How is ritual music discussed and practised in Confucianism?

“Rites govern the exterior of man, and music his interior (soul). Rites render man correct, music makes him moral. The ancient emperors made music the model of their government. If it was good the actions of the people imitated the worthiness of their Prince.” 1

For Confucius, music was an integral part of education and personal cultivation. The spirit of a community and its inhabitants was shaped by the music it heard, and so it was important that music inspire uprightness and rectitude in those who heard it. Good music, according to the sage, promotes virtue. Its harmony and unity reflects the good order of a correctly functioning society.

Confucius once heard some ancient music in a proper performance and was affected to the extent that for three months he ‘did not know the taste of meat’. He said, “I did not picture to myself that any music existed that could reach perfection like this.”2 He referred to such elegant and correct music as yayue 雅乐 (in Korean, aak; in Japanese, gagaku).

To Confucians, the ultimate goal of society was to enact a reconstruction of the golden age of ancient times. To this end, one of the foundations of Confucian philosophy was that of the ‘rectification of names’. If a king behaved as a true king should, and a servant as a true servant and so on, with fathers, sons and brothers all acting appropriately towards one another, then this ideal society would be achieved. From the first century A.D. onwards, the teachings of Confucius were enmeshed in the Chinese imperial state apparatus, and the concept of the rectification of names was extended to fit in with the theory of the Mandate of Heaven.

Traditional Chinese belief holds that the emperor is the “Son of Heaven”, appointed by Heaven (天 Tian) to rule over the entire world (i.e. China and her tributary states). As long as the ruler enjoys the Mandate of Heaven, all will be well with the world, the ruler and his subjects would enjoy bounteous harvest, peace, prosperity and so forth. However, it is also possible to lose the Mandate of Heaven, through a lack of piety and righteousness. This would include a failure to properly observe ceremony and ritual, which in turn would include the proper performance of ritual music.

Historically, whenever a given imperial dynasty became weak and corrupt, it would be perceived as having lost the Mandate of Heaven. Even if no one thought so at the time, the dynasty that took over from it would take pains to show that its predecessors had become iniquitous and unfit to govern. Thus Chinese official histories show a cycle in which old dynasties gradually stagnate and become corrupt. In the process they lose the Mandate of Heaven, which is passed on to new and vigorous rulers with the necessary qualifications. For a newly acceding emperor, it was important that he demonstrate his eligibility to the throne, and for an established ruler it was important that he was seen to still hold the Mandate of Heaven. Therefore, the emperor’s governance, rituals and music needed to show an obvious propriety and orthodoxy to the members of the imperial court. If the emperor failed to exhibit the accepted traits of the Son of Heaven, the nobles would lose confidence in his ability to keep hold of the Mandate. If such disaffection got too far out of hand, the emperor might well lose his throne, thus proving his detractors right.

“The decline and fall of a ruling Chinese dynasty was mirrored by a loss of propriety by its yayue. If a government had become permeated with undesirables, then its yayue, no doubt, had similarly fallen prey to intrusion by popular, foreign, or other misbehaved music. Each new dynasty re-

1 Chao Mei-pa, The Yellow Bell, p.412 Lunyu 论语　Ch.7

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codified the music, starting with a fresh determination of the fundamental pitch from which all others could be derived by a mechanical method based on the circle of fifths. Time and again the sources lament the loss of genuine ancient music. Time and again new or modified yayue replaced the disgraced music of an earlier period, only to eventually suffer the same fate itself. The musical alterations were usually justified by citations of abstruse theoretical passages from canonical texts thought to reflect the wisdom of Confucius himself.”3

So under the Confucian system, as far as music goes, the difficulty for emperors and their scholar-officials lies in determining just what constitutes proper music. Confucianism stresses the importance of tradition and the lofty righteousness of the ancients. However, since the Confucians of later eras had no way to know precisely what the ancient music of which Confucius approved sounded like, they had a very hard task on their hands. In order to create ‘proper’ music, music scholars had to recreate or at least emulate ancient music (guyue 古乐）- and they had to explain how their ideas and methodologies would succeed in reconstructing guyue when so many before them had failed.

