Scan 48
The American history and encyclopedia of music, 1908
4 lines. Read by computer on 9 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1bals, gongs and tambourines. Upon the great gongs fall regular, rapid blows, and the drums rattle in, each one seemingly going its own gait, though the players would assure you that there is method in their madness. They are all there, big drum, little drum, middle-sized drum, for according to Chinese chrestomathy there are seventeen kinds of this one instrument, though several of the queer-shaped kinds are seldom seen. Cymbals are not only heard in a band, but graded sizes are suspended in a frame, and the cheerful jingle made by striking them is much enjoyed.
3Although in the ordinary funeral, wedding or theatrical performance, drums and gongs are most in evidence, Chinese musical science is devoted chiefly to stringed instruments. The Chinese Apollo would not have demanded a harp, but a peculiar seven-stringed instrument called a "chin" (pronounced jin) which, being literally translated, is a "prohibitor," for it "curbs and suppresses evil passions, and rectifies the human heart." This is the instrument held in honor by the literati and celebrated in classical literature. Over a doubly-curved board are stretched seven silken strings secured by pegs on the lower end, passing over a bridge near the board end, then through holes to the opposite side of the board where they may be tightened by nuts. The sounding-board is divided by thirteen studs; and one who has made a careful study of the instrument writes: "The length of the strings is divided first into two equal parts, and then into three, and so on up to eight, with the omission of the seventh. The seven strings inclose the compass of a ninth, or two fifths, the middle one being treated like A upon the violin, viz., as a middle string, and each of the outer ones is tuned a fifth from it. This interval is treated like our octave in the violin, for the compass of the 'chin' is made up of fifths. Each of the outer strings is tuned a fourth from the alternate string within the system, so that there is a major tone, an interval tone less than a minor third, and a major tone in the fifth. The Chinese leave the interval entire, and skip the half tone, while we divide it into two unequal parts. It
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