Musical Instruments, Historic, Rare and UniqueHipkins, Alfred J. (Alfred James)
History
Musical Instruments, Historic, Rare and Unique
Hipkins, Alfred J. (Alfred James)
Musical instruments
The succession of notes in the first octave resembles that of the
ancient Phrygian mode and that church mode in which Thomas Tallis's
famous service is composed. The exact measurements of the intervals
heard at the Health Exhibition are to be found in Mr. A.J. Ellis's
Paper _On the Musical Scales of Various Nations_, published in the
_Journal of the Society of Arts_, London, 25th March, 1885.
Mr. N.B. Dennys, in his valuable notes on Chinese Musical Instruments
read before the North China Branch of the Asiatic Society, 21st
October, 1873, gives the name of the three-stringed instrument in
the drawing, with a long neck like a tamboura, as San-hsien, with
which Mr. Van Aalst agrees. The Peking musicians called it Sien-tzê
(pronounced like Shen-zy). Like the Japanese Siamisen the San-hsien
has no frets. The drum-like body is covered on the upper side with
snakeskin, the under side being left open as in a tambourine or
banjo. The three strings were tuned ascending a minor tone between
the first and second, and a fifth between the second and third
strings: the outer strings being consequently a major sixth apart.
The strings were plucked by two bone plectra extended like claws
beyond the ends of the fingers, and the player stopped a Pentatonic
or five-note scale, thus: [Music] nearly in just intonation.
The P'i-p'a, according to Dennys and Van Aalst, or Balloon Guitar
(the Peking musicians called it Phi-pe), has a body nearly a
foot in diameter, from which it takes its English name, and four
strings played usually with the fingers and tuned as fourth, fifth,
and octave from the lowest note. The large semi-elliptical frets
above the finger-board were not used by the player at the Health
Exhibition; he restricted himself to the twelve frets upon the
finger-board. The P'i-p'a is usually played by men who, in the South
of China, are hired as minstrels or ballad-singers. The stopping of
this instrument was pentatonic, as with the San-hsien, and the scale
began upon the same note, but the tuning of the fretted instrument
was less good than that noted of the unfretted one. Mr. Van Aalst
informs us that the notes are reiterated by rapidly passing the long
finger-nail or plectrum backwards and forwards across the string, to
produce an effect of sostenuto similarly sought for in Europe for the
Mandoline, Bandurria, and Dulcimer. These instruments belong to the
Music Class Room of the University of Edinburgh.
[Illustration: XLV]
PLATE XLV.
CHINESE TI-TZU, SO-NA, YUEH-CH'IN. JAPANESE HIJI-RIKI. CHINESE LA-PA.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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