For court officials under the later scions of a dynasty, the task could be largely irrelevant. If the emperor’s father had had a prosperous and successful reign, then there was no need to change the rituals, recalculate the calendars, or any of the other elements pertaining to the relationship between Heaven and the emperor. There were two kinds of circumstances in which a Chinese ruler would find it absolutely necessary to reset the religious rituals. One was when his reign was undergoing difficulties, such as rebellions or natural disasters. The possibility of the Mandate of Heaven slipping away meant that the emperor was forced to check that his rituals were properly aligned with the cosmos, and to alter them if they were not. The other time at which a reform of ritual would be required was at the start of a new dynasty. There was obviously no way that the new incumbent on the throne could utilise the ritual music of a line that had lost Heaven’s blessing.

In order to reconstruct guyue, music scholars had first to determine pitch standards and scales, and how to manufacture pitch pipes. What those pitches are, however, is a difficult and (especially by the later dynasties, which had precedent to deal with) complex problem. Many solutions were offered by scholars. A representative example comes from the Spring and Autumn Annals - which, although a Warring States (zhanguo 战国)-era document, had significant influence on later scholars – namely, the legend of Ling Lun 伶伦. Ling Lun produced a set of twelve absolute pitches (six yang 阳 and six yin 阴), by making bamboo pipes that imitated the sound of phoenixes. He made the huangzhong (黄钟,‘yellow bell’) pitch-pipe first, to a length of nine cun, then used that as the basis to make the other eleven.　

As good a basis for a musical theory as the story is, providing a historical source for the use of pitch-pipes and ascribing the basis of the pitches to a supernatural source, the legend of Ling Lun is silent on such vital subjects as the size of ancient measurements, and how it could be possible for mortal humans to measure accurately the sounds produced by preternatural creatures.

An oft-used solution to such questions was the practice of houqi (候气 – literally, ‘awaiting the qi’), an exercise first documented in the Han dynasty. Qi (a concept largely untranslatable, though similar to the Western concept of ‘the Ether’) was thought to spread across the land at a different height each month. It was therefore possible to check the cosmological accuracy of the pitch pipes by observing their reaction to the motion of qi.

3 Robert C. Provine, “‘Chinese’ Ritual Music in Korea”

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There were many variations in the practice of houqi. During the Ming dynasty, houqi was performed by burying twelve pipes at an angle, each of an appropriate length, in soil. Each pipe was then filled with ashes and covered with a piece of silk. On a certain day each month, a different kind of qi was thought to cover the earth to a specific height. This would cause vibrations in the ether, which would move the silk and ashes in one of the pipes, leaving a mark that would show the exact height to which the qi had risen. That mark would then be considered the proper length for whichever pipe was being examined. For example, the qi on the winter solstice was considered to rise to a height of nine cun, and was therefore the correct measurement for an accurate huangzhong pitch pipe.

However, even with the use of houqi, the other physical dimensions of the pitch pipes still need to be determined, with their resultant pitches. Chinese scholars typically tried to justify their conclusions by connecting the physical and cosmological, as is to be expected.

“Only a few of the theorists would entrust the matters to natural courses. Cao Kui, for example, concluded that human calculations and measurements of the pitches are useless because the attributes of music cannot be analysed with mere human intelligence; Cao argued that a person, virtuous and pure, would know the principle of the pitches intuitively.” 4

A certain amount of self-justifying logic comes into play. If you can convince the relevant people that the ritual music you propose is sufficiently solemn, then its use is permissible. Defining music for ritual then becomes a process of reverse engineering to achieve, if not similarity, at least parity with the music of the ancients. That is, if the ancient music was solemn, the reverse must also be true – music that is solemn is akin to the ancient music. Who, exactly, has to be convinced? Joseph Lam refers to ‘concerned participants’ and ‘critical audiences’:

“Ming emperors, scholar-officials, and music masters who are knowledgeable about all aspects of Ming state sacrifices and music act as concerned participants when they actively and directly participate and control preparations and performances of the state ritual and music; however, they may or may not be the actual celebrants. Ming court citizens act as critical audiences when they have neither active nor direct control over preparations and performances of the state sacrifices. They may, however, publicly or privately criticise the events, and their critical comments may affect the concerned participants’ ritual and musical views and activities.” 5

This can be taken as a model for Chinese court interactions over ritual and music, right from the Han dynasty until the demise of the Qing in 1911 and – with some reservations – to apply to Confucian ritual music in Korea until the republican period. The concerned participants strive to meet the approval of the critical audiences, in order to prove their fitness to govern. The critical audience would only really consist of nobles and generals – those who had the power or potential to be kingmakers. While it might be possible for a peasant revolt to be stirred up by painting the incumbent ruler as disobedient to the strictures of propriety, the rituals were not aimed at placating the masses (who would, of course, not even see them). Instead, the task would be to convince those who held sway over the peasantry.

4 Joseph S. Lam, State Sacrifices and Music in Ming China, p.845 ibid., p.10

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When the emperor Ming Taizu ascended to the throne, his first official sacrifices to Heaven were marked by good weather. He immediately and vocally took this as a sign of Heaven’s approval. However, even though Taizu would have had a reasonable forecast of what the weather was likely to be, in the omen-heavy environment in which he was operating, any important ritual was also a big risk. Something as simple as a pennant falling down, or a bird flying overhead, might be seen as a portent of doom. What if the weather on the day of the ritual had been especially bad?

It would have been a grave setback, but not an insurmountable obstacle to continued rulership. Perhaps, it might be said, the ritual had been incorrectly prepared, causing Heaven to be displeased. Although this would do some damage to the emperor’s credibility, it would let him get away with simply restyling the ritual, according to the recommendations of his chosen scholar-officials. Thus the blame could be laid on improper ritual and music, instead of impugning the piety of the emperor.

So, over the centuries, the Chinese imperial court was regularly overhauling the music of the state rituals. The new implementations of ritual music would have to be based on the known and accepted principles of Confucian music, and for this reason the ritual music of, say, the Ming dynasty has obvious and significant similarities to that of the Yuan, its predecessor (and this despite the Ming dislike of the ‘barbarian’ Yuan). Scholar-officials had to present their suggestions for ritual music to the court, and explain not why their ideas were revolutionary, but rather why they were particularly orthodox.

The same is true of Confucian music in Korea. However, the royal officials there seem to have been rather more pragmatic in their application of music theory than their Chinese counterparts. For example, in 1406 AD, King Sejong of the Yi dynasty ordered a reform of court ritual music. This had become necessary for various reasons – the original Chinese music sent by Song Huizong in the twelfth century had been gradually inflected by Korean native music, a new dynasty had taken over in Korea since then (Yi taking over from Koryō), and also most of the Chinese ritual instruments had been destroyed, damaged or lost.6 The opportunity arose when the Ming emperor Taizong 太宗 sent a set of musical instruments for use in aak.

The first thing required for a reconstruction of proper Confucian music was to accurately establish the huang zhong 黄钟 base pitch, from which all the other pitches could be established using a circle of fifths method. This is a vital foundation as the music will only have the desired effect if the proper pitches are used. There were two ways the Korean scholars could obtain the huang zhong pitch. They could try to construct a pitch pipe according to specifications from ancient Chinese sources, or they could simply assume that the instruments the Ming court had sent were accurately tuned, and could be used as models.

One of the chief instigators of the reform and documentation was Pak Yon, who was very keen on the use of ancient Chinese sources. To this end, he went about building a huang zhong pitch pipe:

“The Chinese specifications were in terms of length and volume, based upon numbers of grains of a particular kind of “black millet”.7 Pak got apparently appropriate grain from Haeju and constructed the pitch pipe. The resultant pitch, unfortunately, was slightly higher than the corresponding one on the instruments bestowed by the Chinese, and the decision still had to be made.” 8

6 In 1361, for example, the Red Turbans had sacked the Koryō capital, Kaesŏng, and all the Song Chinese instruments had been destroyed, with the exception of some chimes and a set of bells.7 Specifically, 90 grains in length, 1200 grains in volume, according to the

