Lothar von Falkenhausen

SUSPENDED MUSIC
Chime-Bells in the Culture of Bronze Age China

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS BERKELEY LOS ANGELES OXFORD

CHAPTER NINE

Music Suspended: Tone Theory and

Its Political Ramifications

When we consider the tone distributions of the Zeng bells in conjunction with
their tone-naming inscriptions, we find that musical theory was more or less di­
vorced from musical practice—a phenomenon that has continued to characterize
Chinese music throughout its later history. As shown in Chapter 7, the Zeng
bell assemblage and lithophone were undoubtedly viable musical instruments:
they could be used to play pentatonic music in a variety of keys according to the
xuangong (revolving do) principle. But quite independently of their musical use­
fulness, these instruments were also repositories of cosmological knowledge:
they functioned as a musical tonometer, a device for imposing ever-varying reg­
ular patterns onto the tonal realm (see Chapter 8). There seems little inherent
connection between the tone-naming inscriptions on the Zeng “suspended
music” and the musical potential of those instruments (except, perhaps, in the
case of the upper-tier niuzhong with their astonishingly regular arrangements of
thirds). How are we to explain that somewhat uneasy fusion of musical practice
and theory? Why were the inscriptions placed on bells to begin with?

Pitch-Pipes and Bells in Zhou Musical Theory

The semantic field of the term Hi (jt, here translated as “pitch standard,” is not
limited to musicology. As a legal term, Hi means “regulation,” and with refer­
ence to tones in music, it also connotes “regulator, measuring standard.” A Hi
determined the pitch to which all musical instruments in an orchestra were
tuned when they performed in concert. Traditional sources mention two kinds
of instruments from which this pitch standard was obtained by the other instru­
ments: bells and pitch-pipes (Higuan A debate about whether “bell pitch

310
standards” (zhonglii £8$) or “pipe pitch standards” (guanlii tffjt) were primary
has raged throughout much of Chinese musical history.1
Although chime-bells and pitch-pipes belong to completely distinct classes of
sound generators, they share one feature that makes both viable as tuning stan­
dards: they are composed of discrete sound-producing units, each of which
emits a distinct tone. Unlike a flute, a pitch-pipe is designed to produce only
one tone (though its pitch is somewhat dependent on blowing technique). For
tuning purposes, pitch-pipes have an advantage over bells in that their lengths
reflect the mathematical proportions of tonal frequencies in a simple way. In the
list of pitch-pipes in the “Lu shu” chapter of Shi Ji,2 for instance, the length of
the linzhong pipe, a fifth above huangzhong, is given as % the length of the
huangzhong pipe.3 The lengths of the twelve pitch-pipes listed by Sima Qian
were determined by the Sanfen Sunyi-fa: by alternately subtracting and adding
the third part of the length of the previous pipe, starting from huangzhong.
As has been shown in the preceding chapter, the application of the Sanfen
Sunyi-fa to the Twelve Lii is probably a secondary phenomenon, postdating the
late Warring States conflation of notes and pitch standards. Even though the
Liishi Chunqiu claims that the music master Ling Lun fu (ft tuned the first stan­
dard set of bamboo pitch-pipes in the distant time of the Yellow Emperor,4 it
seems likely that the use of graduated pitch-pipes as pitch standards does not
long predate the late pre-Qin texts. This impression is confirmed by archaeolog­
ical finds. Pitch-pipes probably evolved from panpipes (paixiao), which remain
part of the Chinese orchestra to this day.5 An instrument type of uncertain but
probably early origin, panpipes have been found in Springs and Autumns
period tombs; the earliest ones, from the early seventh-century tomb no. 2 at
Shangguan’gang, Guangshan (Henan),6 are made of bamboo. The unusual stone
panpipe from tomb no. 1 at Xiasi (mid-sixth century) seems to have been de-

1. Sec Zhongguo Yinyue Cidian, entries zhonglii and guanlii.

2. The beginning of this list is quoted in Chapter 8. I follow Chavannes’s reconstitution of the
text (see Chapter 8, n. 40).
3. This would be exactly correct if the pipe’s diameter and the thickness of the body were
adjusted in the same way as the length. The respective proportions can be even more elegantly dem­
onstrated on a vibrating string, where the width and thickness can be disregarded. It has therefore
been proposed (e.g., by Yang Yinliu 1979) that the actual proportions of the “lengths” of pitches
were established not by means of pipes but by a stringed instrument. Of course, what is meant
by the huangzhong pipe is, in the parlance of the Zeng inscriptions, a pipe emitting the do of
HUANGZHONG.
4. Liishi Chunqiu “Guyue” (Sibu Congkan ed., jtSb-pa; see Chapter 8, n. 34).
5. Zhuang Bcnli 1963. It may be objected that sets of blowing-tubes of graduated sizes were
also used in mouth-organs (sheng), but, having finger-holes, they must be classified as flutes. Pan­
pipes are the musical instruments organologically closest to pitch-pipes.
6. Kaogu 1984 (4)1302-32, 348; drawing, p. 328 fig. 29.3-5.

