British Forum For Ethnomusicology

British Forum for Ethnomusicology

Meaning and Structure: The Case of Chinese qin (zither) Music Author(s): Frank Kouwenhoven Source: British Journal of Ethnomusicology, Vol. 10, No. 1, Music and Meaning (2001), pp. 3962 Published by: British Forum for Ethnomusicology Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3060771 Accessed: 01/10/2009 12:41 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=bfe. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

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FRANKKOUWENHOVEN

Meaning and structure - the case of

Chinese qin (zither) music

In Chinese traditional culture, primary importance is attached to the programmatic and aesthetical purport of musical pieces. In practice, however, one is confronted with an abundance of different (often contrasting) musical meanings. This is true for contemporary Chinese compositions, but also for traditional repertoires such as folk songs and qin (zither) music. This article discusses some contrasting interpretative views in the realm of qin music, on the basis of statements made by qin players and written documentation accompanying their commercial recordings. The article argues that the idea of musical structure as a major guide to the musical meaning of a piece can be safely discarded, if only because the structure of a piece does not exist - as little as the meaning.

Music has whatever meanings composers, performers and listeners wish to ascribe to it. All programmatical and functional ideas about music merit our attention, and we have to acknowledge that meanings change over time. Performers, listeners and environments change, and no musical idea (or idea about music) is ever contained in splendid isolation. If musicologists defend any specific interpretationof a musical piece, one imagines that they attempt to define the meaning of the piece at the time when it was conceived. While this is an important challenge, it remains unlikely that a single, "original" meaning can ever be ascribed to any musical piece. One realm of music which may illustrate this is the Chinese qin tradition. The examples from the qin repertoire discussed below are to some extent arbitrary. They reflect my interest in particularcompositions, but other qin pieces could have served equally well to demonstrate the same point, namely, that music is one thing, and programmatical meaning quite another.

Humble and haughty The qin or guqin ("old instrument") is at once the most humble and most haughty of all musical instruments. The preserve of a small elite of learned and philosophical men and women in China, the seven-string zither is itself

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Figure1 Thispictureof qinmaster ZhangZiqian,takenin the 1950s, epitomizesthe essentialinterests -i

refined music. Only a wine-bottle is

missing! associated with an atmosphere of purity, peacefulness and enlightenment, while in fact its repertoire is considered to encompass a far wider range of program-

matical meanings and emotions. The qin serves principally as a road to spiritual enlightenment and self-improvement for players and listeners (DeWoskin 1982:101-24, 128; Goormaghtigh 1990, 1994, 1998). But it also embodies the spirit of the many stories captured in its music: descriptions of scenery, love stories and dark tales of murder, war, abandonment and deep

loneliness (Gulik 1969b:153-161; Schaab 1988:12-21). The historical backdrop of the qin tradition is an ancient country of rural

poverty, corruption, wars, power struggles and social inequality. Qin pieces are full of references to this troublesome past. Qin players, while aspiring to be sages and to live in quiet harmony with their environment, act as insatiable

escapists and restless seekers of bliss and redemption. They cannot but interact with the world in which they live. Qin music is certainly not a repertory of social outcasts,

and it hardly ever refers to the life of the poor and the

powerless, but qin players do channel their melancholy into music in much the same way as blues players did in rural America at the beginning of the twentieth century. As early as in the Han dynasty (206 BCE-221 CE), Chinese

intellectuals were fascinated by "sadness" (bei) and by grave sentiments in music, which, intriguingly, they associated with lofty mental states and with moral purity. In later periods, the qin was never able to shed off entirely its image as a "sad" instrument, and as a medium which could transform the minds of its players and listeners, and evoke a deep sense of harmony and

peace.

KOUWENHOVEN Meaning and structure

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Ji Kang's famous argument(third century CE) that "music has neither sorrownorjoy" has been interpretedas a reactionagainstthe overridingvogue for sadnessin his time. But Ji Kang did not deny that qin music could evoke emotionalresponses,nor did he object to music serving as an outlet for sad feelings. His mainpolemic was directedagainsthypersensibilityand a theatrical exhibitionof such sentiments.He criticizedthe exploitationof emotionsfor artisticor self-centeredinterestsandrejectedthe promotionof suchideas to the ranksof valuesandtruths.(On Ji Kangandsadnessin music, see Egan 1997.) For Ji Kang, and for most other qin aficionadosin later periods,the qin primarilyremaineda symbolof intellectualsophistication,mentalrestraintand emotional balance - and not just a symbol, but also an effective practical mediumto achievethose ends. Ji Kang'sidea was that the highest essence of musicalexperiencetransgressedthe narrowconcernsof humanpsychology.In the mind of a "superior"man, sadness and joy in music would merge and become a single unitedexperience.Music was capable,ideally,of instillingin man a sense of deep peacefulnessand spiritualunity with the cosmos. Music's expressivepowerstranscendedthe personalconcernsand individualtragedies of humanbeings, but only if players and listenersmanagedto control their emotions and to concentrateon the inner qualities of the music. There are familiarechoes of these views in numerousWesternwritingson music, from Plato (who recognizedmusic as a cosmologicalparadigmin his Timaeus)to Stravinsky(who rejected romanticsentimentand promotedobjectivity and restraintin musicalperformance)andbeyond. In qin music, it was said, a peaceful state of mind and cosmic harmony could be achievedby those who exploredthe sounds of the qin with a pure heartand an open mind and who were able to recognizeand acceptthe instrument'svery "mysteriousness" as the key to its greatestpowers.Ji Kangrejected crude escapism but promoteda near-religiousvenerationfor music and for natureas the roadto a tranquil"cosmic"detachment.Ji Kang'sideas, notably his mystification of nature, which he shared with the great philosopher Zhuangzi- Zhuangzireferredto the deep "pipingof heavenandearth"- had a lastingimpacton Chineseqin philosophy.1Ji Kang was one of many Chinese authorsto celebratethe eternalbondsbetweenman and natureand to promote music as an ideal mediumfor exploringthose bonds,but he was certainlyone of the most influentialones. Qin lore today is still saturatedwith allusionsto scenery, animals, objects and events in the naturalworld, and some of the proponentsof qin philosophycontinueto honourthese allusionsas sacrosanct and as a domainthat only the initiated(the really proficientplayers)can fully appreciateandunderstand.

1 For Ji Kang's essay, "Music has No Sorrowor Joy", see De Woskin (1982:104, 117); and Egan (1997); for his "Poetical Essay on the Qin", see Gulik (1969a) or (in French) Goormaghtigh(1990). Ji's famous essay on the qin in many ways supplements, from the specific angle of qin music, his more generalideas aboutmusic and emotion.

