As an ambassador for Western music in the Far East, I often find myself with a serious case of tunnel vision, focusing primarily on perfecting the art that westerners have brought here while neglecting the rich volume of classical music that has already existed in this part of the world for millennia. Performing in a symphony orchestra in China does offer many opportunities to play some of the most popular repertoire from Chinese symphonic composers whose compositions reflect a uniquely Chinese style, but these pieces rely predominantly on Western tonal harmony which differentiates them from any traditional music dating further back than the past century. This leaves the average foreigner, and arguably many native Chinese who aren’t particularly interested in the field, with a fairly generic understanding of Chinese classical music.
Traditional instruments such as the erhu (二胡), pipa (琵琶), and guzheng (古筝) are frequently featured in solo performances with symphony orchestras. While the soloists are in no doubt well-versed in Chinese classical music theory and practice, often the final product for the listener is a modern symphonic composition with an Eastern twang to it. This is by no means a critique of these compositions as they add to the growing volume of Chinese symphonic repertoire and are musical masterpieces in their own right, but it begs the question of whether or not Chinese classical music can truly be represented through such modern and westernized mediums. Just as a string orchestra can add color to a pop artist’s performance, Chinese instruments and compositional elements can add unique color to a symphonic piece of music. However, calling this Chinese classical music is similar to calling the pop artist’s performance a symphony orchestra concert.
Throughout history, proponents of Western classical music have cherrypicked scales, ornaments, and formal structures from various cultures’ own traditional music, all the while disregarding these traditions as complete and intricate systems of music in their own right. But isn’t all traditional Chinese music just riffing around on a major pentatonic scale? It’s true that most scales used in Chinese music consist of five tones, however this “just play the black keys” approach ignores the unique ornaments, heptatonic (seven-note) scales, and microtones which are vital to manifesting that “Eastern” vibe so many people write off as merely modal music. Chinese classical music, like many other musical traditions of the world including that of India and Japan, stand in stark contrast to Western music in that they do not shift frequently between tonal centers and instead develop a composition within the realm of a single tonic note. This is done not out of a lack of knowledge or ability to assimilate multiple tonalities, but more as a preference for a particular means of artistic realization that doesn’t require such modulations.
This aesthetic preference is not unfounded and is in fact derived from the most universal element of all pitched music, the overtone series. Something that is often treated as simply a phenomenon to be manipulated in modern Western music is more appropriately interpreted as the fundamental source for melodic content in Chinese classical music. In reality, the overtone series is the source for all of the pitches found in Western music. However, the advent of equal temperament and tonal harmony has caused the tones in the series to be slightly altered in pitch for the sake of tonal mobility. In Chinese music, the tones are left where nature intended them to be, while only making adjustments by octaves to allow tones to be played sequentially in a scale. The pentatonic scale so characteristic of Chinese music is in fact the product of the overtone series realized in step-wise sequence.
To create this scale, two simple ratios must be applied to the fundamental and its augmentations. Any string instrument player will be able to point out the midpoint on each string where the octave above the fundamental (the open string pitch) may be sounded. This first harmonic in the overtone series created by a 2:1 ratio (in which 1:1 is the frequency of the fundamental, or open string) is universally understood as where one octave ends and a higher one begins.
The second ratio divides a string into three equal sections, creating a tone one perfect fifth about the first octave harmonic. This ratio can be written as 3:2 so that a fundamental whose first harmonic sounds at 880 Hz (the midpoint harmonic on an A string of a violin or viola) will have its second harmonic, the perfect fifth, at 1320 Hz (sounding as the pitch E4). The practice of repeating this 3:2 ratio on each succeeding pitch is what produces the circle of fifths, the backbone of Western tonality.
In Western music, the “notes” that comprise the circle of fifths are often viewed as potential tonal centers instead of individual scale degrees, whereas in Chinese music the sequence of fifths begets the scale. Repeating the 3:2 ratio on each new perfect fifth, a five-note sequence such as A, E, B, F#,C# is created. Disregarding the difference in octave placement, these notes can be rearranged in a stepwise (or alphabetical) sequence to create an A major pentatonic scale (A, B, C#, E, F#). Using the first ratio of 2:1 on the fundamental A, the scale can span a complete octave, from an open A string on a violin to its midpoint harmonic an octave higher.
From here, any of the notes in the pentatonic scale can be chosen as a tonal center, each with its own unique character that spans far beyond the major and minor pentatonic modes often used in Western music. The names of these modes, corresponding to their respective scale integers are gong(1), shang(2), jue(3), zhi(4), and yu(5). Furthermore, this emphasis on different tonal centers to create various modes can be extrapolated to any of the twelve tones recognized in Chinese classical music. What results is a wide selection of keys and modes similar to the diatonic scale and its various chromatic manifestations found in Western music.
This comparison neglects the existence of more varied scales in Western music such as octatonic (diminished) and whole tone scales in the same way Chinese heptatonic scales and microtones have been left out. However, it becomes apparent after comparing the variety attainable through both music systems’ interpretation of the overtone series that one is not superior to the other and that any aspect found in one system that is lacking in the other is merely an aesthetic choice and not a sign of negligence.
It is because of the obvious complexity of both Western and Chinese classical music that I argue one should not be favored over the other as artistically superior. The cultural exchange that yields new musical styles such as Chinese symphonic compositions is something to be encouraged and celebrated, but also differentiated from the traditional music which has developed independently for millennia.
Sources:
1. Hewit, Michael. The Way: Philosophy of Music in Ancient China. Stereo Output Limited, 2019.
2. Bernstein, Leonard. The Unanswered Question. Harvard University Press. Cambridge, 1976.