MUSIC SUSPENDED 3t 1
signed to emit a pentatonic series of notes.7 Marquis Yi’s tomb yielded two
well-preserved lacquered bamboo panpipes of thirteen pipes each (see fig. 5),
which comprised six tones per octave (the pentatonic series plus si), ranging
through two octaves. They appear to have been tuned to two different keys.8
Like their modern-day descendants, the early panpipes were evidently designed
to function as melodic instruments, emitting series of yin notes.
The function of sets of pitch-pipes, as opposed to panpipes, is not musical in
the strict sense; they are useless for playing melodies (to do so, one would have
to pick up and play the loose pitch-pipes one by one in quick succession, which
is impracticable). The four fragmentary bamboo pipes from the mid—Warring
States period tomb no. 21 at Yutaishan, Jiangling (Hubei), mentioned in
Chapter 8 (see fig. 140),9 may be the earliest known remains of a set of pitch­
pipes, though the possibility that they may have been part of a panpipe cannot
be entirely excluded. Their inscriptions exactly resemble those on Marquis Yi’s
bells and lithophones in defining each tone (one tone per pipe) by a string of
equivalent terms of the type “yin x of lii M.”10 It should be stressed that none of
these pitch-pipes is itself identified as representing one particular lii, as one
might expect from the Shi Ji list of pipes; on the contrary, several lii names
appear on each pipe. This is exactly where the Yutaishan pitch-pipes differ from
Han dynasty specimens, such as the complete set of twelve bamboo pitch-pipes
found in the early Western Han tomb no. 1 at Mawangdui, Changsha (Hunan)
(fig. 145).11 Each of the Mawangdui pipes is inscribed with one of the twelve
binominal lii names known from the classical texts; yin names are not specified
(in the spirit of the Zeng inscriptions, one may infer gong [do] each time).12 The
inscription on an unprovenienced bronze pitch-pipe in the Shanghai Museum,
dating to the Wang Mang interregnum (a.d. 9-24),13 also indicates only a sin­
gle lii name, wuyi. In these Han pitch-pipes, a tone is directly identified as a lii,
just as present-day Western musicians would unhesitatingly identify a tone as C

7. See Chapter 7, n. 37; also Chapter 7, n. 14.

8. Jiang Wujian 1988, 4 and fig. 2; Huang Xiangpeng 1979.
9. See Chapter 8, n. 13.
10. The lii nomenclature corresponds to that identified in the Zeng inscriptions with the state of
Chu, which is not surprising, considering that the locus of excavation is in the immediate vicinity of
the Chu capital. The tone-definition distribution pattern seems to correspond with that in sets Ml
and M2 of the Zeng bells.
11. Changsha Mawangdui Yihao Hanmu vol. 1:107-10; vol. 2, ill., p. 204; Lu Linlan 1983.
12. These pitch-pipes were likely mingqi of purely mortuary function; the report notes that their
absolute and relative lengths are at variance with those stipulated in the Han dynasty texts. Their
measured tones (Changsha Mawangdui Yihao Hanmu 1:110) do not form the expected dodecatonic
series, though they must have had considerable symbolic and cosmological significance.
13. Because it is fragmentary, its value in reconstructing the standard pitches of Wang Mang’s
reign is very limited; the reconstruction of the entire set of lii proposed by Ma and Pan (1981) is not
convincing.

312 MUSICAL PERFORMANCE AND THEORY

figure 145. Set of twelve pitch-pipes (with silk pouch) excavated
in 1972 from tomb no. 1 at Mawangdui, Changsha (Hunan). Early
Western Han (before 168 B.c.).

or D (and not as “do on C,” etc.); clearly, by this time, the earlier method of
defining a tone as a note with respect to a pitch standard had been abandoned.
Pitch-pipes, in other words, may not have been in use before the Warring
States period; at any rate, they do not seem to have served to determine the
pitch standard in ritual orchestras until then. Throughout most of the Zhou
dynasty, such a function was apparently fulfilled by bells,14 as is suggested, for
example, by the fact that the most common type of lii name includes the cle­
ment zhong Mg “bell”: huangzhong JfcMf! “Yellow Bell,” xinzhonc yf-Mg “New
Bell,” and so forth (see table i6).15 These names seem to allude to some early
connection between the fixation of lii and bell-casting.16 A similar relationship is
indicated by the fact that the earliest known occurrence of a lii name, in the
Nangong Hu-yongzhong inscription, is as the name of that bell: “This bell is
called wuyi.” The idea that bells embodied the pitch standards accords well
with their purported musical role of providing the impetus at the beginning of
the performance and playing notes that defined a fundamental consonance (see

14. A similar argument is made by Needham and Robinson 1962, 169-71. Even the Ling Lun
myth relates that Huang Di ordered the founding of a tuned set of bells immediately after receiving
the pitch-pipes (Liishi Chunqiu “Guyuc,” Sibu Congkan cd., 5:9a).
15. Altogether, eleven known /w names belong to this type—more than one-third of thoi>e
documented in transmitted texts and inscriptions combined (Falkenhausen 1988, 821-24); their
etymology will be treated in a separate article.
16. Sec Chavannes in Mem. Hist, y.628.