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The qin as a tool for "sounding nature" Qin players strive to transcend the limitations of human experience by seeking spiritual communication with nature. (And what, if not sadness, fundamental insight into the transience and imperfections of the human condition, would make them wish to do so?) The qin serves as a bridge to the non-human world, a presumed realm of immortality, eternal peace and transcendental fulfilment. Many qin pieces are musical descriptions of mighty rivers, high mountains, autumnal landscapes, birds flying in the air, or boats floating on water, but qin players do not simply treat their instrument as a tool for evoking such elements in music and for painting pretty scenes. As Kenneth De Woskin has pointed out, they tend to think of the qin as a "sympathetic resonator", a medium which offers access to the deeper "sounds" of nature - that is, the metaphysical truths of existence. In this context, words like "sound" and "hearing" are used in a similar way to "vision" and "seeing" in the West: they do not refer to the ordinary senses, but imply an ability to grasp the inner essence of things. More than just a musical instrument, the qin becomes a "hearing aid", a tool in the communication with cosmic powers. One might argue - as some philosophically minded qin adepts do - that the music of the qin is not created by its players: it consists of messages received from nature (De Woskin 1982:33-5, 138). Very interesting is the extraordinaryimportance attached to "silence" in qin music - that is, to the imaginary continuation of sounds beyond what the normal human ear can detect: silences - not only pauses and interruptionsbut also the dying away of audible sounds, supported by hand and finger movements that may continue for a while after any audible pitch has disappeared are yet another way to suggest "deep, spiritual listening". How could one stress such lofty abilities of the qin better than by placing the instrument and its performance tradition as much as possible in an (imposing) outdoor environment? Qin players' favourite spots for playing music are lonely bamboo groves or high mountain tops - at least, this is what is suggested in traditional qin lore, in writings, drawings and paintings. One thirteenth-centuryscroll painting by Zhao Mengfu (see Figure 2) demonstrates the romantic image of the qin player as a philosopher and cosmic explorer. It shows a scholar and owner of a qin pausing in his climb up a mountain. He is a rich man who can afford a servant to carry his zither up to the top. Soon he will sit down cross-legged under the pine tree, place his instrument on his lap and play for the gods or for himself. The wind may touch his strings furtively, and he could leave it at that, or he might sing a poem or two, or pluck the strings randomly to produce just a few soft sounds. The fog and silence around him serve as reminders of the world's deep emptiness. Vast mountains and abysses mock the idleness and futility of all human strife and ambition. The Chinese visual arts abound with images like these, which reveal the essential nostalgia and Weltschmerzof China's traditionalelite, and which firmly idealize the past. After all, the scholar depicted in this thirteenth-centuryscroll is a fourth-centurypoet, Tao Yuanming, a literarycelebrity from (what was already then) an illustrious past. In Western art we might be inclined to provide an

KOUWENHOVEN Meaning and structure

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Figure 2 Zhao Mengfu's thirteenth-centuryscroll

paintingdepictsthe fourthcenturypoetTaoYuanming preparingto travelthe mountainsof his mindwith his qin

intellectual giant like Tao with a face, perhaps showing his courage or determination, or moral uprightness. We might depict him holding the main emblem of his wisdom - the qin - in his hands. On the Chinese scroll he is characteristically reduced to the size of an ant. Apart from his implied status in human society (master rather than servant), he could be any man, reduced to near-nothingness in his confrontation with the overwhelming powers of nature. There is no evidence that qin players were ever really fond of climbing mountains and exposing their instrument to severe cold, stormy wind or trips over slippery stone paths. Written recommendations existed in the Ming dynasty (1368-1644 CE) which list, among ideal situations for playing the qin, "sitting on a stone", "having climbed a mountain", "resting in a valley", "resting in a forest", etc. Additionally, there are regulations, from the Song dynasty (960-1279 CE)and possibly earlier, which specify that one should not play the qin "when there is wind and thunder, or in rainy weather" (Liang

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Figure3 Nostalgiaforthe powerful imagesof the past:a CDcoverof qin masterZhengChengwei(Chengdu) shows himperforming outdoors,playing the qinin medievalfashion(by holding

Figure4 Duringthe Tangand Song dynastiesthe qinwas normallyheldon the lapduringperformance.(Inlater periodsitwas puton a table.)A portrait of qinmasterYangJijing,paintedby Gu

it on his lap)

Hongzhong in the tenth century CE

1972:141). It appears that most of these rules were made by Daoist monks who dwelled in temples and secluded spots and who felt an overriding need to live by strict regulations. Some of them may indeed have played outdoors, in quiet scenic spots, but the documents say little or nothing about the ambiance in which most qin players in China actually played the instrument. The soft-toned qin is not really suited for playing outdoors, except perhaps on a summer evening in a quiet garden. But so powerful are the traditional images, so persuasive the intended symbolism, that modem qin players appear on CD covers playing the instrument in "nature", against a backdrop of flowing water, rocks or a bamboo grove, while, in reality, very few of them would be

inclined to go outdoors to play the instrument. In the winter of 1998, when I interviewed some forty qin players in Beijing, Shanghai and Chengdu, I found myself travelling from one noisy urban back-

yard to another, visiting the musicians in small apartments in busy neighbourhoods. Small wonder that some players dream of roaming mountain landscapes! But only Zheng Chengwei (in Chengdu) and Lin Youren (in Shanghai) confessed a genuine interest in - occasionally - playing the qin outdoors on solitary mountain walks, and only Yu Bosun (near Chengdu) was observed in the act of playing his qin in a garden pavilion. (That must may have been a more common practice in the past, when more literati could afford gardens.)

KOUWENHOVEN Meaning and structure

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Figure 5 Hand-postures from the fifteenth century qin handbook Taigu Yiyin,with their suggested correlates in nature: a leopard holding a smaller animal, perhaps a rabbit, and a crane calling in the shade. The accompanying texts explain the technicalities of the postures in detail and provide poetic and metaphoric descriptions of the essence of the posture. The leopard symbolizes an attitude "in-between relaxation and ferocity". The crane's bright call is "reminiscentof ancient tunes", and it merits emulation, "but take heed: the higher you soar, the more the harmonywillfade"

The cover of Zheng Chengwei's CD (published by Hugo Records) shows him playing a qin in a bamboo forest (Figure 3), and to make things looks even more "traditional",he holds the instrument on his lap, in the classical pose, rather than playing it on a table, as became customary after the Tang and Song dynasties. (see Figure 4). Concrete connections between qin playing and nature, between the presentday tradition and its romantic idealized past, go far beyond assuming a romantic posture in a bamboo grove. Almost every aspect of the size and the shape and construction of the instrument and virtually every hand movement and every posture of the fingers is in some way or other inspired by, or interpreted in terms of, cosmology or by evocative images from nature (see Figure 5; De Woskin 1982:114-15, 130ff; De Woskin 2000; Liang 1972:8-14). There is no place here for a lengthy discussion of this aspect of qin lore.

