source file: mills2.txt
Date: Fri, 3 Nov 1995 21:04:50 -0800

Subject: Question: Equal temperament in ancient China?

From: mcelwain@world.std.com (Charles E McElwain)

Recently on the hpschd-l mailing list, the following discussion
appeared.  I'd like to know if people closer to tuning issues can
confirm or deny this origin, and/or provide other references
(preferably in English translation) regarding it.  Thanks.

-------------------------------------------------------------------
| Charles E. McElwain                      mcelwain@world.std.com |
| 33 Vernon Street, Somerville, MA, 02145  (617) 628-5542         |
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------- Exerpt from hpschd-l begins -------------------------------

   About a month ago, Tom Parsons wrote:

   I read somewhere once (in Barbour?) that e.t. was first worked out by
   a Chinese mathematician incredibly far back in the past.  And the
   author pointed out that in the Chinese musical system there was no
   need for it.

   (If someone knows more recent scholarship on this, I'd be interested
   to hear of it.)

   Back in Hong Kong briefly (after trying mostly in vain to log on from
   Xi`an, China where I am teaching this semester), I was interested to
   see the above reference to China in the equal temperament discussion.
   Following is a note from my article, "The Harpsichord and Clavichord
   in China during the Ming and Qing Dynasties," in the Westfield Center
   for Early Keyboard Studies Newsletter (Oct. 1994):

      In Chinese musical philosophy, tuning, and even individual pitches,
      held both acoustic and abstract meaning, as well as  the power to
      transmit physical and spiritual qualities (qi). This helps to
      explain Kangxi`s interest in  tuning the harpsichords; tuned
      instruments signified an orderly empire. There was great
      interest in tuning systems; Zhu Zaiyu was the first to describe equal
      temperament in China in 1584 (see Kenneth Robinson, A Critical Study of
      Chu Tsai-yu`s  Contribution to the Theory of Equal Temperament in
      Chinese Music  (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1980).

   So it was not so different from the west, where tuning was both a
   philosophical as well as practical endeavor. Since Matteo Ricci
   brought the first clavichord to China around 1600, the proximity of
   these dates open up the possibility that western keyboard instruments
   in China during the western baroque period might at some point have
   been tuned to equal temperament. On this subject, an American
   colleague also teaching here (Prof. Gene Cho, HK Baptist University)
   is researching the connection between Matteo Ricci and this Chinese
   equal temperament, theorizing that he might have communicated the
   Chinese idea back to Europe.

   Joyce Lindorff

------- Exerpt from hpschd-l ends --------------------------------

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