An Ethnomusicological Perspective on Musical Style, with Reference to Music for Chinese Two-Stringed Fiddles

JONATHAN P. J. STOCK
IN a major publication of 1983 Bruno Nettl identified the explanation of musical style as a central problem in ethnomusicological research.1 This essay is intended to offer a partial solution of that problem, seeking to define musical style as an abstraction of the matrix of cognitive and physical aspects which constitute human music-making. In the cognitive part of this equation I include the critically important role played by social context, concurring with John Blacking's statement that 'the creation of a musical style is the result of conscious decisions about the organization of musical symbols in the context of real or imagined social interaction'.2 However, in this category, I accord equal recognition to the body of musical and music-related knowledge held by a musician or any other member of society, whether this knowledge is implicitly assumed or explicitly acknowledged, historically conditioned or geographically referent, abstractly theoretical or firmly practical. The 'conscious decisions' Blacking points to are indeed made in the actual or perceptual domain of social interaction, but they are also considered from the cognitive perspective of acquired musical thought. Physical ingredients which help form the concept of musical style include the limits and possibilities of the human body and its movement patterns and material factors such as the parameters of any musical instrument (size, shape, posture, potential playing techniques, etc.) and performance location. The interlinked nature of these cognitive and physical elements is unequivocal. To give a simple example, the way in which a violinist performs a single note marked 'f in a Mozart sonata is based on a combination of diverse factors including historical awareness and cultural conditionAn early form of this paper was presented at the European Seminar in Ethnomusicology, held in Geneva in the summer of 1991. I am obliged to several members of the audience for the constructive comments they offered on that occasion, especially Dr Francois Picard and Mr Steven Jones. Sections of the work presented also appeared in my Ph.D. thesis, 'Context and Creativity: The Two-Stringed Fiddle Erhu in Contemporary China' (Queen's University of Belfast, 1991). I wish to thank the panel of examiners, Drs Robert Provine, Martin Stokes and Ian Woodfield, for the many refinements they suggested. Research on this topic was carried out in Shanghai during the academic year 1989-90 and made possible by the award of a British Council/Chinese State Education Commission Scholarship. Writing up was facilitated by the award of a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship held at the University of Durham. I am grateful to the many fiddle players 1 interviewed in East China during that time and particularly to my erhu tutor at the Shanghai Music Conservatory, Prof. Wu Zhimin. Mr Kevin Dawe and Dr Bob Gilmore kindly read a later draft of this paper; their valuable comments were much appreciated. ' Bruno Nettl, The Study of Ethnomusicology: Twenty-Nine Issues and Concepts (Urbana, 1983), 2S5. ! John Blacking, 'A Commonsense View of All Music' (Cambridge, 1987), 48.

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ing (ideology); musical training (theoretical as well as practical) and physique; speed, direction and pressure of bowing action; tautness and material of strings; condition of bowhair; and resonance of instrument and performance location. And it is from the perception of these factors, and the reception of their results in performance, that the violinist and his or her audiences formulate their own concepts of musical style, whether for Mozart, the violinist or both. To demonstrate more fully the factors involved in the creation of a musical style, I investigate various cognitive and physical aspects of the performance of traditional Chinese two-stringed fiddles. What makes Chinese fiddle music a particularly interesting example is the degree to which the different elements forming this style can be separated and evaluated. In this instance I am concerned with the description of a style shared by many performers of Chinese two-stringed fiddles rather than the individual style of a composer, executant or genre. Also, I concentrate upon the observation of the effect on musical performance of the factors investigated rather than their negotiation and explanation in Chinese society. None the less, analysis from any of these other perspectives could be valuably employed to cast new light on the formation and reproduction of musical style. Aspects of fiddle performance considered below are: instrument structure; posture; articulation; mode and tuning; finger technique and hand positions; ornamentation; and musical notation. Finally, I briefly examine broader issues pertaining to the definition of musical style itself. It is, however, convenient to begin by introducing the use of Chinese twostringed fiddles, and by commenting on selected areas of contemporary Chinese musical practice.
TWO-STRINGED FIDDLES IN CHINESE TRADITIONAL MUSIC