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Suffice it to say that images from nature and mythology abound in qin organology: parts of the qin have been given names like "immortal's shoulders", "dragon's toothgums", "phoenix' eye", "goose feet", "dragon's pond", etc. Its concave upper surface and its flat bottom are said to symbolize heaven and earth. Even the patterns of cracks which, in due course, appear on the coat of varnish that covers the qin have been given names relating to nature: "serpent belly cracks", "cow's hair", "turtleback", or "crackedice". Sometimes the music of the qin directly imitates certain sounds, such as the flowing of water, the singing of birds, the flapping of birds' wings, or the dripping of a woman's tears. The hand and finger postures of the player frequently correlate with the shapes of animals or trees. In the Taigu yiyin of 1413, we find descriptions like "the leopard catching its prey", "a crane calling in the shade", "the lonely duck looking for the flock", or "the fish beating its tail" (see Figure 5). The drawings contained in the book serve as mnemonic devices, but also as metaphorical extensions of certain ideas from qin philosophy or as poetical clarifications of the intentions of specific postures (strength, determination, "lingering", tranquillity, inactivity, alertness, etc.). More important than any of these outward imitations and references to the natural world is the ability of the instrumentto capture the spiritual essence or "mood" (yijing) of a piece. The player ideally attempts to reproduce as faithfully as possible the mood intended by the composer (Gulik 1969b:88; Yung 1987:84-5; 1998:3). Yet this mood can only become evident from the programmatic content, as specified in titles and subtitles and literary prefaces that accompany the musical notations of qin pieces: no matter how metaphysical the performer's goal, the path towards it leads along concrete mountains, animals, narrative charactersand events. The stories of qin lore are a key factor in the process that will turn a mere musical (or gymnastic) exercise into a process of spiritual elevation. This explains, in part, why the literary element in the tradition is given such a tremendous weight. Before taking a closer look at some of the stories, let me say a few words about the scores, the overall character of the music, and the ways in which the qin repertoirehas changed over time.

The notations: some thoughts on rhythm An estimated 3,000 qin pieces survive in written notation. The notations are largely contained in some 150 qin handbooks, most of which date from the fifteenth to the nineteenth centuries. At least one piece (Youlan) survives in a (descriptive) notation dating from the Tang dynasty (618-907 CE), and a few other pieces were included in thirteenth-century manuscripts (Mitani 1981:123-5). Many of the extant pieces are variants of one and the same composition, but even taking this into account, we are dealing - as far as historical sources are concerned - with an estimated 600 different written compositions for the instrument, a sizeable repertoire (Dai 1998:124). The notations are mostly in tablature form. They indicate fingerings and playing techniques for executing individual pitches or groups of pitches; the beginnings and endings of melodic phrases and of separate sections in the

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music are marked, but there are few indications of rhythm or metre. This is to some extent comparable to the way in which early medieval music in the West was written down - there is a parallel especially with fifteenth-century lute music, which was also notated in tablature, and which contained only limited rhythmical markings (Ivanoff 1997:8, 11-13). In the course of the seventeenth century, qin players in China began to record their fingerings in increasingly sophisticated ways. But rhythm - with the exception of a few formulae - was still not indicated. It has been argued that rhythmical freedom in performance is a major and conscious feature of the qin tradition: the same melody can be played in many different ways, depending on the interpretationof its prosody, and no repeated performance of a qin piece will ever sound exactly the same (Lee 1995; Mitani 1981:126-34; Yung 1994). The process of translating the unmeasured and free qin notations into versions for use in performance, with more definite rhythmical contours, is called dapu. The freedom of rhythm has been interpretedby some as a musical reflection of the players' aspirations for spiritual loftiness. Perhaps too much has been made of this particular aspect in scholarly writings on qin performance. Qin players may decide to reshape and remould certain pieces according to their own understanding, but they still work within an established framework of rhythmical formulae and metrical conventions, and are certainly not reinventing the traditionevery time they touch the instrument.Different ways of playing a tune like Yangguansandie (as shown in Mitani 1981:127-8) normally do not result in more (or less) variation than, say, different performance versions of the tune Greensleeves among Western singers or instrumentalists. The principle of rhythmical flexibility in qin music is roughly comparable to that of any music in parlando-rubato style, from eighteenth-century French harpsichord music to gypsy fiddle tunes. Indeed, in deciphering old notations and preparing them for performance (if no oral precedent is available), qin players face a challenge comparable to that of Western instrumentalistswho try to perform the French lute preludes or (more complex) French harpsichord preludes from the times of Denis Gaultier to Louis Couperin - pieces written in sequences of whole notes, which leave the players free, without metric constraint, to invent their own pace and rhythmic divisions (Tilney 1995). Usually, after a few playings, sequentially repeated melodic fragments in these preludes begin to emerge. The same may happen in qin music, when a score is brought to life in the dapu process. The rubato-like nature of the melodic flow in qin pieces may suggest vocal origins for a great deal of qin music. In ancient sources there is frequent reference to the qin as an accompanying instrument in vocal music, and some styles of qin playing - such as the Qinling style of Nanjing - are reportedly influenced by the ornaments and vocal techniques of specific singing styles (Liang 1972:120). In view of its rhythmical properties, it is an attractive idea to interpret qin music as a Chinese equivalent of the stilo fantastico of the Western Renaissance and Baroque periods, with its connotations of rhetorical speech and

