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| Japanese Guqin Handbooks "Correct Toko Kinpu" Japan Theme | 首頁 |
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Gyokudo Collection Qin Handbook
Gyokudo Zosho Kimpu (1791) also: 玉堂琴譜 Gyokudo Kinpu (Yu Tang Qinpu) |
玉堂藏書琴譜
1
Yu Tang Zangshu Qinpu 2 Gyokudo's "Plum Branches" 3 |
The songs in this handbook belong to the category of melodies in an idiomatically Japanese style. As can be seen in the sample at right, the melodies are similar modally to qin melodies from China4 but, whether or not the songs are sung in Japanese or Sino-Japanese, the lyrics do not follow the custom of one word (or character) per right hand pluck rule.5 Instead the tablature is written in boxes that perhaps give an indication of rhythm, but this is difficult to evaluate. In addition, it is not at all clear how the octave leaps or glissandos (suggesting influence from the koto idiom) in the qin tablature were intended to affect singing of the syllables (characters).6
Uragami Gyokudo (1745-1820),7 from the samurai class but now highly regarded as a poet, painter and calligrapher, was in his own day best known as a guqin player. In this guqin handbook Gyokudo calls himself "Master Gyokudo of Bizen" (in Okayama). Some/many/all of the melodies were "corrected by the Old Man of the Qin, a style name of the painter Nagamachi Chikuseki (1757-1806) of Sanuki, a friend and qin student of Gyokudo.8 Most of the pieces have lyrics, but the pairing method is not syllabic, as had been done with almost all preceding qin songs, including those in the above Japanese handbooks. Gyokudo originally studied in the tradition of Shin-Etsu, but then developed an interest in reviving the ancient Chinese singing form called saibara,9 and according to Stephen Addiss10 all but one of the lyrics of his songs in the published book were in that style: #16, Hito. Perhaps because of this Yang Yuanzheng classified them all under the "gaku-kin repertoire".11
Van Gulik discusses Gyokudo and describes his handbook Gyokudo Zosho Kimpu in some detail. He says Gyokudo was an enthusiastic qin performer who had studied from a direct disciple of Taki Rankei (see below and in this chart). He adds that the handbook, published in Kyoto,
"Fifteen tunes" suggests that Van Gulik saw only an edition of what is below outlined as "Volume 1". However, none of the pieces in this volume seems to include notation or tablature showing explicitly how to play with koto: I have not yet found any Volume 1 tablature that is not for qin. On the other hand, some of Gyokudo's glissandos do suggest a koto-type idiom, so perhaps Gyokudo's qin playing was influenced by koto technique. In this case perhaps "與箏合奏" suggested either playing qin like a koto, or meant that the tablature provided guidelines for playing a koto along with the qin. On the other hand, I do not know the source of that quote: perhaps it refers to pieces in the appendix, which do seem to have koto notation (some also have lyrics, though these are written only in the katakana syllabary).
"Volume 1" of the handbook seems to have no table of contents, while the first part of the Appendix has what seems to be an inaccurate one. This has contributed to the likelihood that there are errors in my understanding of the contents.
玉堂藏書琴譜 Gyokudo Collection Qin Handbook
Expanded to include all attributed melodies12
宮音 Gong Yin
角音 Jiao Yin
徴音 Zhi Yin
角音 Jiao Yin
商音 Shang Yin
角音 Jiao Yin
Between 14 and 15 this is written:
"青馬 (同音)" Qing Ma (Tong Yin); (Ao no Ma: "Green Horse" ["same sound"])
"妹之門 (同音)" Mei zhi Men (Tong Yin); (Imo no Kado: "Sister's Gate" ["same sound"])
徴音 Zhi Yin
Appendix to Gyokudo Kimpu: 玉堂琴譜後集 (Yutang Qinpu Houji)
14
The following seem to be from a separate document (lyrics only in #32?)
Melodies from the gagaku repertoire
Yang includes these in his list from a "Manuscript Tōkyō":15
Footnotes (Shorthand references are explained on a
separate page)
1.
