Tonal system and its theoretical rationalization
Harmonic pitches produced by the division of strings were known in China. They may have been used to tune sets of bells or stone chimes, but the classical writings on music discuss a 12-tone system in relation to the blowing of bamboo pipes (lü). The first pipe produces a basic pitch called yellow bell (huangzhong). This concept is of special interest because it is the world’s oldest information on a tonal system concerned with very specific pitches as well as the intervals between them. The precise number of vibrations per second that created the yellow bell pitch is open to controversy (between middle C-sharp [C♯] and the F above) because the location of this pitch could be changed by the work of new astrologers and acousticians on behalf of a new emperor, in order that his kingdom might stay in tune with the universe. The choice of the primary pitch in China had extramusical as well as practical applications, for the length of the yellow bell pipe became the standard measure (like a metre), and the number of grains of rice that would fill it were used for a weight measure. Thus, the pipe itself was often the property not of the imperial music department but of the office of weights and measurements.
Mathematical relationship of pitches
The bamboo lü pipe is closed at the bottom by a node in the bamboo, with the result that another pitch a fifth (melodic distance between the first and fifth pitches of the Western major scale) and one octave higher could be produced on it by blowing more strongly (overblowing). This new pitch could be produced an octave lower by constructing a separate pipe two-thirds the size of the first one. If one then continued to construct pipes alternately four-thirds and two-thirds the length of the previous ones, an entire system of 12 notes could be generated, which is, with the exception of the means of creation, acoustically and proportionately in the same relation as is found in the Greek Pythagorean system, one of the classic tuning systems that was used extensively in the West during the Middle Ages. The English versions of the Chinese names for the 12 pitches seem quite fanciful, but they represent theoretically correct pitches, as do terms used in the Western traditional system, such as C or A-flat (A♭). The source of each name in the Chinese system is conjectural. In any event, Chinese classical acousticians, like contemporary Western scientists, no doubt found value in creating a professional nomenclature that was divorced from everyday speech and potentially descriptive of the nature of the object. For example, the use of bell names may relate to the gradual preference for tuned bells over pipes in the music division of the courts. Names like “old purifier” and “equalizing rule” may refer to the pitch problems of the “Pythagorean comma”—a reference to the cycle of fifths that produces 12 mathematically correct pitches but results in a 13th pitch that does not match the 1st pitch.
A new interpretation of Chinese theory occurred in the late 20th century with the discovery of sets of 4th- and 5th-century tuned bells. Some of the bells produce two pitches and have the pitch names written at the two striking places. This information led to the development of a 12-pitch theory in which 5 pitches are generated in a cycle of fifths, and the 7 remaining pitches are located a major third (the melodic distance between the first and third pitches of the Western major scale) above or below the first 4. The actual sounds produced on these ancient bells do not always match the pitch name given, but late 20th-century findings imply that it might have been possible to modulate to new pitch centres and different scales.
Scales and modes
For both Western and Chinese traditions, the 12 pitches are merely a tonal vocabulary from which assorted scales—specific orderings of a limited number of pitches—can be extracted and reproduced on different pitch levels. Within a set scale it is possible to emphasize a particular pitch in such a way that it seems to become the pitch centre. Such variations of pitch centre within a scale yield different modes. In the Western traditional systems most scales use seven tones that can be transposed and that contain modes. For example, C major (C–D–E–F–G–A–B) can be made into the Dorian church mode by using D as the pitch centre without changing the pitches used (D–E–F–G–A–B–C), and the whole scale and its modes can be transposed to a higher or lower pitch level (F major, E♭ major, etc.). The Chinese system concentrates in a similar way on a seven-tone scale but with a five-tone core (wu sheng) plus two changing (bian) tones to accommodate transpositions of a single mode to different pitch levels as well as modulations from one mode to another. As in the Western system, modes can be constructed in Chinese music, and the scale can be transposed.
The mythical emperor Huangdi, then, seems to have founded a very thorough system. Throughout the Qin (221–207 bce) and Han (206 bce–220 ce) dynasties imperial systems were tuned and retuned to meet imperial and heavenly needs, and theoretical sophistications and experimentations continue on to the present day. How far back they may go in time is unknown, but in the late 20th century there were discovered stone chimes from the 2nd millennium bce that imply by their tunings that the Chinese classical tone system tradition may actually be as ancient as the legends claim.
Extramusical associations of pitches within the tonal system
The five core tones of Chinese scales are sometimes connected with the five elements, or wuxing (earth, wood, metal, fire, and water), while the 12 pitches of the tonal system are connected by some writers with the months of the year, hours of the day, or phases of the moon. The 12 tones can also be found placed in two sets of six on imperial panpipes (paixiao) in keeping with the yinyang principle of complementary forces (e.g., female-male) of Chinese metaphysics. Their placement is based on the generation of the pitches of each pipe by its being either four-thirds larger or two-thirds smaller than the previous one, the smaller ones being female.