MUSIC SUSPENDED 3I3

 Chapter 7). In the words of Kenneth J. DeWoskin, “control over the moment
and pitch at which the music began was control over the entire performance.”17
Since the tones of bells and lithophones could not be adjusted (except per­
manently, by altering the shape of the sonorous substance), it stands to reason
that winds and strings should have adjusted their pitches to those of the “sus­
pended music.” Thus the tones played by the suspended music, though fewer
in number than those of the flutes and stringed instruments, were of special
significance: bells and lithopones served as standard-givers for the orchestra.
One may speculate that the concept of pitch standard originated from this
basic function of bells. At an early stage of development, the bells embodied the
pitch standards: they were the lii. The standard yin/lii nomenclature in the Zeng
inscriptions may have come into existence as a result of the realization that the
tones emitted by different standard bells were different; the gong of the huang-
zhong bell, for instance, was equivalent to shatig when compared to the gong of
the wuyi bell. As we have seen in Chapter 8, the diversification of lii and the
emergence of comprehensive sets of lii (first six, then twelve per octave) came
about in a gradual, piecemeal way (see table 16).
Chime-bells, then, were of considerable importance in the genesis of classical
Chinese musical theory; at an early stage, their theoretical and regulatory func­
tion may well have outshone their musical one. This extramusical significance
may in part account for the existence of the Zeng inscriptions. Even though
chime-bells gradually evolved into melodic instruments, the Zeng inscriptions
attest that, in the mid-fifth century B.C., they had not yet lost their early theo­
retical importance. It was not until the late Warring States period that the con­
ception of tone underwent major changes, with the result that pitch-pipes
came into use and eventually replaced bells as standard tonometers. Unlike
bell-chimes, pitch-pipes could not double as musical instruments during per­
formances; they served exclusively regulatory purposes. Although technolog­
ically far less sophisticated, it must be admitted that pitch-pipes were function­
ally superior to chime-bells. Not only were they vastly more economical to
produce, but, if they were correctly dimensioned, they rendered the intended
pitches with potentially greater exactitude than bells with their complex over­
tone structure. It is no accident, therefore, that the rise of pitch-pipes coincides
with the decline of bell manufacture in late Eastern Zhou.

The Political Role of Pitch Standards

Many classical texts emphasize the relationship of pitch standards (lii) with
other systems of measurement. In the Han dynasty, the length of the huang-

17. DeWoskin 1982, 48.

314 MUSICAL PERFORMANCE AND THEORY

zhong pitch-pipe became the basis for all length, weight, and volumetric
measurements; the method by which they were correlated is first laid out in the
Hatt Shu.is Interestingly, probably the earliest textual locus hinting at such an
idea, in Guo Yu “Zhou yu,” occurs in the context of a discussion of bell-making:

Therefore when the former kings made bells, the size did not transgress the
uniform standard, and their weight did not exceed one dan fi. The pitch
standards, length, volume, and weight measures all took their origin from
this.18
19

The suggestion here is that a bell (or set of bells) embodied the “uniform stan­
dard” for other systems of measurement. Conceivably, a physical dimension of
the bell itself (Hirase points to the xianjian as a possible candidate)20 provided
the basis for length, volume, and weight measures. On the other hand, the funda­
mental unit of measurement as envisaged by the Guo Yu passage might equally
likely have been a pitch-pipe or a vibrating string that was tuned to the pitch
of a bell. The origin of this system is usually ascribed to the sages of high
antiquity.21 I suspect, however, that the idea of grounding all measurements
acoustically may have been new in the time of the Guo Yu; it may have been
triggered by the rise of correlative cosmology in late Warring States times.22
The late pre-Qin sources refer to a well-ordered tonal system as a metonym
for a well-governed polity, specifying that musical theory was imbued with
moral and cosmological significance (see Introduction). In the absence of perti­
nent textual evidence, it is difficult to trace the roots of conceptions of music.
The Zeng inscriptions do not explicitly mention such extramusical connota­
tions. The multiple pitch-standard (lit) nomenclatures documented in the Zeng

18. Han Shu “Lu Li-zhi” (Zhonghua ed., 966—69); see Dubs 1938-1955 1:276-77.
19. Guo Yu “Zhou Yu" (Tiansheng Mingdao ed., j. 3:12b: for a translation of the wider context.
see d’Hormon, 311-12; Hart, 387-88). Dan is the largest unit of weight measurement (its size in
the Zhou dynasty is uncertain). Needham and Robinson (1962, 199) mistakenly take zhong
which here means “bell" (as it usually does in pre-Qin texts), in the meaning of zhong J® "a grain
vessel"; taking this locus as a point of departure for a fanciful discussion of the origins of the
Chinese system of measurements, they go on to follow the absurd theory from Lie Zi flj f- that de­
rives the origin of bells from grain scoops (see DeWoskin 1982, 63-64). Needham and Robinson
(followed by Hart) also take jun iLj t which 1 render literally as “uniform standard,” as a “seven-foot
tuner," a monochord used to derive pitches according to exact mathematical proportions (see Huang
Xiangpeng 1988). However, the existence of such an instrument is attested nowhere in the pre-Qin
textual record; the earliest possible locus seems to be in Zhang Heng's (a.d. 78-139) “Si-
xuan-fu”®-KIK (Wen Xuan, Sibu Congkan ed., j. 15:21a).
20. Hirase 1988.
21. As in the sequel to the Guo Yu passage just quoted. Similar ideas can be seen in Shu Jing
“Yaodian"(Shangshu Tongjian, 1-2) and Zhou Li: Chun'guan “Diantong" (Zhou Li Zhengyi 46:4a-b).
22. Graham 1986a; Schwartz 1985, 350-82.