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theatrical content, of the human (or superhuman) voice "speaking", in mysterious ways, via the instrumental sounds. But let us beware of ascribing a stilo fantastico to all qin music. This may apply to some pieces, but in my view the qin does not constitute a single tradition. Historically, there must have been different qin traditions in different places, with different kinds of co-involved instruments, different performance settings and different kinds of musical functions and perceptions. The qin may have featured as an instrument in folk traditions, even if (to our knowledge) no evidence of any recent tradition along those lines survives (cf. Evans 1998). If we focus strictly on evidence attesting to the qin as an instrument of China's wealthy elite, the picture of qin music that emerges from history is still impressively diverse. In antiquity, the qin was played both as a solo instrument and in ceremonial court ensembles (for example in groups of six or twelve qins, together with other instruments; it has been argued that in ensembles only the open strings were plucked). Qin was used in the accompaniment of dance, presumably in music that was measured. Some statements suggest that the qin may have served as a percussive instrument. The oldest surviving literary references to the qin - in the Shujing (Book of History) and the Shijing (Book of Odes), dating from 1000-600 BCE - state that the qin could be "swept or gently touched", or even "drummed";and clay figures of musicians from the Han dynasty, unearthed in Sichuan, show the performance combination of qin and hand-drum(Liang 1972:52, 56, 78-80). These and similar sources also attest to traditions of qin accompanying songs (sung by the zither player or by another singer). It seems unlikely that all these situations shared one and the same musical idiom, let alone the same set of pieces. As for rhythmical features: early recordings of qin performances from the 1940-50s - which I was able to hear in the archives of the Music Research Institute in Beijing - suggest that players in the first half of the twentieth century tended to follow a much more steady pulse in the execution of qin pieces than they do today. The free-floating melodies that we can hear in performances and on recordings of recent times, with abrupt shifts in tempo and frequent ritardandos and accellerandos, are a development of the last fifty years, probably under the influence of other musical genres. To what extent these free and rhythmically variable performances coincidentally approach the rhythmical conventions and freedom of melodic phrasing of earlier periods in qin music remains a matter for conjecture.

Rapid change On the whole, the qin repertoire as it sounds today deviates in many ways from historical traditions. Many changes emerged in the process of oral transmission, and there was a considerable amount of reinvention in the recreation of ancient scores. The transition from silk strings to metal strings in the 1950s resulted not only in a louder sound and a longer period of resonance but also in entirely new possibilities for expression. The influx of Western (notably

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classical) music in China has had a major impact on numerous Chinese musical traditions, not only in terms of changes in the construction of instruments. Qin players in the People's Republic have begun to mark the transitions between various sections in the qin pieces in very dramatic ways, by sudden changes in tempo, by vigorous accents or shifts in dynamics. The resulting pieces are very different from the versions that were played only a few decades ago. Players of the older generation frequently moved from one section to the next almost imperceptibly, in a fairly rigid beat and a single tempo that was maintained throughout an entire piece. The new dramatic (some would say "romantic") approach to qin music has created a very different musical landscape, if not an entirely new repertoire. It has given qin music a new plasticity and a more dynamic breadth. It has won over new audiences for the qin and has led to an unprecedented wealth of sound recordings, an unprecedented amount of public attention, even though the number of genuine qin aficionados remains small in comparison to that of active supporters of other Chinese solo instrumental traditions such as the pipa and the zheng. All this has happened at the cost of some of the qin's traditional "intimacy", its richness of kinesthetic experiences and its reputation as a private scholarly activity (Yung 1984:512; 1998). John Thompson and others have suggested that a good deal of the former timbral richness of the instrument is lost now that many performers no longer make use of silk strings (which are rich in overtones). Bell Yung speaks for those who deplore the transition from silk strings to metal strings and who criticize the metamorphosis of an instrument (and an emblem) of private scholarly sophistication into a "mere" musical instrument for the "masses" (due to the cultural policies and mass ideology of the Communist government): ... qin music has stepped out of the privacy and intimacy of the scholargentleman's study and climbed onto the stage of the public concert hall. In so doing, qin music has become like other kinds of music: its main function is to please a large, public audience ... On the stage of a concert hall, he [the qin player] is judged by an audience- the workers,peasants, soldiers who are, for historical reasons, relatively uninitiatedin the music and its literarycontent. (Yung 1998:5)

Most certainly there were attempts to popularize qin - for example via sound amplification - or by using the qin as a star vehicle for virtuosic soloists accompanied by symphony orchestra. But the instrument's current (still very modest) success in the People's Republic, as well as abroad, does not depend on amplification or on symphonic concerts, even less on political propaganda. It is primarily the legacy of a handful of gifted artists who managed to give a new impetus to the tradition. Players like Wu Jingliie impressed their listeners, not because they turned the qin into an instrument of mass ideology but because they had something new and important to say. These individualists, as much as their famous predecessors of the past, determine the current development and public appreciation of qin music.

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Those who attend the (rare) concerts in China today would have some difficulty identifying themselves as "workers, peasants, soldiers". They are mostly intellectuals with a personal background or professional education in music, and far from eulogizing the Chinese government's attitude towards the qin, they tend to deplore the present scarcity of qin concerts and the appalling lack of formal (governmental) support for qin players (cf. Cheng 1997.) Only a few qin players in China are formally employed at music conservatoires, and few or no funds are available for the preservation of precious ancient instruments or for a more active promotion of the tradition (e.g. via television or educational programmes). I sympathize with some of Bell Yung's concerns - for example, I don't think the qin works very well in symphonic concerts or as a "new age" instrument, in combination with synthesizers, pianos or rock bands - but if the qin needs any protection, it is not from such experiments but rather from some of the more zealous devotees who continue to promote an atmosphere of semisectarianism and impotent nostalgia (to borrow a phrase coined by Theodor Adomo). The element of sectarianism may have ancient roots, but that can hardly be a justification for perpetuating it. Spiritual greatness is not a prerogative of the past, and there is no reason why qin music ought to remain a privilege of the learned few, or a single-minded type of tradition. It may be true that many aspects of the qin can only be appreciated by the "initiated". It may be true that certain qin tones, particularly if played on silk strings, can only be perceived through the qin player's hand movement or the tactile sense of the finger, as Bell Yung points out, and that some qin players would therefore decline to play for a general audience who would not be able to appreciate such elements: Zither players are generally reluctantto play for anyone who is not also a zither player ... Only other zither players can understandthe kinesthetic experience and share it, even though to a limited extent, with the performer. Seen in this light, the recent trend in China of staging zither performances for a large audience in a huge auditoriumis altering a fundamentalfeature of the zithertradition. (Yung 1984:514)

But the fact is that most qin recitals in China take place in fairly small rooms, for a mere handful of listeners (with the exception of some symphonic concerts). The intimacy has not disappeared, and (judging from my own interviews) it is simply not true that most zither players are "reluctant"to play for anyone who is not also a zither player. Some are hesitant to play on a stage because they lack concert experience, and it may be a difficult task to recreate in a concert hall something of the intimate atmosphere of a scholar's room, but (as a growing number of qin players in China and in the West have shown) it can be done. The touch of the instrument is certainly unique, but the same applies to the violin, the lute and so many other musical instruments. In trying to discuss aspects of posture and attack of the strings on the part of, say, a great violin

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master, one soon finds oneself pushed beyond the sheer technicalities of the matter, into the realm of the poetic and the near-inexpressible. This should not prevent anyone who is not a violin player from enjoying violin music in their own ways. The kinesthetic elements in qin may be pronounced, but in practice the act of playing the qin is no more intensely physical (or metaphysical!) than that of (say) playing the violin, and it would be silly to argue that the element of sound, in the case of the qin, is so imperfectly conveyed that it cannot be and ought not be enjoyed by listeners in its own right. The growing popularity of qin music and the rapidly growing number of sound recordings attests to the special appeal of the qin as a musical instrument. The future of the qin could even be brighter if contemporary composers in China were willing to accept the qin as a "mere"musical instrument, instead of looking at it as an ancient, remote and forbidding tradition that is better not touched upon. As a consequence, very few composers write new pieces for the qin. Blissful ignorance is the beginning of many a musical dialogue, but too much ignorance (that is, too much blind veneration) won't do the qin much good.