Many Chinese musical situations and genres call for the use of one or more forms of two-stringed fiddle. Fiddles are played in traditional operatic ensembles and at film-score recording studios, in village teahouses and in purpose-built concert halls. In the majority of traditional genres in which a fiddle is used, it is part of a heterophonic ensemble consisting of plucked and bowed strings, wind instruments and percussion. With the exception of the percussionist, each musician simultaneously aims to recreate a common (memorized) melodic outline in a manner suitable to the technical capabilities of his own instrument and in accordance with his own aesthetic preferences. In certain genres, players are not only expected to respond to the musicians with whom they play, possibly imitating short decorative passages, but also to look for novel ways of bringing the common melodic outline to life.3
Processes by which this is achieved in the comparatively well-documented genre of Jiangnan sizhu, or 'silk[-stringed] and bamboo[-tubed instrumental ensemble] of the Jiangnan area', are discussed by Alan R. Thrasher, "The Melodic Structure of Jiangnan sizhu', Ethnomusicology, 29 (1985), 237-63, with important contextual information furnished by J. Lawrence Witzleben, 'Jiangnan sizhu Music Clubs in Shanghai: Context, Concept and Identity', Ethnomusicology, 31 (1987), 240-60.
1

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Chinese fiddles are played by both amateur and professional musicians, some of the earliest professionals being members of court and urban entertainment ensembles. Another significant category of professional Chinese fiddler was the street musician relying on the generosity of those attracted by the tunes performed. Over the last three or four centuries an increasing number of professional fiddlers has been recruited by the world of Chinese opera, and during the last 70 years fiddle-playing musicians have also gained employment as performers in urban, provincial and national orchestras of Chinese instruments and as tutors in schools and conservatories.4 Amateur performers have, until the twentieth century, typically come from the lower echelons of Chinese society. Until the rise of'intellectual', conservatory-trained professional fiddlers in the 1930s, it was rare for notated scores to be used in performance; instead, musicians learnt to play by listening, imitation and practice, and possibly by singing simplified versions of each melody. Many folk ensembles do, however, possess scores or tablatures. These may be referred to during the tuition of new members and, thereafter, as memory aids.5 Although conservatory-trained musicians tend to use scores widely during rehearsal and training, when performing as soloists they almost invariably play from memory.6
INSTRUMENTAL STRUCTURE

As noted above, an instrumental style results in part from the technical possibilities and limitations of an instrumental form and its interface with the performer's body. John Baily's pioneering work in this area makes clear the importance of assessing the role played by movement patterns and the physical structure of an instrument in the shaping of a musical style:
The way the human body is organized to move is, in certain respects, a crucial element in the structure of music. A musical instrument transduces patterns of body movement into patterns of sound. The morphology of an instrument imposes certain constraints on the way the instrument is played, favouring certain movement patterns that are, for ergonomic reasons, easily organised on the instrument's spatial layout. Thus, the interaction between the human body and the morphology of the instrument may shape the structure of the music, channelling human creativity in predictable directions.7
' For a discussion of the Chinese national orchestra, see Han Kuo-huang, 'The Modern Orchestra', Asian Music, 11 (1979), 1-43. Biographical information on several twentieth-century fiddlers is given by Terence Liu, 'The Development of the Chinese Two-Stringed Lute Erhu Following the New Culture Movement (c.1915-1985)' (Ph.D. dissertation, Kent State University, 1988), 98-158. ' See Wu Ben, 'How Music is Transmitted in a Typical Chinese Folk Musical Group', I.C. T.M. UK Chapter Bulletin, 21 (1988), 5-12, and Steven Jones and Xue Yibing, 'The Music Associations of Hebei Province, China: A Preliminary Report', Ethnomusicology, 35 (1991), 1-29 (pp. 15-16). 6 The repertory performed by these musicians is discussed in Jonathan P. J. Stock, 'Contemporary Recital Solos for the Chinese Two-Stringed Fiddle Erhu, British Journal of Ethnomusicology, 1 (1992), 55-88. 7 See John Baily, 'Movement Patterns in Playing the Herati DutUr', The Anthropology of the Body, ed. John Blacking, A.S.A. Monograph 15 (London, 1977), 275-330 (p. 275). Baily's article remains the key source on the subject; its influence may be detected throughout this paper.