Hanshu (汉书).8 Robert C. Provine, “Sejong and the Preservation of Chinese Ritual Melodies”

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Even though Pak Yon’s pitch pipe had been manufactured according to ancient Chinese sources, it was rejected. There was no way to know whether or not the black millet grain had remained the same size as it had been in the time of Confucius. Given all the variables of climate and soil, the chances were that it had not. Robert Provine suggests another motivation:

“The decision to use the huang zhong pitch on the Chinese instruments was a rather extraordinary decision, considering that the specifications of antiquity (however inaccurate) were rejected in favour of an instrument of recent origin. Chŏng In-ji’s introduction puts it this way: “These instruments have a long tradition and, furthermore, they are gifts of the Chinese court.” This suggests that Korea was also reluctant to inform the Son of Heaven that his pitches were inaccurate.”9

This is quite possible, and not an unreasonable concern on the part of the

Korean court. However, there may be a less overtly political reason behind the decision. If the Ming dynasty under Taizong was currently enjoying the Mandate of Heaven – and to all intents and purposes it certainly seemed to be – then surely Taizong’s piety and ability to conduct his ritual affairs were beyond reproach. Once again, the same circular logic applies. If the pitches were inaccurate, then the emperor would not be enjoying the Mandate of Heaven. Ergo, if the emperor was enjoying the Mandate of Heaven, then by definition the pitches must be accurate. Where the propriety of music determined the success of a reign, a successful reign meant that no one would question the yayue of the regime.

Confucian ritual music, therefore, was usually only subjected to major revision in times of trouble and stress for the ruling dynasty. There are exceptions – in Korea, for example, it was decided that while the Rite to Confucius should use Chinese melodies, the royal ancestors should be worshipped with Korean music, as befitted their nationality. However, on the whole it was only when the legitimacy of the ruler’s mandate was called into question that the music would also be re-examined.

9 Robert C. Provine, “Sejong and the Preservation of Chinese Ritual Melodies”

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Bibliography

Bilsky, Lester JamesThe State Religion of Ancient China, vol. II, The Orient Cultural Service (Taipei, ROC, 1975)

Chao Mei-paThe Yellow Bell – A Brief Sketch of the History of Chinese Music, Reese Press (Baltimore MD, USA, 1934)

Gernet, JacquesA History of Chinese Civilization, Cambridge University Press (Cambridge, 1999)

Han Man-Yŏng“Religious Origins of Korean Music”, Traditional Korean Music, Pace International Research (Falcon Cove, Oregon, 1983), 23-34.

Huang Tsung-hsiThe Records of Ming Scholars, University of Hawaii Press (Honolulu, 1987)

Lam, Joseph S.C. State Sacrifices and Music in Ming China, State University of New York Press (Albany, 1998).

Palmer, Spencer J.Confucian Rituals In Korea, Asian Humanities Press (Berkeley, 1984?)

Provine, Robert C. “‘Chinese’ Ritual Music in Korea: The Origins, Codification, and Cultural Role of A-ak”, Traditional Korean Music, Pace International Research (Falcon Cove, Oregon, 1983), 60-79.

--- ‘Sejong and the Preservation of Chinese Ritual Melodies’, Traditional Korean Music, Pace International Research (Falcon Cove, Oregon, 1983), 48-59.

Provine, Robert C., Tokumaru Yosihiko and Witzleben, J. Lawrence, editors.The Garland encyclopedia of world music. Vol.7, East Asia : China, Japan, and Korea, Routledge (New York, 2002)

Song Hye-jinA Stroll Through Korean Music History, National Centre for Korean Traditional Performing Arts (Seoul, 2000)

Smith, D. HowardConfucius, Temple Smith (London, 1973)

Taylor, Rodney L.The Way of Heaven, E.J. Brill (Leiden, 1986)

Xie Mengzhu 谢蒙著孔子　Kongzi, Zhonghua Press 中华书局 (Shanghai, 1915)

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