Stories and musical structure The more than 150 extant anthologies of qin music contain numerous poems, stories and comments which illuminate the programmatic nature of the qin repertoire. In modem times, music essays, explanations on record sleeves and CD liner notes, as well as concert programmes offer additional information. Here, as in the old qin handbooks, we can find quotes from ancient sources, mixed with contemporary views and comments of scholars, musicians and patrons - the record publishers and organizers of qin concerts. (Below I will quote at some length from record sleeves and CD booklets. Most of the information contained there is provided by qin players and presents their own views on the programmatical nature of qin music. Indeed, the vast majority of Chinese writings on the qin, from scholarly essays to popular programme notes, is produced by people who are players of the instrument.) The overall impression from the qin handbooks is that the qin repertoire and its lore are very lively and changeable. Titles move easily from one musical piece to the next. So do stories and explanations. They are subject to constant change. The same story may find its way to different qin pieces, or the same piece may be explained in very different ways. Musically speaking, many of the pieces occur in different variants, as shorter and longer versions, of which the changes over time can be followed in different handbooks, and for recent times, also in sound recordings (for specific studies on historical change, see Dai 1998; Huang 1998a,b; Liang 1992; Wu 1990; Yu 1997; Yung 1987). The stories and programmatical ideas that accompany the music, particularly those of Ming dynasty handbooks, are marvellously suggestive, rich in detail, often steeped in Daoist or Confucian philosophy. Frequently, each part of a musical piece receives a subtitle which covers the mood and content of that particular section of the music. Here, as an example, are the ten

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subtitles of the tune Liezi yufeng ("Liezi riding on the wind") as they occur in the Shenqi Mipu (1425 CE). The translationis by Gulik (1969b:90): 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

Resting upon emptiness,ridingon the wind Looking down on the earth The universeis spreadout vast I do not know whetherthe wind is ridingon me Or whetherI am riding on the wind The mind dwells on mysteriousplains The spiritroams in greatpurity Whistling long in the vast azure Shakingone's clothes in the breeze Having attainedthe utmost ecstasy, turningback

Programme notes like these are generally respected and taken into account by qin players in their performances. In my interviews with qin players - part of ongoing work on a future publication - I found that the spirit of the poems and the stories in the old handbooks is still duly honoured by contemporaryplayers, even in the People's Republic of China. Even many young players who have grown away from the old tradition in so many respects - the notion of the qin as an instrument for private meditation ratherthan public performance may not be meaningful to them any more - state that the explanations in the handbooks still serve for them as a tool for understanding the correct "mood" of the pieces. Admittedly, after mastering the music - i.e. after mastering the techniques and learning the melodies by heart - they may be content to follow their own line of thought in performance. The division into sections - a recurrentfeature of qin scores - is of practical help in determining the overall structureof pieces. In many cases, sections are melodically recognizable as separate units (by the repeated occurrence of themes, motives or gestures), but not always. A lot of qin music is fairly rhapsodic: musical events may be related only in broad terms (by shared modal features or by a shared basic "emotion"), and emphasis on timbral and ornamental detail can become such a dominant element that some of the music may even be experienced mainly on a note-by-note, or a gesture-by-gesture basis: There are so many differenttouches and variationsin tone productionthat it is necessary to concentratefully on what one is doing. It is almost necessary to think of one pitch at a time, and not the whole melodic line, or a phrase. (Liang 1972:136)

The molecular, isolated and isometric appearance of the graphs [in qin notation]conveys a sense of successive and complete moments, ratherthan a sense of linear continuity.This, I believe, reflects the essential sense of time in qin performance.A percussiveburstof sound will be expressed in a single graph, and a long glide will be expressed in a single graph. Thus, whereas the graphsare spatiallyfungible, the correspondingperformanceis not so in terms of movementor sound. (De Woskin 1982:130)

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The frequent reference to extra-musical elements - the description in sound of narrative events, animal sounds, etc. - may also enhance the rhapsodic nature of the music. Joseph Lam (1993) has gone so far as to practically equate musical structure with programmatical meaning, i.e. with a sequence of narrative events. In a comparative study of different analyses of the piece Changmen yuan ("Lament at Changmen Palace"), he points out that the structure of qin music cannot be successfully understood if it is studied solely in terms of "motives", "variations", or "gestures" - in what he calls (rather oddly) "westernized analysis". He proposes an "integrated" perspective, combining the study of architectural features of the music with insiders' comments and performative knowledge. This also includes the narrative or "fictional" elements - in the case of the "Lament", the descriptive comments offered by Xu Zhou, the first publisher of the score. Lam's conclusion is that the elements of the "story" as related by Xu Zhou correspond neatly to the sequence of musical and kinesthetic events (the player's hand and finger movements) which make up the performance. In Lam's words, "Xu's account is not only a programmatic interpretationbut also a structural analysis of the piece" (Lam 1993:369). I do not object to this conclusion, but I am disheartened by Lam's other basic assumption, the very point of departurefor his research, namely that "diverse data about the same qin piece cannot be incompatible: the same object cannot generate incompatible information about itself (Lam 1993:361). Musical pieces are not rigid and unchangeable "objects". If many statements about the qin repertoire are "puzzling" and if data seem to be "mutually exclusive" (Lam in the beginning of his essay), this is not because the music is badly understood or because an "integratedperspective" is missing but because qin is a living rather than a moribund art. It is subject to constant change, to changing interpretationsand ideas, and it certainly depends on more than just one authoritative player's or composer's views and explanations. Hence the abundance of stories and conflicting interpretations. None of this is an exclusive phenomenon of qin music. In nearly all Chinese traditional music, much importance is attached to the programmatic and the aesthetical purport of musical pieces, while in practice, one is frequently confronted with an abundance of different and sometimes conflicting interpretations. Given the rhapsodic nature of the music and the rhythmical flexibility of the scores, very different performances of music may arise from one and the same written source, certainly in those cases where the links with oral performance tradition are tenuous or non-existent. Last but not least, many qin players are gifted writers, and some of them are creative also as poets and calligraphers. Reinventing tradition may co-involve the reinvention of stories and explanations. I now propose to look at some examples of this in the qin repertoire, and to examine how stories can be linked to musical materials in diverging ways. I do this not in order to criticize a lack of cohesion or to reveal absurdities but to celebrate the repertoire's richness of literary invention and the blessed absence of any deadening logic.