MUSIC SUSPENDED 315

inscriptions, however, may in and of themselves possess a far-reaching political
significance. For the first time, the “equivalency formulas” embedded in the
System B-type inscriptions (see fig. 142) have made us realize that, in Eastern
Zhou China, each state had its own system of lii, a phenomenon that may indi­
cate deliberate attempts at separation by ritual means, born out of a competitive
political situation. In this connection, we may profitably pursue the parallel be­
tween pitch standards and other systems of measurements somewhat further.
Later, in Imperial China, the task of establishing a correct measurement sys­
tem commanded the highest moral and political priority. It was the prerogative,
_as well as the responsibility, of rulers to establish a unified and internally co­
herent standard for all aspects of government. The rectification of measurements
at the beginning of each dynasty was a supreme assertion of sovereignty. At
the latest, this tradition started with the imposition of new measurements at the
time of the Qin unification in 221 b.c.23
Going back to pre-Imperial times, we find that each of the states in the Zhou
realm had its own measurement system. As demonstrated by archaeological and
philological research on pre-Qin weights and measures, variations among the
different late Zhou measurement systems were quite insignificant.24 The several
systems appear to be variations on a single system of weights and measures;
quite possibly, they were all derived from one common ancestral source and
then altered.25 In the course of political reforms in some Eastern Zhou states,
such as in Qi in 539 b.c.26 and Qin in 344 b.c.,27 weights and measures were
redefined, perhaps so as to deliberately assert the independence of the respective
states.
The different lii systems of the various Eastern Zhou states, documented by
the Zeng inscriptions, manifest a curious parallel to this situation. They differ
from one another, of course, in the names assigned to the various pitch stan­
dards. Each state seems to possess a different series of six (or more) lii names,
though there is some overlap, both among the different series and between the
various regional series and the set of Twelve Pitch Standards (shi’er lii) known
from the classical texts (see table 16). (There are also cases where the same lii
name designates different pitches, as in the case of yize, whose do, in the state

23. Shi Ji “Qin Shihuang Benji” (Zhonghua ed., 237-38); Li Xueqm 1985, 240-41.
24. Zhongguo gudai duliangheng tuji, 2-3; Yu Weichao and Gao Ming 1973. Similar ideas also
apply to the Chinese script; see Karlgren 1936, Barnard 1978.
25. Shi Ji “Zhou Benji" (Zhonghua ed., 133) reports a previous unification of measurements
under Cheng Wang of Zhou hdc _E (trad, dates: 1115-1078), but one must be cautious in accepting
this as historical fact. If it is true that a unified measuring system existed in Western Zhou times,
that system probably was not in common use in the outlying parts of the Zhou cultural sphere. It
is also likely to have been far less regular or “scientific” than the late pre-Qin and early imperial
metrological systems known from the historical texts.
26. Zuo Zhuan Zhao 3 (HY1 ed., 348).
27. ShiJi “Shangjun Liezhuan” (Zhonghua ed., 2232).

316 MUSICAL PERFORMANCE AND THEORY

of Shen, was a whole tone step removed from the do of yize of the “traditional”
Twelve Pitch Standards.) The various lii nomenclatures in the Zeng inscriptions
also differed as to which pitch standard was regarded as the principal one. We
have seen that the principal lii in the Zeng yongzhong, and thus probably in the
state of Zeng, is GUXIAN, with do on C. The same pitch standard appears to be
the primary one in the nomenclature of Chu, where it is called luzhong 8 fat, a
term that may mean “bell of the principal pitch standard.” In the state of Qi, by
contrast, luyin 8# (essentially synonymous with luzhong) has its do on F-
sharp, a tritone removed from guxian. In the classical texts, moreover, huang-
zhong is always given as the principal pitch standard; that lii name also appears
inscribed on the Zeng bells, where its do has been measured to correspond
approximately to G-sharp (impressively close to the pitch of the huangzhong
pitch-pipe in Han times, which was roughly equivalent to G).28
Apart from these two points of distinction, the several musical systems in the
Zeng inscriptions are eminently compatible with one another. The method by
which tones are defined is the same throughout, and the same set of notes (yin)
is used regardless of which state’s pitch-standard system is used. Moreover,
even though the lii names differ in detail, they all represent the same type of
binomic designations (with additional “muddy” lii in the Chu system). They are
also fundamentally similar to the system of tone definition in the classical texts,
which, as we have discussed in Chapter 8, represents a somewhat later stage of
development. On the whole, then, the ritual musics of the various Eastern
Zhou states embody the cultural unity of the Zhou realm.
Like the systems of measurement of the Eastern Zhou states, the various
pitch-standard systems of that period may, then, all derive from one predeces­
sor and represent variant manifestations of one and the same musical system. It
is possible that the differences between them had been deliberately contrived and
emphasized for political reasons. Although pitch standards are not mentioned in
connection with the pre-Qin and Qin measurement reforms (a fact that may in­
dicate that in actual practice, the lii were not linked to other systems of measure­
ment until the Han dynasty), it is probable that the musical system was reformed
along with the length, weight, and volume measurements at the time of the Qin
unification. The casting of bells from the weapons captured during the preced­
ing military campaigns (sec Chapter i), which, significantly, took place in the
same year as the reform of the measurements,29 may have been connected with
the redefinition of pitch standards. After the Han dynasty, when the standard
pitch-pipes (liiguan) had come to be regarded as the foundation of all other

28. The exact pipe lengths and pitches of the Han dynasty lii were calculated by Chen Qiyou
(1962a), superseding Liu Fu's (1934) earlier effort.
29. The Shi Ji recounts the two events virtually in the same breath (Zhonghua ed., 237-239).

