whereabouts. A La-pa, with the bell bent back, is used at wedding processions.
The instruments drawn in this Plate belong to the Music Class Room of Edinburgh University.
THIS is the thirteen-stringed Sono Koto of Japan, and a very beautifully-ornamented specimen, lent for drawing by Mr. George Wood, of Messrs. Cramer and Co., Regent Street, London.
The strings of the koto are, as in all Japanese stringed instruments, of silk drawn through wax, and the accordance follows the pentatonic system already described in connection with the Siamisen, and as given by Mr. Isawa, Director of the Institute of Music at Tokio, in twelve different popular pentatonic accordances, which are the foundations for, but, as will be explained, do not exactly fix the intervals of the koto player's performances. The strings are equally long and thick, and are strained to one tension, the notes being obtained by means of movable bridges, of which there are as many as there are strings. Two strings, the first and third, are tuned alike, at the interval of a fifth above the second or lowest note. The tuning is generally done by ear note by note, the player pitching the instrument to his voice, which is good if a high voice. The classical Japanese music is Chinese, and may have come to Japan with Chinese art, through the Corea. It is, however, only played in the Imperial household or the Shinto temples. Both classical and popular music are pentatonic, but the Japanese in no way avoid semitones, which give the Chinese so much trouble when they endeavour to produce them. The koto player, in performing, squats very low upon the ground, and wears plectra-like wire thimbles on the right hand, terminating in small projections of ivory, touching with them only the shorter division of the strings. He has, however, the power, by pressing down the longer unsounded lengths with the ends of the fingers of the left hand, or pulling them towards the bridges, to increase and decrease the tension of the strings, and thus sharpen or flatten the notes and modify the tuning by intermediate tones—a licence not used unsparingly. The Japanese pictures of koto players invariably show this practice. The dimensions of this Koto are, approximately: length, 6 feet 2½ inches; width, 8¾ to 9¾ inches; depth, about 1¾ inches at the sides. The instrument is made of strong Kiri wood, and has two openings on the under side. The beauty of the ornament of the instrument drawn could hardly be surpassed. The drawing shows enlargements of the two ends, one half the actual size, and displays the highly decorative adornment of this remarkable instrument.
The favourite popular tuning of the Koto is called Hira-dioshi. It is thus given by Mr. Isawa and other authorities:—
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The music-master at the Japanese Village, Knightsbridge, London, tuned the Koto to a Siamisen (Plate XLVII.), with the pentatonic intervals marked on the neck according to a peculiarity of intonation referred to in the description of that instrument.
THESE are Japanese instruments. The Siamisen and Biwa were drawn by permission of the Japanese Commission of the Inventions Exhibition, 1885. The Kokiu in the centre of the plate, and its long fishing-rod bow in four lengths of black wood mounted with silver, belong to the writer.
The Siamisen is the commonest Japanese stringed instrument, and is
played by the singing girls (Gesha); it has been the characteristic
musical instrument at the Japanese Village, Knightsbridge, London.
The name was there pronounced Samiseng (the a as in father), and
Dr. Müller, in an elaborate article on Japanese musical instruments
in the Mittheilungen der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Natur und
Völkerkunde Ostasien's, 6tes Heft. (Berlin, 1884), invariably
writes Samiseng, but the spelling Siamisen is here adopted on the
authority of Mr. Shuji Isawa, the Director of the School of Music,
Tokio. In length it is about 37 inches, and has a resonance membrane
of parchment stretched upon a nearly square wooden body that is
7½ inches high, 6½ wide, and 3 deep. There is a knob on the
under side for a string holder, and the upper and under sides of
it are covered with a selected part of a cat's skin, on which the
bridge also rests. By the little black spots on this skin the value
of the instrument is determined. Four give the highest value; two
mark ordinary instruments; while those without spots are cheap.
The size of the Siamisen is determined by the singer's voice. Good
voices are high voices; consequently a good singer requires a smaller
one. For convenience in moving about, the body and neck are made to
separate. It has three silk strings and in common practice as many
accordances, viz.
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,
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and
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.
It is without frets,
but the fingered scale which the Japanese musicians at the London
"village" appeared to know only, was indicated by small marks upon
the neck, and agreed with the tuning of the thirteen-stringed koto.
It has thus five intervals in the octave, that differ, however,
from the Chinese pentatonic scale, and from that known in Java as
Salendro. The Japanese, as heard at the "village," may be described,
when descending, as a major third, a semitone, a neuter or mean third
(neither major nor minor, but equivalent to a three-quarter tone and
a whole tone), thus
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—the × denoting the mean third. This
was accepted as right by natives of various parts of Japan brought
together in the village whose speech dialects were not the same,
although their musical dialect was thus uniform. However, since
Mr. Isawa gives the interval as a minor third, and in performances
which I have heard the minor effect certainly predominates, I am
disposed to accept the mean third here recorded as only a widening
of the normal minor third. Great latitude has to be allowed in
dealing with scales, especially those of non-harmonic origin. Our own
equal temperament narrowing of the same interval is rarely noticed
by us, and passes as a matter of course. The Siamisen is employed
to accompany the dancing and singing women, and its tones are an
important aid to the effect of their performance.
The plectrum of the Siamisen is called in Japanese Batsi. It is shown in the plate.
The Kokiu is a kind of fiddle, in its construction very like the
Siamisen, only that it is played with a bow (kiu) instead of a
plectrum or striker (batsi). It is usually a woman's instrument, but
is now very little played. Dr. Müller only heard one player in Tokio,
a blind man, from whom he took his description of the instrument and
the manner of performance. The whole length of the Kokiu is about 25
inches, the body being 5 inches long and broad. It is 2½ inches
deep and covered like the Siamisen. Instead of the string-holder of
the latter it has a 2½ inch long round metal slip to which the
strings are knotted. The bridge is long and very low, with notches
to receive the strings; three being equally spaced, while the fourth
is very near the third. The strings are tuned
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, the two near
each other being unisons of the highest note. The bow is 45 inches
long, of four lengths as already mentioned. It takes to pieces for
transport. It is flat behind and oval in front. It is bent at the top
nearly to a right angle, and the whole rod is very elastic. It is
strung with white horsehair about 32 inches long, the horsehair being
imported, as there is no long horsehair in Japan. It is fastened with
a silken knot into a silver holder. In order to play the Kokiu the
bow is taken with the thumb, middle, and little fingers, the index
finger being extended along the back. With stretched-out fourth
finger the player strains the slack hair of the bow, then takes up
the instrument, vertically resting it upon the knees, between which
the metal string-holder is grasped. Bringing the hair of the bow to
the edge of the resonance body, the bow is simply moved horizontally
backwards and forwards, the middle part of the bowstring only being
employed. The strings are brought into contact with the bow by a
rotary movement of the instrument. Sometimes only one E flat string
is used, sometimes both. Double notes are very rarely used. The sound
of the Kokiu is very like that of the Hurdy-Gurdy, but much weaker in
comparison.
The Biwa is a lute-like instrument in the shape of a divided pear, becoming narrower upwards. The body is about 34 inches long, of which 7½ come on to the finger-board. There are four frets on the finger-board. It has four strings in two thicknesses tuned, according to Dr. Müller, prime, quint, octave, tenth, like an infantry bugle, but Dr. Isawa gives no less than six accordances. The Biwa is played with a bill-formed batsi 6½ inches long, made of horn, wood, tortoiseshell, or ivory.