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One tentative conclusion is that the idea of musical structure as a reliable guide to the musical meaning of a qin piece can be discarded. One can always try to perceive a coherent interaction between a given set of ideas and a given succession of musical sounds, but this is not the same as assuming that the relationship between the two must be infallible, inviolable and constant - not even within the mind of a single composer or performer, not even over the briefest period of time. Ideas about music change as quickly and unpredictably as the music itself: they can change while the performance is still underway. Indeed, the notion "musical change" is a tautology. Music is change.

The sadness (?) of Lady Wang Zhaojun One qin piece to which various meanings are attached is Qiu sai yin ("Autumn grievances beyond the frontier"). It is sometimes said to portray the sadness and homesickness of Wang Zhaojun, a lady at the Han dynasty court who was forced to marry a barbarian(i.e. non-Han) king. When she left her native soil forever, she wept at the frontier. Hence the title of the piece. But Qiu sai yin also comes with different names and different explanations. Sometimes it is called Shui xian cao ("Water spirit") or Sao shou wen tian ("Scratching one's head and appealing to heaven"). Some sources say that the piece describes the sadness of a qin player called Bo Ya, who was sent by his qin master to a deserted island to experience melancholy and loneliness - two very important emotions for a qin player.2 Other sources say that the music portrays the anger and despair of an exiled poet, Qu Yuan of the Warring States. At least we are dealing, in all these cases, with a displaced person, who longs for home or feels some form of distress. Two other pieces also describe the homesickness of the court lady Wang Zhaojun. They are called Long xiang cao and Long shuo cao. The music of those two pieces is not identical, though some parts of it are similar, and the titles and the underlying programmes are also remarkably similar. Some scholars believe that the two pieces originally sprang from the same source and at one point formed a single composition. Both pieces are alternatively known as Zhaojun yuan, "Wang Zhaojun's lament". To what extent they really are laments remains open to question. Long xiang cao literally means "Soaring dragon", and some qin players have associated this music with a poem about a dragon disappearing into the air. They claim that the piece has a happy mood. A similar controversy surrounds Long shuo cao, which is sometimes described as a lament, sometimes as a happy piece. There have been occasional 2 The story about Bo Ya turnsup in various sources. As a beginning studentof the Chinese

zither,Bo Ya was apparentlynot very successful. His qin-masterCheng Lian sent him to an island, suggesting that this would help his student to develop a better understandingof the essence of the instrument.Bo Ya may have expected to find a better,more skillful teacheron the island, but as it turnedout, the place was uninhabited.He spent three long years there in complete isolation, listening every day to the sounds of waves and of seagulls. He became rathersad, but this, according to the story, was precisely what eventually turnedhim into a greatqin player.

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music

attempts to reconcile the supposedly positive mood of the music with the sad story behind it. One qin player claims that his lively performance of the piece is an evocation not so much of the tragic fate of the homesick Zhaojun, but of "the pleasurable entertainmentin the palace of [her husband]."3 Another source suggests that the beginning and ending of the music are gloomy, reflecting Zhaojun's sadness, while the lively middle section depicts her charm and beauty.4 If one compares Long xiang cao as played by Guan Pinghu (who interpreted the piece as a lament)5 with Zhang Ziqian's performance,6one may note that the latter tends to treat the rhythms of Long xiang cao in a rather more abrupt and jerky way, presumably in line with his view of the piece as happy and spirited music.

Note on sources:

Qiu sai yin; Shui xian cao; Sao shou wen tian

The oldest survivingscore of Qiu sai yin ("Autumngrievancesbeyond the frontier") stems from the Xing ZhuangTaiYinBu Yi,a handbookof 1557. But the piece as it is known today is usually played in differentversions,based on a notationcontainedin the WuZhiZai Qinpuof 1722. In the Zi YuanTangQinpuof 1802, it is called Shuixian cao ("[Musicof the] WaterSpirit").Othersources refer to it as Sao shou wen tian ("Scratchingone's head, appealing to heaven"). For some programmaticalinterpretations,see the sleeve-notesof Chine:L'artdu Qin, Li Xiangting,Ocora,C 560001 HM 83, 1990; Eminentpieces for guqin vols. 1 and 4, Wind Records,Taipei, 1994, TCD-1015and 1016; and WaterImmortal,qin solos by Lau Chor-wah(Liu Chuhua), ROI,HK, 1996,RA-961008C The earliest survivingnotation of Long shuo cao stems from the Shenqi Mipu (1425) wherea brief commentis added,statingthatthe "ancientname"of the piece is (or used to be) ZhaojunYuan,"WangZhaojun'slament".In Long shuo cao, the title given to the actual music notation,there is a minor mistake in the writing of the charactershuo,causingit to look like the characterxiang.This may havecontributedto the subsequentconfusionbetweenthe two namesLongxiang cao andLongshuo cao. The same piece (with some modificationsin the music) is includedin the Xing ZhuangTaiYinBu Yiof 1557, wherethe musicnotationis headedLongshuo cao, while the piece is referredto in the tableof contentsas Longxiang cao - presumablyanother mistakein writing.Followingthis, the ZhongXiu ZhenZhuanof 1585 incorporatesthe music with its more ancienttitle Zhaojunyuan, presumablyin reverenceof ancient times,andto honourthe well-knownTangdynastyheroineWangZhaojun,andit addsa remarkthatthe piece is also knownas Longxiang cao. Fromthis momentonward,the 3

ChenChanglin.See theCD bookletof Min(Fujian)qinmusic,Hugo,1996,HRP7129-2,

1995. 4 See the programmenotes of Guangling qin music (vol. 2), Cheng Gong-liang, CD, Hugo

HRP7140-2,1987/1996.

5 Cf. Favourite qin pieces of Guan Pingu. 2-CD, ROI, Hong Kong, 1995, RB-951005-2C,

track5. Theoriginalrecordingdatesfromthe 1950s.Guanbasedhis versionon the scoreas containedin theZiYuanTangQinpu(1802). 6

Cf. Anthology of traditional and folk music, vol. 3, CD, China Record Co. CCD-344,

1994,track5. Theoriginalrecordingwasmadein 1956.