MUSIC SUSPENDED 3 17
 measurement systems, pitch standards were fixed anew by each dynasty down
to 1911, altogether more than thirty times.30

International Music
The “equivalency formulas” on the Zeng bells seem to testify to a concern with
reconciling the various musical systems current in the mid-fifth century,
which had, over the centuries, come to diverge in significant ways from their
putative common origin. Because the bells could be used for playing music in a
number of different keys, they could serve for performing musics of many
countries, and presumably, ensembles of musicians from different parts of the
Zhou realm could play the compositions of their own traditions on them. The
Chu Ci, as quoted in Chapter 1, vividly describes how music and dance from all
over the Zhou realm were mixed at Eastern Zhou court banquets. Beyond mere
entertainment, international music-making may have had a profound political
and even cosmological significance. It denoted connections with distant regions
and perhaps suggested a sort of control over the world. By shifting from one
do to the next, and thus making a transition from the musical system of one
state to the next, one could harmonize and integrate various political forces
in the Zhou realm. In the course of diplomatic banquets, for example, music
played on the Zeng bells might have been capable of musically enacting
foreign policy.
We have noted that the nine pitch standards of the so-called Zeng set of lii
documented in the Zeng inscriptions are by and large homonymous with those
in the twelve-part set transmitted in the classical texts (see table 16). Because it
is hardly probable that the classical musical nomenclature of China originated in
the obscure statelet of Zeng, we may assume that these names, with some varia­
tions, were relatively widely used. Possibly, they originated at the Western
Zhou court; their usage in Zeng may show the connections of the Zeng ruling
house with the Zhou royal family through the Ji clan. The principal pitch
standard in the Zeng bell assemblage and in the so-called Zeng set of lii,
however, is guxian, equivalent to the luzhong of Chu, not huangzhong, the
principal lii of the traditional texts (and quite probably of Zhou court music),
which, though present, does not play a significant role in the inscribed tone
definitions.31 This situation may reflect the Zeng state’s political subservi-

30. Yang Yinliu 1980; Qiu Qiongsun 1964; Courant 1922.

31. We cannot be completely certain that huangzhong already was the principal lii in the Zhou
system. For instance, in the tone distributions of Western Zhou bell-chimes, do is invariably located
around C, by and large compatible with guxian in the Zeng inscriptions. But the lii names in Zhou
may not have had the same associated pitches as those in the Zeng inscriptions; in fact, the Nangong

318 MUSICAL PERFORMANCE AND THEORY

 ency to Chu in early Warring States times: although Zeng’s Hi nomenclature
harked back to its original Zhou affiliation, its music in the fourth century was
keyed to that of its powerful southern neighbor. In this way, the musical sys­
tems of Zeng may have expressed a principal theme in Eastern Zhou political
history: the struggle for hegemony between the northern and southern affiances.

The Origins of Zhou Ritual Music

If the various musical nomenclatures of Eastern Zhou all have a common ances­
tor, where can it be found? It has already been implied that the ritual music of
the royal Zhou court in mid- to late Western Zhou times is the most likely
candidate. This requires some explanation.
We know very little about ritual music before the Zhou. Although a recent
article has advanced the hypothesis that instrumental and vocal music played a
relatively insignificant role at the Shang court, where ritual dances were
paramount,32 this is quite uncertain. In any case, Zhou ritual during the early
part of Western Zhou still seems to have fairly closely followed Shang models.
Archaeological finds attest to what appears to have been a major ritual reform
(if not indeed a “cultural revolution”),33 which may have taken place during the
reign of Mu Wang ®T. (traditional dates 1001-946; actual dates probably ca.
one-half century later).34 The exact nature of that reform remains difficult to
gauge, as the historical texts provide frustratingly little information on the mid­
Western Zhou period, though assemblages of bronzes in tombs and hoards sug­
gest that the classical Zhou sumptuary system, with its matching sets of ding
and gui, originated at that time,35 indicating a significant reorganization (or at
least standardization) of aristocratic society. Art historians have long noted the
significant changes in bronze decoration styles in mid-Westem Zhou times: the
animal-derived iconography of earlier times was replaced by more abstract
patterns,36 and the shapes of ritual vessels changed considerably.37 Given the

Hu-yongzhong, which its inscription identifies as a wuyi bell, emits the tone D, nowhere close to
the gong of wuyi in the Zeng bells, which is ca. F-sharp.
32. Pratt 1986.
33. Pratt 1986, 38.
34. Shi Ji puts the origin of the Zhou Guan (a repertory of Zhou officials possibly ancestral to the
Zhou Li) and the systematization of the Zhou measurement system into the reign of Cheng Wang in
the early Western Zhou period (“Zhou Benji,” Zhonghua ed., 133); but archaeological evidence in­
dicates major changes in material culture at a somewhat later time.
35. Yu and Gao 1978-79, 86-93, and Guo Baojun 1981, 62-63, point out that, in keeping with
the Shang tradition, early Zhou assemblages of ritual vessels comprise mainly drinking vessels. It is
possible that, as Yu and Gao claim, a sumptuary system involving ding existed before mid-Westem
Zhou times, but it is far less clear than that of later times.
36. Karlgren 1935, 86-87 and 116-30; Bagley 1980.
37. Hayashi 1984, vol. 2 passim; Rawson 1988.