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A significant point in the description given above is the insertion of the bowhair between the instrument's strings. Because of this and the angle at which the bowhair must pass over the top of the soundbox to produce a full tone, it is almost impossible to bow both strings at once. Also, the two strings are only a few millimetres apart, so the performer has to stop both simultaneously, even though only one is actually sounded by the bowhair. A second detail worthy of further comment is that most fiddles are constructed without a fingerboard. Strings are stopped by the light touch of one or more fingertips (or, especially in the past, by the press of the pads on the inside of the fingers). The employment of pizzicato on any pitches other than the open strings is thereby limited, in that the vibration of the stopped strings is not transmitted (by means of a fingerboard, for instance) to be amplified by the resonator. Realities of construction thus militate against the incorporation of techniques such as double-stopping or pizzicato in the performance style of Chinese fiddles.
POSTURE

In modern China, most fiddle players sit down to play, placing the instrument on top of the left thigh. In the past, however, standing and processional performances may have been more common, the soundbox being tied or hooked onto the player's clothing. Since the left hand must support the fiddle in standing performances, changes of left-hand position up and down the strings (see below) would probably be inhibited. This may explain why some genres of fiddle music make exclusive use of the register covered by a single hand position, other material being transposed to fit under the fingers, as in the Jiangnan sizhu ensemble processional piece Xingjie si he transnotated as Example I. 9 Transposition of this kind is particularly apparent when the contours of the fiddle parts of such music are compared with those of other instruments in this heterophonic genre. Two main seated postures are found. That employed mainly by older players involves crossing the left leg over the right and placing the fiddle on the left thigh. In that more commonly seen today, the player places both feet flat on the floor in front of his or her chair and allows the knees to open to a comfortable, relaxed angle, again placing the fiddle on his lap or left thigh. Both seated postures allow the left and right hands considerable freedom of movement. The exact position of the instrument on the leg depends on the kind of fiddle in question. Although the erhu normally rests on the player's lap, the smaller jinghu is set nearer the knee, which in turn affects the action of the arms. This placing of the jinghu
'A Historical Account of the Chinese Two-Stringed Fiddle Erhu, Galpin Society Journal, 46 (1993), 83-113. Brief discussion of other Chinese fiddle forms and their names will take place in Jonathan P. J. Stock, 'A Preliminary Examination of Spike Fiddles Used in Chinese Traditional Opera' (forthcoming). ' A number of ethnomusicologists use 'transnotation' to refer to the process by which music preserved in the symbols of one form of notation is recast in those of another, reserving'transcription' for the conversion of recorded or live material to written notation. Gongchepu, the form of notation employed in the original score from which Example 1 has been extracted, Jiang Tianyi, Xiaodiao gonchepu (Shanghai, 1922), 6-7, is further described below.

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Example 1. Xingjie si he, erhu melody, bars 185-225..

fn

.rjhi.ni.qii

Note: r^-i- place where melodic contour has been adjusted so that all necessary pitches are within a single hand position (d'-e").

towards the knee can occur in either of the standard seated postures. An intriguing alternative seated posture is that preferred by gaohu players. The soundbox of the small, high-pitched gaohu, a favoured instrument in Cantonese music and a fairly recent invention, is placed between the performer's legs with its snakeskin belly facing the inner side of the musician's right thigh. The left thigh may then be used to damp the instrument's tone by blocking the hole at the soundbox's rear. Apart from regulating volume, the employment of this posture and technique also influences timbre, suppressing higher-range harmonics. Cantonese musicians consider the resulting mellow sonority an important element of gaohu style. Posture, therefore, can encourage the transposition of musical material into the reach of a single hand position or lead to the creation of an individual instrumental sonority. The differing ways in which a musical instrument is held can promote or discourage the use of certain performance techniques, and in this way shape the performer's conception of musical style.10
ARTICULATION

Right-hand techniques on Chinese fiddles principally employ the bow since, as already noted, the construction of Chinese two-stringed fiddles is not favourable to the production of audible pizzicato notes. As mentioned above, the bowhair on almost all forms of Chinese fiddle has been fed between the strings before being attached to the tip of the bowstick. The
10

See also John Baily, 'Recent Changes in the DutSr of Herat', Asian Music, 8 (1976), 29-64.