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threetitles arefrequentlyassociatedwith one anotherandmixedup. In all the instances mentionedso far,we aredealingwith earlyversionsof the piece thatis playedin recent timesby performerslike ChengGongliangandChenChanglinas Longshuo cao. The Cheng Jian Tang Qinpu of 1686 also has a piece called Zhaojun Yuan,but this

is not identicalto the older piece of that name. It re-occursin alteredform in several handbooksof laterperiods,where it is usuallycalled Long xiang cao, and sometimes Long shou cao or Zhaojun yuan. The Tian Wen Ge Qinpu of 1876 claims that this piece

was extractedfroma biggercomposition,Qiu shui ("AutumnWater"),whereit features as sections 3 to 6. The versioncontainedin the Jiao'an Qinpu(1868) formsthe basis for Long xiang cao as played in recent times by performerslike Liu Shaochunand ZhangZiqian.For a comparativestudyof Longxiang cao andLongshuo cao, see also ChengGongliang'sarticle(in Chinese)on "TheStudyof Long Shuo Cao",in Yiyuan, journalof the NanjingInstituteof Arts, 1987,no. 3. A commentary in the CD-booklet of Water Immortal, qin solos by Lau Chor-wah

(Liu Chuhua),ROI,HK, 1996, RA-961008C,statesthat "therhythm[of the music] is free,jumpyandunexpectedandpresentsa happymood".LauChor-wahplays a version passed down by her teacherCai Deyun, based on the score containedin the Jiao'an Qinpu(1868). ZhangZiqian based his own version of Long xiang cao on the same score (which explicitlyrefersto the lamentingof WangZhaojun),but he also interpreted the piece as basically happy music. He felt that Long xiang cao expressedthe spirit and content of a philosophicalpoem by Zhuangziwhich referredto a flying dragon:"WhileI play the qin / the dragonflies away/ But his voice / still lingersin the air."Severalrecordingsof the piece performedby ZhangZiqianexist, with contrasting commentaries.One commentaryrefersto the sad story of the Han dynastycourtlady, andsays that"thetone [of the music]is low anddeepwith a plaintivetouch".(Fromthe CD Anthology of traditional and folk music, vol. 3, China Record Co. CCD-344, 1994.)

A more recent and somewhat slower recordingby Zhang (included in the album Guanglingqin music(vol 1), Hugo HRP7139-2, Hong Kong, 1987/1996)is described in the accompanyingcommentaryas a "lively and highly spiritedpiece". Zhang's formerqin studentsacknowledgethat the idea to call it a lively piece is more in line withZhang'sown interpretation of the music.

Bird cries and wing flapping Since the qin tablatures hardly contain indications about rhythm or tempo, qin players can mould and change the music to fit their own personal tastes and emotions. In fact, they do not only do so by filling in rhythmic details, but also by changing pitches in melodies, abbreviating or extending certain phrases, or even omitting or adding entire sections. This artistic liberty may lead them to explain the meaning of certain gestures or sounds in the music in rather diverging ways. For example, one description of the piece Wuye ti ("The calling of crows at night") suggests that the parts in harmonics attempt to imitate the crying of young crows.7 We can hear those harmonics right at the beginning of the music. Later on they recur in a modified form. But a different description has it 7 See commentaryto Chine: L'art de la cithare qin Dai Xiaolian, CD, Auvidis, Paris, 1992,

B 6765.Therecordingis fromthisCD,track4.

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that "the frequent and incessant cawing of the crow(s) in the music is contrasted sharply with the quiet melody in harmonics".8 In other words, it is not the harmonics that imitate the birds' cries, but the melodic gestures inbetween. In one of the oldest surviving qin handbooks, the Zheyin Shizi Qinpu (1475), the music of the beginning allegedly portrays a pair of birds dancing together, while the harmonics as they occur later on in the piece portray a group of young birds flying south. In brief, the links between images and musical gestures in qin pieces are not always defined very consistently. The same goes for the interpretation of entire musical sections. For example, compare the following two versions of the piece Ping sha luo yan ("Wild geese descending on a sandbank"),of which the scores in two different handbooks contain grossly conflicting statements about when the geese ascend or descend, where and when in the music they honk or flap their wings, etc. Mei'an Qinpu (1931)

Jiao'an Qinpu (1868)

Section I

Wild geese take wing

Wild geese land on the shore

Section II

Continuousflight

Some of the landed geese call to one another

Section III

Continuousflight, sounds Some geese still airborne hearthe honkingbelow and land of beating wings

Section IV

Low flight

A cacophony of goose cries, dialogue between birds in the air and birds on the shore

Section V

Continuedlow flight

A suddenbeating of wings againsta bush

Section VI

Mixed cries as the geese soar into the clouds

Some geese take off, land and call, making variousnoises

Section VII

The flock beats its wings againstthe sand, then circles the beach at a low altitude

All the geese ashorecalm down. A single one still in the air gives out a lonely cry

Coda

The flock alights in small groups on the beach

The lonely goose in the air finally comes down andjoins the others

There is little agreement about what happens in any of the sections, except for section VI, where we can hear either "mixed cries" or "various noises". Unfortunately, the music of that very section is the one part that really appears to be totally different in both scores. The Mei'an score has a unique part in this place, unlike anything else in qin literature, a very evocative section, quite possibly an effective attempt to imitate noisy birds. Listeners who wish to compare recorded interpretations of the two scores, 8 See sleeve notes to Xiao Xiang shui yun. Chinese guqin solos performed by Wu Wen Guang, gramophonerecord,ChinaRecord Co, Beijing 1984, DL-0074.

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could for example consult Zhang Ziqian's rendering of the Jiao'an Qinpu score on the Hugo label (with a bamboo flute playing along), and Tao Zhushen's interpretation of the Mei'an Qinpu score, recorded on the cassette accompanying Fredric Lieberman's A Chinese zither tutor of 1983. (Lieberman's book includes a Western staff notation of the Mei'an Qinpu version.)9 For many listeners, it will be difficult on the whole to connect this music with its suggested programmatic images, except in terms of a general mood or atmosphere of peacefulness. The flying and honking of the geese seem largely to serve as symbols for spiritual harmony. Indeed, this is how many qin players interpretthe programme. But then why go to such length to describe the details of what happens in every part of the piece ? The projection of images and events on to the music is primarily a matter of literary play, an intellectual activity - no doubt an important activity, a major element of the tradition, not just a trivial one, and in many cases a process that is very much incorporated in the act of composing the music. But even as an independent creative act it is taken very seriously. Some scholars go so far as to speculate about every tiny gesture in the music, and how it expresses extramusical phenomena. A music essay by Xiao Lili, quoted in the sleeve notes of David Liang Ming-Yueh's gramophone record Musik fur Ch'in (Liang 1975) has the following explanatory table for musical gestures in the piece Ping sha luo yan ("Wild geese descending on a sandbank"): Instrumental technique

