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Taigu Yiyin
Music Bequeathed from Antiquity By Xie Lin1 and Huang Shida2 |
太古遺音
1511 / 1515 謝琳、黃士達 Xie Lin himself?3 |
Two editions of this Taigu Yiyin have survived:
- Xie Lin Taigu Yiyin (1511)
- Huang Shida Taigu Yiyin (1515)
The former has 36 melodies, the latter adds two more; otherwise (unless Huang Shida did some editing) they are almost identical. Of these 38 melodies, only nine seem related (and these often distantly) to ones surviving from earlier publications. Furthermore, some of the titles of clearly related melodies are partly or completely different.4
Like the handbook that seems immediately to precede it, Zheyin Shizi Qinpu (>1505, but its actual date is uncertain), all the melodies in this handbook consists of pieces with lyrics. It is thus interesting to compare the styles of the melodies in these two handbooks. At the same time it is also interesting to compare this handbook with the one immediately following it, Xilutang Qintong (1525). This latter comparison is interesting in part because its compiler, Wang Zhi, comes from an area near the famous Huangshan mountain in Anhui province, almost the same place as the home of Xie Lin, the compiler of this Taigu Yiyin.5 In addition, though, Xilutang Qintong also has some distinctive ways of treating sung melodies.
As mentioned, as with this 1511 handbook all the pieces in Zheyin Shizi Qinpu have lyrics added. However, the pieces in 1511 seem more genuinely to represent a sung tradition, as is discussed in the Zha Fuxi introduction. And whereas no earlier source for the Zheyin lyrics has been found (the suspicion is that they were added because of a theory that qin music should be sung, but that most of the idiom is in fact purely instrumental), most lyrics here in 1511 can be found in classical sources.
Meanwhile, of the 170 pieces in Xilutang Qintong 18 have lyrics. The most unique characteristic here is that, whereas almost everywhere else all melodies with lyrics have them all the way from beginning to end, in Xilutang Qintong
10 of the pieces are long melodies with lyrics in only one or two sections and three others begin each section with brief lyrics.
One way of categorizing the melodies here in 1511 is by length: there are 18 short songs consisting of only one section, with 16 having lyrics also found in the Yuefu Shiji (YFSJ); the 20 longer pieces are almost all divided into unnumbered sections, the sections indicated only by large circles. This is discussed further on the commentary page.
The lyrics themselves include two from the
Shi Jing and at least 20 from the Song dynasty edition of Yuefu Shiji; 16 are among the 20 pieces having only 1 section, including all ten "qin pieces" of the Tang poet Han Yu.6
This pairing of melodies with classical lyrics recalls descriptions of the work of the Song/Yuan dynasty qin player Yu Yan, but I have not heard that anyone has found specific connections.
For further information about Taigu Yiyin see:
For the seven not recorded see further comment.
(Caution: much of the commentary and many of the translations are incomplete and/or unpolished)
1.
謝琳 Xie Lin 36661.xxx
According to Chinese Wikipedia he was a man of the Zhengde reign period (1505–1521; the handbook suggests he was already old in 1511 when his handbook was published). According to the prefaces and postscripts to the Taigu Yiyin handbook that he compiled, he lived in 新安 Xin’an (a region on the south side of Huangshan mountain) and belonged to a locally established elite lineage. He styled himself "Recluse of Huangshan", was also known as 良璧 (Xie?) Liangbi, and had the alternative sobriquet 雪峰 Xuefeng. It then outlines the content of Taigu Yiyin:
At the front of the book there is:
謝琳，明代正德年間人氏。據他所輯《太古遺音》琴譜的敘跋介紹，他生活在新安（今安徽省境內），是當地的世家，以「黃山居士」自稱，又名謝良璧，別號雪峯。書前有正德六年張鵬序，正德七年何旭序，正德八年何莊跋，序跋強調謝琳琴藝爲程敏政、沈周等所推重，足證謝氏爲當時有名琴家。
Altogether this suggests that it will be difficult to find further personal information about Xie Lin.