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bow is grasped rather in the manner of a viol bow, the right-hand fingers directing the bowhair to rub against one or the other of the strings. Players press with their fingertips to sound the inner string and relax to allow the bowhair to fall back against the outer string. In general, Chinese bowing techniques are similar to those of the violin in Western art music, especially in the recent conservatory tradition which has adopted many violin techniques. For this reason, there is little need to discuss the detailed technicalities of bowing in this paper. Instead, a few general aspects of the role played by articulation in the creation of style can be drawn out. First, the finite length of the bow has immediately obvious implications for the production of long notes and passages of high volume. In the second place, changes of string necessarily create breaks in sound which fiddle-players must practise hard to smooth over. Thirdly, on Chinese fiddles the bow is operated horizontally, its action being conceived as 'pulling' and 'pushing' respectively. When the right hand approaches the strings it is considered to be pushing, as it retreats it is pulling. The pull is considered stronger than the push and so is more often used on musical strong beats in contemporary performance style. An exception occurs in the performance style of traditional opera forms such as yueju from Shaoxing, Zhejiang province, wherein a push is generally placed on each strong beat, apparently in order to avoid overpowering the singer." Articulation, an important part of musical style, is then itself conditioned by a consideration of the constructional limitations of the instrument and the exigencies of performance context.
MODE AND TUNING

Chinese records of modal structures, many of which are still employed in traditional music today, considerably predate the adoption of bowed instruments in East Asia.12 Pre-existing modal patterns have been applied to the fiddle, rather than having arisen from the subsequent theoretical abstraction of the sounds produced by common or convenient movement patterns on these instruments, as may be the case with certain musical styles in different cultures. These pre-existent modal standards govern the conventions of left-hand finger positioning and movement on the fiddle, so the technical and stylistic implications of the use of the left hand can be fully grasped only once the delineating and channelling influences of mode and tuning have been made explicit.
" Chen Min, personal communication of 22 April 1990. Ms Chen's inference is that as strong beats are 'naturally' played more loudly than weak ones, the volume of the yueju erhu player is limited to that of the slightly quieter 'push' on strong beats, with 'pulls' on other beats scaled down accordingly. 11 The first uncontested mention of horsetail bowed instruments in China is found in a fourteenth-century reference work, the Yuan shi (compiled 1369-70). However, earlier sources which may also refer to such an instrumental form have been found from the late eleventh century onwards; see Stock, 'A Historical Account'. Detailed description of the theoretical modal structure already existing during this period may be found in Rulan Chao Pian, Sonq Dynasty Musical Sources and their Interpretation (Cambridge, Mass., 1967). Although many of these modes may have existed only as theoretical possibilities, acknowledged for the sake of completeness by court mathematician-musicologists, from surviving scores and contemporary performance practice there appears little reason to doubt that at least some of these modes have long been used on Chinese bowed instruments, both in the court and outside.

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Although Chinese traditional music is often characterized as pentatonic, this is something of an over-simplification, the majority of the genres in which a fiddle is used currently employing one or more heptatonic modes. In many of these modes, however, two pitches are deemed subsidiary in importance to the other five, their role being primarily ornamental or resulting from a temporary shift of emphasis, or 'modulation', to another mode. In Example 2 three of the most frequently found modes are compared. In this Example, all three modes begin on the note d', although in practice absolute pitch is determined by the tuning of the strings, which varies from one fiddle and genre to another. Principal notes in each mode are written as semibreves while the two pitches considered less fundamental to each mode have been filled in. In theory at least, any one of the principal notes can act as the melodic centre of a composition; although for ease of comparison each mode in Example 2 begins on d', this note is not to be regarded as necessarily holding the melodic or harmonic roles of a Western tonic pitch. Example 2. Three common modes in traditional music for Chinese fiddles.

As mentioned above, the open strings of the great majority of Chinese two-stringed fiddles are tuned a perfect fifth apart, with absolute tuning pitches varying from one genre and instrument to another. Many instruments are also played in several different tunings. The strings of the fiddle erhu, for example, are most usually tuned to d' and a' in contemporary recital music, but tunings of g-d' and a-e' are sometimes found, especially in traditional pieces such as those of the folk musicians Abing and Sun Wenming. Modes such as those shown in Example 2 may theoretically be applied to any tuning, the absolute pitches of the open strings being redefined as 'do-sol' (stave 1), 'sol-la' (stave 2) or 'la-mi' (stave 3) as appropriate. These terms are those used in contemporary Chinese pedagogical parlance; in the past, an effectively similar set of transposable terms was employed (see below).
FINGER TECHNIQUE AND HAND POSITIONS

The patterns of fingerings used by fiddle players are derived from and delineated by their understanding of musical mode and tuning. Although some fiddle players can conceive of a system in which each absolute pitch is represented by a set hand and finger position, they generally prefer to