Programmatic expression

Fast upwardor downwardportamentiin conjunctmelodic motion

Flying

Fast slides or quick vibratomovements aroundgiven tones

Calling

Single tones

Alone

Double stops, octaves

Togetherness

Open strings

Scattered

(Series of) upwardportamenti

Ascending flight

Descendingportamenti

Downwardflight

ShortrepetitiveA-G-A motifs

Bird calling

Right-handglissando sweep across seven strings immediatelydampedby the rightpalm

Wings beating in bushes

Acceleratingslides D-E in final section

Final outburstof lonely goose

9 Guanglingqin music (vol.1), Hugo HRP 7139-2, Hong Kong, 1987/1996), track6, Zhang Ziqian, qin, with Dai Shuhong, xiao. Fredric Lieberman's A Chinese Zither Tutor, The

Mei-an ch'in-p'u. Hong Kong UP / University of WashingtonPress, 1983. Accompanying cassette, side A, item 4, Ping sha luo yan, played by Tao Zhushen, qin. Recording date unknown.

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This may be a legitimate theoretical exercise, but I doubt that most qin players are interested, in practice, to pursue the matter this far, and to reproduce every single movement of the geese in such a mechanical fashion.

Play for the sake of play: more room for different meanings ? The old programmatical explanations of qin music remain relevant to the players, but new meanings and new images are constantly added, in record notes and music articles. Naturally, the spirit of the compositions changes. This is only in line with tradition, even if the outcome may sometimes be a far cry from traditional practice. Different existing extra-musical interpretationsof qin pieces may often be linked only in very loose ways to given musical forms or gestures. But again, this is only in line with tradition. Throughout the centuries there has been ardent dispute about what qin music meant, what it was supposed to mean, what it ought to express, what it should not be allowed to express, and how all this should be dealt with in performance practice. Conflicting schools of interpretationin the qin world are nothing new under the sun. (See Dahmer 1988:128-30 on clashing historical judgments on Guanglingsan, one of the most celebrated compositions in the repertoire.) The existence of conflicting ideas does not imply that the act of projecting images or spiritual feelings on to qin music must be a superficial activity. It is best regarded as intellectual play, sometimes play of the highest order, an act of provoking the gods. It adds a fascinating literary dimension which may be appreciated independently from the music. It may offer a possible structural framework for understanding the course and development of the music. In the more extreme case, an added "programme"may amount to a summation of a qin player's metaphysical yearnings and expectations. There is no reason to assume that these aspects of the qin will easily lose their appeal. They are among the tradition's most powerful and attractive assets, and are sufficiently romantic to appeal to people from widely different backgrounds. Admittedly, the act of projecting meanings on qin music itself is a privilege of the few. Only people with a lot of spare time, a lively imagination and sufficient affinity with the intellectual roots of their qin traditioncan afford to engage in the game of inventing or explaining new and complex meanings for the sounds, movements and shapes which they love so much. Ultimately, qin music is an extreme example of a genre where multiple meanings are invented as a "leisure" activity. The fantastic stories and spiritual feelings behind the music have been allowed to grow and multiply in this frameworkof divine idling. In a functional context, meanings of music cannot always so easily be disputed, because they are more closely tied in with specific rituals and narrowly defined actions. In traditional Chinese work songs, the "meaning" of the music is primarily reflected in the regular rhythms of the songs, synchronized to support and facilitate bodily movements. The words of work songs do not matter very much; they are chosen primarily for their sound value,

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and they do not determine musical meaning. In Chinese temple music worshippers frequently sing or play specific tunes which are prescribed to communicate specific messages to the gods. The meanings of those tunes cannot so simply be changed, because they are linked to specific parts of ritual ceremonies. Naturally, any genre and musical tradition is open to (re)negotiation of its non-musical connotations, but the variety of supposed meanings of a given repertoire is likely to increase when music becomes disengaged from a very specific functional context, and notably when its performance turns into play for the sake of play. (I mentioned work songs and temple music because these genres served as two important sources of inspiration for qin music. In the past, many popular songs and temple tunes found their way into the qin repertoire and obtained a wealth of new meanings in the process.) The qin was eagerly promoted by people who loved to read and write and who did not even necessarily play the instrument very proficiently. Some were only able to pluck the open strings of the qin, or took satisfaction merely in displaying their qins on a wall, as readily available status symbols and cheap (or not so cheap) emblems of their imagined intellectual "superiority". In addition to this, they also liked to add their own poems and ideas to the qin tradition. In the seventeenth century, many literary qin aficionados were almost as effective as genuine composers and performers in changing the face of qin music: by adding innovative aesthetical ideas and new interpretations to existing qin scores, they invited qin players to approach the repertoire in new ways, and by so doing they ushered in a new era of great flourishing for the qin. This great marriage of music and meaning must have been exhilarating and deeply inspiring, for the literary as much as for the musically oriented. For all I can see, this marriage continues to bear fruit at present. But regardless of all literary input, the delicate sound of the instrument should have the final say. Whether we are listening to ardent proponents of silk strings, or to mainland Chinese players in robust and outspoken metal-string performances, the qin, in the vast majority of cases, makes a virtue mainly of its fragility, its evasive qualities, ratherthan - as in the romanticized, imaginary past - its sturdy magical powers and cosmic aspirations. Listeners are lured and must have been lured for a good many centuries - primarily by its softness of sound and by the questioning, seemingly inconsistent and vaporous nature of the music: the qin enchants as much by what it says as by what it neglects or refuses to explain.

References Cheng, Yu (1997) "The precarious state of the qin in contemporary China: The Beijing Guqin Research Association." CHIME 10-11:50-62. Dahmer, Manfred (1988) Die grofie Solosuite Guanglingsan. Frankfurt/M: FrankfurterChina-Studien. Peter Lang. Dai Xiaolian (1998) "Plum blossom - Three variations: A study of the guqin

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Note on the author Frank Kouwenhoven (b. 1956) is a music researcher in Leiden, The Netherlands. Since 1986 he has been visiting China regularly to carry out musical fieldwork, specifically on Chinese folk songs. He is a co-founder of CHIME, the European Foundation for Chinese Music Research, and the main editor of the CHIME Journal. Address: CHIME, P.O. Box 11092, 2301 EB Leiden, The Netherlands; e-mail: [email protected]