Gyokudo's 玉堂藏書琴譜 Gyokudo Zosho Kimpu (1791;
Gyokudo Collection Qin Handbook)
"Kimpu" may also be romanized as "Kinfu". This handbook consists of qin songs and several essays attributed to Uragami Gyokudo (1745-1820), who therein referred to himself as "備前玉堂先生 Master Gyokudo of Bizen" (in Okayama). The title (sometimes shortened to 玉堂琴譜 Gyokudo Kimpu) generally refers to a printed handbook containing 15 (or 17?) pieces in one volume, but perhaps it originally had, or was intended to have, two volumes, the second volume now consisting only of two apparently incomplete hand-copied collections of a further 19 pieces (sample image), quite likely drafts intended for further editing. In this case the existing printed edition is Volume 1 while the second volume is called the Appendix.
Publications that are significant for the study of Gyokudo's qin songs include:
Most references in Japanese and Chinese are beyond the current scope of this page.
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2.
Yu Tang Zangshu Qinpu
Not in Qinqu Jicheng
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| 3. Image above: Book 1, #7, Umegae (facsimile) | Compare Appendix #1, Takasago |
The image above is tablature from a
webpage in Japanese that also has a recording of the melody. The handbook itself is available in several libraries, in several differing editions. I have not yet learned the full details of this, but an edition of Volume 1 is available online from the National Diet Library in Tokyo
(q.v.).
This image, its facsimile version, is clearly a different edition of the above.
Image at right: Appendix, #1, Takasago
(expanded)
In contrast, whereas the tablature above and in the library link was clearly printed, the tablature here at right, from the appendix 玉堂琴譜後集 玉堂琴士著 (Gyokudo Kimpu Goshu, by Qin Master Gyokudo) is handcopied. The copy I have seen of the Appendix is incomplete and I do not as yet have further details on the relationship between the two. Its content is listed here.
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4.
Modality of Gyokudo's qin pieces
This is a tentative statement based mostly on the mode names and tunings observed.
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5.
Singing in Japanese or Sino-Japanese
Van Gulik says that the lyrics are given pronunciation through a special script called manyogana, and Gyokudo apparently wrote of making his music intelligible to Japanese people. If the lyrics were intended to be sung using spoken Japanese (or something akin to it) then the number of syllables would be significantly more than the number of syllables for Sino-Japanese. Van Gulik gives a relevant quote about this, but the specific implications of this are not yet clear to me.
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6.
Rhythm of the songs
The melodies as played today all being reconstructions from tablature, interpretation of rhythm is likely something to be debated, but as yet I have not seen studies of this aspect.
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7.
浦上玉堂 Uragami Gyokudo (1745-1820)
There are general articles about Gyokudo in
Wikipedia, Wikimedia, etc. For guqin references, specifically to Gyokudo's handbook(s) see above.
As mentioned above, Gyokudo was a well-known Japanese painter and qin lover; melodies from his handbook have recently received some attention but few recorded performances.
Van Gulik, op.cit., pp.237-9, has a long entry on Gyokudo. It is given here in full, but with characters from the footnotes put directly into the text, romanization modernized and his "lute" changed to "qin".
Cf. also the publication Uragami Gyokudō, by 失野橋村 Yano Kyōson, one fol., Tokyo 1926. Among the illustrations there occurs a photograph of a qin made by Gyokudō himself in 1786, in imitation of a Chinese qin of the Tang dynasty made by a member of the 雷 Lei family, famous as qin builders. The brocade cover of this qin bears a lengthy inscription written by the well-known Japanese painter and sinologue 當岡鐵齋 Tomioka Tessai (1834-1924.
The information given here about the songs is particularly significant within the context of syllabic settings: one could not simply take songs set for Chinese lyrics and sing them in Japanese because the Japanese would have a different word order and a different number of syllables. What is not clear, since I have as yet heard very little of songs played from Gyokudo's handbook, is what difference this would make to the musical idiom.