MUSIC SUSPENDED 3 IQ
 importance of bronzes in Zhou ritual, such a thorough revamping of the ritual
apparatus is likely to bespeak changes in religious ideology.38
We have seen, furthermore, that for the history of ritual music, the final cen­
tury and a half or so of Western Zhou was a period of important innovation. At
that time, new musical developments were triggered by the newly imported
kinds of chime-bells of southern origin, yongzhong and bo. Chimes of two-tone
bells became common at the Zhou court; they became an integral part of the
Zhou sumptuary system. Late Western Zhou eight-part chimes of yongzhong for
the first time feature octavically regular tone-distribution patterns (ancestral to
those of Eastern Zhou chimes), which may be the earliest evidence for the ap­
plication of Sanfen Sunyi-fa principles. These bell-chimes, embodying the tuning
standards of Western Zhou music, appear to have given rise to the concept of Zw;
their names evolved into the traditional pitch-standard (Zw) nomenclature.
From archaeological evidence it appears that this ritual music, centered on the
use of bell-chimes, was at first virtually limited to the Zhou metropolitan area
in Shaanxi. After 770 B.C., the standards of royal court music were adopted by
rulers throughout the Zhou realm. Bells were now manufactured at many differ­
ent workshops and reflect local stylistic characteristics. Their much wider dis­
tribution may in itself indicate that Eastern Zhou local rulers now arrogated the
former royal privilege of fixing the principal pitch standard so as to musically
legitimize their rule. The Zeng bells with their tone-naming inscriptions mark a
final climax in the elaboration of the Western Zhou musical tradition.

The Demise of Chime-Bell Music in Late Eastern Zhou

As noted in Chapter I, Eastern Zhou bell inscriptions point to a trend toward

secularization (or humanization—either term must be used with a grain of salt)
of the ritual forms that had been fixed in the Western Zhou period. Perhaps in­
evitably, Zhou ritual music became obsolete during the Warring States period,
when, partly in response to new intellectual currents surrounding the concep­
tion of tones, chime-bells lost their importance in the definition of musical
theory. The intellectual and economic resources that had been poured into bell­
centered ritual music from the late tenth to the mid-fourth century b.c. were
increasingly directed elsewhere.
Underlying these developments was a collapse of the aristocratic order man­
ifested in the traditional Zhou ritual system. The sumptuary regulations could
no longer be enforced. The Li Ji, for example, apparently referring to condi­
tions in Lu during Confucius’s lifetime, inveighs against the use of “palace sus-

38. Chang 1976, 174-96, and 1981a.

320 MUSICAL PERFORMANCE AND THEORY

pension by zhuhou rulers.30 Occasionally, bells were now found in the posses­
sion of persons of lowly status who were not entitled to them.39 40 In the texts,
several rulers are criticized for “multiplying” (fan g) or “enlarging” (da £)
their sets of bells and drums beyond what was their due.41 The Liishi Chunqiu
enumerates three states that perished for casting new bells (and thereby defining
new pitch standards) that exceeded the standard measures,42 ascribing the same
fault to Jie and Zhou fcf, the wicked last rulers of the Xia and Shang dynas­
ties. And the Shen Zi fi'i-T (ca. 360-ca. 285 b.c.) reports the following episode:

When Zhuang Gong of Lu g-K-fi [r. 693-662] cast a large bell, Cao Han
it1,' came in for an audience and said: “At present our state is reduced to
smallness, yet the bell is so large, how could you not take this into
consideration?”43

Inevitably, in this period of social transformation, situations were bound to arise

in which either the wrong individuals possessed bells or the individuals who
were technically entitled to them no longer had the moral worth (and the mate­
rial means) to keep up anything but an empty pretense to their former status.
As the old elites lost political power, their rituals became ossified. Perhaps,
bereft of control over economic resources, they could simply no longer afford
the luxury of producing large sets of bells—especially as technological and
musical developments called for ever-larger and more sophisticated chimes. For
their part, the newly powerful of the Warring States period had different ritual
and religious preferences, requiring different musical styles. Inasmuch as they
still paid lip service to the ritual traditions of the Zhou, the new elites may have

39. Li Ji “Jiaotesheng” (Li Ji Zhushu 25:9a). According to the Lunyu “Baxian” paragraph 1 (HYI
ed., 4; Lau, 67), Confucius himself was scandalized at the usurpation of eight rows of dancers by the
Ji family, one of the three powerful families in Lu descended from Huan Gong Ki& (r. 711-694).
40. The Guan Zi (“Qi Chen Qi Zhu,” Guoxue Jiben Congshu ed., 3:5) has a story about bells
made by unruly subjects (chen [£); the Liishi Chunqiu recounts how a member of the ordinary people
(baixing g Ifi) got hold of a bell (“Zizhi,” Sibu Congkan ed., 24:5b).
41. The first phrase is from the Guan Zi “Sicheng" (Guoxue Jiben Congshu ed., 2:42), the
second from the Liishi Chunqiu “Tingyan” (Sibu Congkan ed., 13:7b). This concern is also evident
in the first Guo Yu discourse on the casting of a WUYI bell by Jing Wang ot Zhou (“Zhou Yu, Tian-
sheng Mingdao ed., 3:1 la-iya). The Xun Zi (“Zhengming," HYI cd., 84) warns that enlarging the
bells docs not increase the music (or, in a play on the identity of the words yue music and le T
“joy,” the joy to be obtained from music).
42. Liishi Chunqiu “Chiyue” (Sibu Congkan ed., sa-6b). The states mentioned and the names ot
their fatal Hi arc Song (qianzhong J-$i. “Thousand Bells”), Qi (dalO AS. which may be identical
to the lOyin mentioned in the Zeng inscriptions; see table 18), and Chu (WUY1N n Witches
Sound"). Here the three Hi names undoubtedly represent the evils of excessive quantity, excess in
size, and sexual depravity.
43. Shen Zi, Fragment no. 95a (Thompson, 285).

