Rock Island daily Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1886-1893, 1886-10-12

In the golden dsys of China the musical art
and its professors held high distinction, hut
now TO be a musician, the author tells US, is
the lowest calling man can profess There
IS still. however, at Pekin, a board of music
connected with the board Of rites, bdt the
Officers seem little anxious to distinguish
themselves. Once serious music was studied
with the classics, but is now totally
abandoned The common people, however,
delight in music, a,I love gong beatings and
clarionet shriekine5, but they DO not play
themselves. The Professional musician is q
blind man
Mr. Macfarren tells us that Instruments of
percussion wore first invented, then those
giving sounds by wind, and lastly by the
vibrations of strings The lus. a s,ries Of
bamboo tubes, the Chinese declare to lSse the
first instrument We have drawing of the
twelve tubes making the lus, and every othes
tube is shorter, short tube being placed be-
tween two longer ones OF course blowing
them in Succession mikes fearful gamut, at
least to our ears 1t is an ascending scale,
but with many unfortunate intervals, We
have seen, not quoted by Mr.. Van Aalst, the
exact measurements Of the frcts on Chinese
guitar. They are arbitrary in their spacings
It is well known chat the higher the note ac-
ceptable to the European that is, to suit our
ears the smaller Is the spacing.
The great Chinese master who hid down
the law for this spacing, so We read, found
the s,ods of u peculiar kind of melon He
laid down one seed on the finrerboard, and
said that space is one note Then he moved
the seed its length on the fingerboard, made a
fret there, and declared that that must be the
next note So this mcthodical musical sage
shortened strings and go a gamut was given
10 China, founded not on melodic vibrations,
hut On linear principles.
TIE HIGHER You GO TIE WORSE IT Is.
When YOU try q scale the first three or four
rates do you but vervslight aural injury but
Che higher YOU go up the worse is the infiic-
ton. Tho notation is not readily understood.
the author stating that tho Chinese theoretic-
sily admit ssven sounds in the scale, but
practically only use five. As to the value of
the notes. the Chinese have nothing indicative
Of this The hest Chinese musician could
only conjecture the general form of a written
pi>ce shown him for the first tine To be
able TO docipher it he must first hear 1T
played" We can understand from this how
/ Lind musician fills all the necessary Chinese
requirements
70 play Is YOU please is TO keep Chinese
time. for the tunes, modified by individual
taste Of the performer, may after a lapse Of
time become quite different from what they
wore originally" Satisfied with a pentatonic
scnle, with no Eat nor sharp, in this the
Chimes find all the variations which satisfy
thuir musical tastes. Whether they have a
RAZOR or minor scale has been disputed, but
Mir Van Aalst say they mix both together
As to the rrtiuements Of Crescendos dsrescen
dos, l"gatnS, that Is all Italian To the Chinese
To sing in China Is to Use the nose. Tongue.
teeth, ami lips pronounce the syllables, but do
nothing else With voix de tete the women
squeak, and very disaereeable thing it is to
hear thom
In the book may be found several examples
IF Chinese popular songs, but we doubt
whether any American publishers o: music
will ever pirate tt I'll Ono ballad
Is entitled wang Ta-niang, OF
Madame Wang" Played on the piano or
sung, monotony is its salient trait-the mon
otony of musical stupidity Mr. Stent who
wrote an interesting article entitled "Chinese
Lyrics" has reproduced the notes of this par
ticular song, and he writes: However sim
pie or absurd any song introduce may ap-
pear, claim that it possesses equal, if not su-
perior, advantages to our own popular songs
We can not agree with Mr. Stent-that is, as
regards the specimens of Chinese songs here
SofOro presented. Captain Jinks of the
Horse Marines" is as the Moonlight Sonata"
to Madame Wang" What we do think,
however, is that the words of this song are of
a much higher poetical character than are
our swn. In one song entitled, Mama hao
ming PAL go mamma, you understand
well, there is some very, very faint approach
to tunefulness-but only feeble suggestion
Chinese must he fond of these songs, as we
orc told that some Of them have forty eight
verses In funeral or a wedding march eI-
prcssions of grief or JOY are utterly indis-
CHAPTERS, TRIASGLES, GONGs AND DRUMs
As to the instruments, there are several
guitars, particularly absurd two-string
violin, flutes, telescope kind of trombone a
long trumpet, cymhals, clappers, triansles,
with gonGs and drums In endless variety
Elegant Chinese OF a former period used TO
play on the china long kind of either that
has seven strings. Once there were Ch'ins
with fifty strings, but very sensitive EN-
percr-1Iuang Ti-having heard Miss Su
perform on it, "was impressed SO deeply and
became SO scrrowful by its means that he
made up his mind that he could only stand
1ne-half Of his emotion and live, so he had an
imperial order issued, whereby this instru-
mcnt was deprived of twenty-five of io
strings. The erb-hsian, or ten-strinCed VIC
lin Is mot with all over China The ,es,k is q
hollow hambo, the body a cocoanut shell.
The ten strings are tuned in f1fths. A very
and dreadfully complicated musical
must be the yang-chin, or foreign
harpsichord Il is zither-hke in shape. but
the strings arr crlss-crosS and rest on two
long bridges. so that with the sixteen strings
you have foc-ty-alght different notes Tho
flute, ti-t2u. has ci~ht holes, one blown
r. r9ugh. another covered with a membrane,
a.,' even are PLAYED upon. The mouth hole
seem 10 be in the middle. As to the Chinese
rlarionet. anyone who has heard this instru-
mant of torture once will never I've anxious to
have It's ear splitting sounds repeated Il nc
rentuat.S I'll the very worst qualities Of th.
European Instrument.
When yoT come to real noise produceahle by
'''h't Wv 'ulti7SN Si'tN mere
* The w. 1t is wooden tiger mounted ON
hollow box. The backbone of the tiger is cut
n ridges. like a saw. You run your std
''ro7s vour VI. and then you make worsa
nos" than the Ameri an small boy who with
bis hoop stick irritate5 YOUR nerves by draw
inE It Hthwnrt your picket fence Gongs W.
nsst not describe, nor bells, for they arr vol
known The Chinese orchestra EMPLOYS stona
md constructs various instruments ont of p
hard calcar"ons rock.-New York Times
v here G"u. Washington Was Initiated |
th" cd Freeman tavern at Morristown. " |
J., is soon Ia he Demolished Il is said 70
have been erected about 114o. and that whom
3A American army was quartered on the |
nils about Morristown in the winters of I777-s
-isu- Washington there took the rites of Fro. |
'':s''n'r- A grand ball was also given theirs |
y tue 'fa'"'r-' Of the army the tickets being
''4N Continental rucney -Eschange.