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8.
Nagamachi Chikuseki (1757-1806)
Many melodies in Gyokudo's handbook were "(讚歧)張元徽琴翁挍 corrected by the Old Man of the Qin, Master Zhang Yuanhui (of Sanuki [Shikoku])". "琴翁 Old Man of the Qin" was a style name of the painter 長町竹石 Nagamachi Chikuseki (1757-1806) of Sanuki; names he is said to have used also include 張 and 徽 as well as 竹石. In addition, he was known to be a friend and qin student of Gyokudo, so this must be the same person.
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9.
Saibara (催馬楽 cui ma yue: spur horses music)
(Wiki)
Saibara were connected to the Japanese court music tradition
(gagaku) but were thought to have originated in Japanese traditional music rather than from Chinese sources. To outside ears the music sounds very similar to gagaku considered to be of Chinese origin. It is not clear to me to what extent Gyokudo might have considered saibara melodies to be more local Japanese or more Japanese derived from Chinese.
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10.
Stephen Addiss, "Music for the Seven-String Ch'in"
The reviews by Paul Berry (in JSTOR) and Fred Lieberman (also JSTOR) mention an associated cassette called "Gyokudo's Music for the Ch'in"; the cassette, which had two recordings, is no longer available, but one of the recordings, the piece called Hito, is currently online here.
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11.
"Gaku-kin repertoire"
Yang lists all of Gyokudo's qin melodies in a list of 165 titles he calls the "Gaku-kin repertoire" (pp. 234-255); he includes none of them in his list called "Tōkō Shinetsu's Repertoire"" (pp. 223-233; 62 titles). Since he seems to use the term 樂琴 "gaku-kin specifically for qin melodies either from or designed to go with the gagaku repertoire, presumably he considers all of Gyokudo's repertoire to fit into this category. Certainly they differ from melodies coming from the Shinetsu tradition, but I have not yet studied the argument saying Gyokudo was inspired by his knowledge of gagaku music.
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11.
玉堂藏書琴譜 Gyokudo Collection Qin Handbook
Also 玉堂琴譜 Gyokudo Qin Handbook
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13.
Volume 1
Yang, pp.250-2 (#118-134) lists #1-9 as from "GyokudōK Vol 1" and #10-17 as from "GyokudōK Vol 2". On p.235 he says of this volume,
It is not clear why he and others say this has 15 pieces, when the actual list (and book) has 17, as can be seen above.
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14.
Appendix to Gyokudo Kimpu
The original is handcopied. According to
Yang this "Appendix" is actually two documents, the first consisting of #1-14, the second of #15-19, pp. 252-4, #s 135-153). It is not clear if the two volumes were ever published together. On p.236 Yang states the two sources for these 19 pieces as:
The manuscripts of the Appendix are handcopies that in many places are barely legible. The lyrics are apparently all written in the katakana syllabary.
There is a list of contents at the beginning of GyokudōG, but it is rather at odds with the contents both as listed above and as contained in the photocopy I have seen. This table of contents (unnumbered in the original) is as follows,
This list is from a page at the front of a photocopy that includes the melodies from GyokudōG. The 21 titles include all 14 from GyokudōG except #9 (but see #21?) but none from GyokudōD. Three are identifiable from Volume 1; four (or five) do not seem to be listed elsewhere.
15.
Gagaku pieces
The first two of the three have the same titles as
#17 and #16 from the "Appendix"; I do not yet know whether their tablature is different.
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Yang lists these three on p.255; on p.237 he gives the source of these three pieces as follows,
Manuscript Tōkyō, private collection of Kishibe Shigeo, "Kingaku zasshi" consists of two volumes. On folios 12r‐20r of the second volume, it offers different versions of the following gaku‐kin pieces: Etenraku, Goshōraku and Batō, prepared by Onoda Tōzen; Goshōraku, Bairo, Ōshōkun by Urakami Gyokudō; and Goshōraku, Etenraku by Murai Kinzai.
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