MUSIC SUSPENDED 321

emulated the paraphernalia formerly reserved for the aristocracy, though they
may also have been reluctant to commit the same amount of resources to such
endeavors.
Chimes made from the mid-Warring States period onward materially man­
ifest this slackening of the cultural commitment to suspended music. We have
seen in Chapter 5 how multiple chimes of yongzhong and other bells were
replaced by single chimes of smaller and technologically less sophisticated
niuzhong, and we have seen how, concomitantly, the two-tone phenomenon
was abandoned. When bells were used at all in funerary contexts, they were
increasingly replaced by lower-value mingqi.
The sentiment that bells and the ritual display associated with them were an
unnecessary luxury is pervasive in the writings of the late pre-Qin philosophers
and their contemporaries. The Mohists, from the fifth century b.c. onward,
proposed to abolish music altogether because it seemed to them to serve no use­
ful purpose.44 Members of other schools, while refraining from so radical a
view, agreed that the essential value of music was not in bell music.45 It was
stressed that a ruler should indulge in such music only when the state is well-
ordered and peaceful. Mencius (ca. 372—289 b.c.), for example, warned the king
of Qi that indulging in sumptuous display could aggravate his estrangement
from the common people.46 Rulers who listened to bell music rather than
attending to the affairs of government were ridiculed,47 while those who re­
moved their bells and (temporarily, at least) forsook sensual gratification in the
single-minded pursuit of strengthening the state were praised as models.48 In
some texts, listening to bell music comes close to being synonymous with a dis­
solute lifestyle.49 Xun Zi (ca. 313-238 b.c.) is alone among Warring States
thinkers to insist that listening to bell music was not merely pleasurable but part
of a ruler’s ritual duties50 (an opinion later elaborated in the Li Ji), through the

44. Mo Zi “Feiyue” (HYI ed., 54-55).

45. Lunya “Yanghuo” (HYI ed., 36); Zuo Zhuan Zhao 21 (HYI ed., 404); Guo Yu “Zhou Yu”
(Tiansheng Mingdao ed., 3:na-i8a passim); Zhuang Zi “Tiandao” (HYI ed., 34); Li Ji “Zhong Ni
yanju” (LiJi Zhushu 50:13a-13b). In a related vein, Han Fei Zi “ Waichushui zuo-shang ” (Zhonghua index
ed., 797) opines that bell inscriptions are of ephemeral use in the assertion of real political
power.
46. Meng Zi “Liang Hui Wang-xia" (HYI ed., 5; Lau, 60-61).
47. Mo Zi loc. cit.; Zuo Zhuan Ai 7 (HYI ed. 477); Han Fei Zi “Waichushui zuo-shang" (Zhong­
hua index ed., 797); Shi Ji “Chu Shijia” (Zhonghua ed., 1700).
48. Guan Zi “Baxing” (Guoxuejiben Congshu ed., 2:2-4) 2nd “Jinzang" (ibid. 3:6); Liishi Chun-
qiu “Shunmin" (Sibu Congkan ed., 9:4b).
49. Zuo Zhuan Xiang 30 (HYI ed., 331) and Zhao 20 (ibid., 402); Guan Zi “Sichcng" (Guoxuc
Jiben Congshu ed., 2:42) and “Qing Zhongding” (ibid., 3:111); Zhuang Zi “Dao Zhi” (HYI ed., 84);
Han Fei Zi “Shuiyi” (Zhonghua index ed., 844).
50. Xun Zi did, however, state that spreading the true doctrine was even “more enjoyable than
the music of bells and drums and of zithers and lutes” (Xun Zi “Feixiang,” HYI cd., 14; Knoblock,
208).