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link relative modal degrees and fingering movements conceptually. Before discussing connections between musical cognition and behaviour, however, the specifics of fingering technique and hand positioning need to be introduced. Figure 2 contrasts the fingering patterns and hand positions normally employed on the erhu in two of the above-mentioned modes (see also Example 2, staves 1 and 3).13
'do-sol' mode 'la-mi' mode lower string standard hand positions
t-fl"
r fm

a
-e'

25
P e n strings a'-,

. SermS

upper string
'

b'_ c -

ff
g-

2
3/1

c#"d"-

-'

a""-

a-

4/2

3
4/1

*
y

-b' c#" d"

/*"-]
2 I c

a"H b"-

-d"

f*" ,?" a" 6"

3 4/1

d'"-

-c*
a 4/1

(etc.) (etc.) 1 index finger

2 middle finger 3 ring finger 4 ] ) little finger two pitches performed by the same finger hand position

3/1 overlap of hand positions (ring finger in one position, index in the other) Figure 2. Standard fingerings in two commonly encountered modes for erhu. " The upper ranges of these charts represent possibilities more used in contemporary recital solos than in certain traditional genres. However, on existing evidence, it is not possible entirely to dis-

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The two pairs of parallel lines in Figure 2 represent pictographically the erhu strings in each mode. Markings show the pitches produced when the string is stopped at that point and which left-hand finger is traditionally employed to produce the pitch shown. Sometimes one finger is responsible for the production of two notes - connected in Figure 2 with a short square bracket - and, generally, hand positions overlap by one note or finger. Figure 2 reveals that although several notes are common to both modes (D, E, G and A), they are performed with a different fingering in each, a point which will be returned to shortly. Hand positions are traditionally referred to as 'upper', 'middle', 'lower', etc., the term following the relative height of the left hand above the soundbox rather than the relative 'height' (a Western concept) of the notes produced in each position.
ORNAMENTATION

The significance of fingering and hand positions in the creation of fiddle style is that particular patterns of ornamentation, including slides, trills, mordents and various kinds of grace notes, tend to be associated with certain ergonomically convenient finger and hand movements. If the fingering used to perform, for example, d" differs from one mode to another (see Figure 2), then the decorative possibilities which may be conveniently applied to this pitch will also differ in each mode. Certain decorative patterns are also closely connected with changes or merely potential changes of hand position. As the curly brackets towards the centre of Figure 2 make explicit, in each mode changes of hand position take place on different notes. These decorative patterns will thus tend to occur in different places in each mode. Examples 3 and 4 illustrate this point. Example 3 begins with an excerpt from Festival Night, composed in 1928 by Liu Tianhua (1895-1932), an erhu piece written in the 'do-sol' mode (see also Example 2, stave 1, and Figure 2, left-hand plan). Following this passage, implied and notated glissandi have been descriptively transcribed and annotated. Example 4, demonstrating the 'la-mi' mode (see also Example 2, stave 3, and Figure 2, right-hand plan), is part of an arrangement for erhu of the traditional melody Autumn Moon over the Han Palace by Liu's pupil Jiang Fengzhi (1908-86).l4 Again, implied or notated glissandi have been extracted for analysis.15 These glissandi, rather than merely the technical by-products of shifts necessary to reach certain pitches, are instead an integral decorative
count the use of at least some of these higher notes by a proportion of traditional players, as, for example, the compositions of Abing, Sun Wenming and the huqin part of Rong Zhai's Xiansuo shisan too of 1814 make clear. The former pieces are widely available in contemporary Chinese erhu music compilations. For Rong Zhai's piece, see Cao Anhe et al., Xiansuo shisan too diyiji (Beijing, 1955). 14 Example 4 has been transposed up a minor third to facilitate comparison with Figure 2 and Examples 2 and 3. As a result, a string tuning of a" and a' is common to all three examples. 1 ' Chinese notations of these pieces do not indicate every glissando that a player is expected to perform. Some are deemed so much part of the style of erhu performance that there is no need to notate them in musical scores. In Examples 3 and 4, and their ensuing analyses of glissando movements, I have incorporated these implied glissandi, which are often those associated with changes of hand position.