Interestingly, though, this information does suggest that Xie Lin came from the same region as 汪芝 Wang Zhi, compiler of another very significant handbook, Xilutang Qintong (1525). Wang Zhi was 歙雲嵐山人 the Mountain Man from Yunlan ("misty mountains") in She district, south across the Xin'an River from the main peaks of Huangshan. This whole area (also called 徽商 Huizhou) was famous during the Ming dynasty as a center for artists and wealthy business people who supported/patronized them.
2.
黃士達 Huang Shida 48904.xxx
3.
From page 3 of Xie Lin Taigu Yiyin
4.
Melodies in Taigu Yiyin related to ones published earlier
The following two songs have titles related to those of earlier published pieces, but no apparent melodic relationship:
As for what remains to be recorded, of Taigu Yiyin's 38 melodies I have recorded 31. Of the remaining 7, I have already made recordings of earlier versions of 5. This, then, means that I have yet to record only two melodies, these being the two from the 1515 Taigu Yiyin:
For these I have written out transcriptions but am not comfortable with the rhythms I have worked out. This is often true for melodies with lyrics that have not yet been translated. Even for melodies that do not seem to be singable, I find it most interesting if I can find some relationship between the rhythm of the words (which requires some understanding of the literal meaning) and the rhythm of the melody (which is not clearly defined by the tablature).
Although this 1511/1515 handbooks were published later than the 1425 and >1505 handbooks, it is not certain that the song versions of these melodies date later than the instrumental versions. It does seem quite possible that many of the short songs in particular represent part of an oral tradition: the songs would have been done differently each time, and even it they remained quite similar it would then have been difficult to decide on a definitive version. On the other hand, some of the longer ones seem to have the characteristic that most of the >1505 melodies have of seeming to be instrumental melodies to which lyrics have been added.
5.
Huangshan region: 新安 Xin'an and 徽州 Huizhou
6.
Yuefu Shiji lyrics
7.
My online recordings
These versions are more tentative than my reconstructions of purely instrumental melodies. In those I can rely on my understanding (tentative as it may be since so little has been written about this in other sources) of the purely musical structures. With melodies intended to be sung this requires an understanding of the relationship between the words and the music - though in some cases that relationship may not have seemed natural to the literati themselves.
Very few of these are actually sung. I certainly have tried to sing them to myself as I work out rhythms, but singing them for a recording requires memorizing them. Although in some instances a recording can be double tracked, a truly authoritative version requires a singer more skilled than I am. As for historical accuracy, very little is known about voice production during the period these songs were created. One can guess that this may have been related to the voice produciton of later forms such as kunqu. But after all this was, on the one hand, a non-professional tradition supported by literati from a variety of regions in China, while at the same time the literati probably also enjoyed hearing these songs sung by professional entertainers.
My recordings from Taigu Yiyin include the following7 (some are also available on
[complete list], with the lyrics as visuals):
Footnotes (Shorthand references are explained on a
separate page)
From 黃山 Huangshan. Xie Lin had the nickname 雪峰 Xuefeng. See
Zha Fuxi's preface and the
the commentary by He Xu.
- a preface by 張鵬 Zhang Peng dated the sixth year of Zhengde (1511),
- a preface by 何旭 He Xu dated the seventh year (1512), and
- a postscript by 何莊 He Zhuang dated the eighth year (1513).
These prefaces and postscripts emphasize that Xie Lin’s qin artistry was highly esteemed by figures such as 程敏政 Cheng Minzheng and 沈周 Shen Zhou, which sufficiently demonstrates that Xie was a well-known qin master of his time.
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From 豸山 Zhishan (37338.xxx ?). No information on him outside his tablature.
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For all nine versions also published earlier, since I have already made recordings of those earlier ones, so far I have recorded only four of these nine 1511 versions. First, my focus has generally been on instrumental melodies. Next, it can be confusing to try to learn two versions of the same melody. That can also seem like more of a didactic experience if it does not include something totally new.
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These two names refer to the same region near Huangshan Mountain, with Xin'an being the older name, officially replaced by Huizhou some time during the Song dynasty.This is a region famous for its artists, of all sorts, as well as its business people.
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Search the ToC for YFSJ.
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In many of my recordings for a few notes have been added at the beginning of the melody - often a copy of the last phrase or closing harmonics; this is to accompany the cover page of the video.
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