322 MUSICAL PERFORMANCE AND THEORY

punctilious fulfillment of which he could bring peace and order to his realm.51
But Xun Zi’s eminent pupil Han Fei Zi cynically noted that political skill was all
that really mattered. As long as a ruler was attentive to his ministers’ advice, he
could indulge mindlessly in chariotry and “the sounds of bells and chimestones”
and still flourish; an incompetent ruler, even one so sorely afflicted by the plight
of his state that he explicitly renounced the pleasures of suspended music, was
doomed to perish no matter what, as was the fate of Prince Kuai of Yan
(r. 320-314 b.c.).52
It is curious that in the musical shake-up of the Warring States period, the sus­
pended music fared differently from other kinds of musical instruments. Winds
and strings continued to loom large in emerging forms of popular music, but
bells and chimestones gradually ceased to be made. Ironically, their demise was
due precisely to the exalted position they had occupied during much of the
Zhou dynasty, through which they had become too exclusively identified with
the old aristocracy and had become too valuable to be readily incorporated into
yet unestablished new types of musical ensembles. Players of the late Zhou
“popular music” may not have obtained ready access to bells until the new
musical styles had already taken shape.
There may have been another, aesthetic reason why chime-bells were ulti­
mately discarded from the orchestras. With the ongoing sophistication and in­
tellectualization of musical theory during the later part of the Warring States
period, listeners’ requirements as to the accuracy of pitch and intonation may
have become more rigorous. As we have observed in Chapter 7, the Warring
States period casters were able to significantly improve the tuning accuracy of
the bell-chimes, but before long they reached the limits of what was possible
when operating with a linear scaling formula (see Chapter 2). As a consequence,
bells, despite their prestige, may have been deemed inadequate for their
traditional coordinating and standard-giving function within the orchestra, a
function now taken over by pitch-pipes.
By the end of the Bronze Age, chime-bells had, in short, lost their musical,
ideological, and social significance. Even though specimens were kept at the im­
perial courts of the Han and later dynasties and bell mingqi continued to accom­
pany the high-ranking dead for several centuries, they had become part of the
dead weight of the past. For two millennia, the full scope of their erstwhile
significance was but dimly perceived; it remained to be rediscovered by late-
twentieth-century scholars.

51. Xun Zi “Fuguo” (HYI ed., 32, 34); “Lilun” (ibid., 70-75); “Yuelun" (ibid., 77-78); “Zheng-
ming”( ibid., 86).
52. Han Fei Zi “Shuiyi” (Zhonghua index ed., 844).

MUSIC SUSPENDED 323

Envoi
In the preceding chapters we have been able to make some general suggestions
about the music involving bell-chimes. Actual compositions, however, have
disappeared without a trace. Perhaps, given the fundamental separation of
musical practice from theory, the radical changes in the theoretical concep­
tualization of tones that occurred after the time of the Zeng bells may not have
immediately been reflected in starkly different musical styles. Some scholars
have suggested that echoes of Zhou music might still be picked up in present-
day musical traditions in East Asia, such as Japanese court music (gagakit
the music of Daoist ritual, Chaozhou ballads, and more generally in
East, South, and Southeast Asian folk music,53 all of which may furnish analo­
5455
gies useful for understanding Zhou ritual music. In connection with the Zeng
bells, an especially fruitful ethnomusicological comparison may lie in the gam-
elan music ofjava and Bah, in which chimed idiophones play a major role. Here
lies a challenge for future research.
The prominent place of music in ancient Chinese thought is amply attested to
by archaeological finds, inscriptions, and classical texts. Our archaeological in­
vestigation of bells has emphasized the social and cultural setting of ancient
Chinese music, leading to an appreciation of music as a generalized regulative
system and means of political coordination. The historical, technological, typo­
logical, and musicological analyses presented in this book have invariably
shown bells at the focus of power relations. As instruments translating human
relationships into ritual, bell-chimes and other paraphernalia of ritual music
were emblematic of the aristocratic culture of the Chinese Bronze Age. As testi­
monies of their time, they manifest a phenomenon that has remained character­
istic of Chinese culture:33 the primacy of politics.

53. Harich-Schncider 1955.

54. Picken 1977, 87-88.
55. See K.C. Chang 1983.

324 MUSICAL PERFORMANCE AND THEORY

APPENDIX ONE

Bibliographical List of Archaeological Sites1

Baijiacun, Fufeng ShX (1981): 1 yongzhong* [wusi hu].

Rentven Zazhi 1983 (2): 118-21 (reduced rubbings on p. 118); 2 photos on
back cover.2
Baijiacun, Liuyang HuN (1975): 1 nao.
Hunan Wentvu 1 (1986): 56-57; blurred photo inside front cover; blurred rub­
bing, p. 56, fig. 1.
Baizhadi, Chao Xian AH (1945?): 11 niuzhong.
Wentvu Cankao Ziliao 1956 (8): 73.
Bajiaolou, Suizhou HuB (1979): 2 niuzhong.
Wentvu 1980 (1): 34-41; rubbing, p. 39, fig. 12.
Banqiao, Changsha HuN (1979): I nao.
Wentvu Ziliao Congkan 5 (1981): 103-105; Gao Zhixi 1984b, 130; 1986a, 288;
photo, fig. 61.2.
Baozigou, Fufeng ShX (1979): 1 yongzhong* [nangong hu].
Kaogu yu Wentvu 1980 (4): 6-22, 53; photo, pl. 2.2; Shaanxi chutu Shang Zhou
qingtongqi 3:145-47, pl. 140 (photo, rubbings). Tone measurements: Jiang
Dingsui 1984, 90.
Beidongshan, XuzhouJS (1986): 3 niuzhong (mingqi).
Wentvu 1988 (2): 2-18, 68, esp. p. 16; photo, p. 14, fig. 32.
Other musical instruments found: 14 chimestones.

1. An asterisk indicates the presence of an inscription; the donor’s name or another conven­
tional designation is given in brackets. County seats and cities are indicated in maps I and 2.
2. Instead of two photos showing the front and back faces of the bell, respectively, the same
photo has been reproduced twice.

32S