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feature of Festival Night. Slides, particularly those for the index and middle fingers, are frequently used to bridge changes of hand position and wide leaps in erhu music, and, even when they are physically unnecessary, performance style demands their inclusion. For example, glissandi 5 and 6 (bars 18-19) in Example 3 could have been omitted by fingering e' with the little finger in the upper position rather than with the middle finger in middle position (see Figure 2). Although this might be technically easier, such a fingering would lack what Chinese players call 'style' or 'flavour'. As I suggested at the start of this analysis, acquired musical thought, or the performer's conception of musical style, forms a perspective upon which decisions regarding the addition of glissandi and other decorative techniques are based. Example 3. Glissandi in Liu Tianhua's Festival Night, bars 15-26.
[notated fingerings:]

Glissandi: 1

10

11

12 13

14

Transcriptions of glissandi, with fingering added:

The index finger marks hand movement from the upper to middle positions.

2:

In the middle position the ring finger is added and then stretched up to a" from its standard position on ft".

3,11, 13:

This glissando is the reverse of no. 2.

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Example 3 (cont.)
__ 1 _

4:

As the hand moves from the middle to the upper position, the index finger slides down the string.

5:

1 - 1 a tz ' -/

1 2- 2 s w

Movement from the upper to the middle position is accompanied by movement from the index to the middle finger. The glissando is performed with either finger.

6:

This glissando is a middle-finger counterpart of no. 4.

2 --2

Interchange from the outer to the inner string is embellished with a middle-finger glissando.

2-*2
|

An ornamental slide retaining the middle finger on the inner string throughout.

The decoration begun in no. 8 is completed, returning to the upper position.

10:

This glissando combines three changes: string, position and finger (inner to outer, upper to middle with an additional stretch and middle to ring).

3 - 3.

12:

As in no. 2, the ring finger stretches along the outer string in middle position.

14:

The final slide is related to no. 6, being an outer-string decoration whilst changing from the middle to the upper position.

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Example 4. Glissandi in Jiang Fengzhi's Autumn Moon over the Han Palace, bars 1-16.

mp cresc. dim Glissandi: 1 2

13 14

15 16

17

18

19

Simplified transcriptions of glissandi, with fingering added:

i*-t o

1,3,5, 13, 16:

0 i *!

The index finger slides down from its upper-position place on the inner string to decorate movement to the open string.

2,4, 14, 17:

0 1 !

This glissando is the reverse of no. 1.

6,8, 10, 15, 19:

l i o

The counterpart of no. 2, this glissando is performed on the outer string.

7,9, 18:

In this glissando the movement of no. 6 is reversed.

11:

This glissando requires the same action as no. 7, but the distance moved is shorter and the index finger is not removed at the end of the slide. This glissando is the reverse of no. 11.

12:

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Turning now to Example 4, Jiang Fengzhi's version of Autumn Moon over the Han Palace, quite a different application of glissando ornamentations is detected. In this 'la-mi' mode excerpt all glissandi result from movement of the index finger above its upper-position place on either string (see Figure 2), a movement which is effectively a temporary change of hand position. The glissandi of the 'la-mi' mode are quite different from those of the 'do-sol' mode music of Example 3, part of the cause of which must be the different arrangement of hand positions in each mode. It may be conjectured that the connection of the glissando ornamentation with changes of hand position arose as a pragmatic solution to problems posed by the combination of the two-stringed fiddle form and the human hand, a parallel in some respects to the idea of transposition of material into a single hand position already discussed. This technique having become part of the recognized musical style of these instruments, its transmission and reception are now mediated by aesthetics: Chinese fiddlers and audiences do not simply tolerate stylish glissandi, they expect and enjoy them. Because hand positions differ from one mode to another, so too do the places where glissandi and other fingering-specific ornaments are inserted. The individuality stemming from each mode's contrasting melodic distribution is thus reinforced for musician and listener alike by the equally unique patterns of ornamentation in each mode. The creative role played by the use of modally specific fingering patterns extends beyond the potential addition of trills and other decorations to the surface of a relatively fixed melody or the emphasis of modal identity, however. In certain genres fingering patterns have become deeply embedded within musical structures themselves. Here I refer to what Western writers have variously described as the 'ban structure' or 'ban principle', a phenomenon which may be very briefly defined as the metrical expansion or contraction of a given melody into slower, more decorated, or faster, less elaborate, versions respectively. The process of expansion may be likened to the accretion of different layers of ornamental notes between metrically significant pitches. Contraction suggests the stripping away of such decorative insertions. The historical progenitor of the ban principle is unclear, so it is impossible to say whether it originated as an improvised performance technique or one employed primarily in composition and rehearsal. Also, it is unknown whether the technique was originally used to expand simple themes or reduce complex ones, although the description I give below would be easier to envisage as having occurred in the former scenario. In current performance practice, musicians learn the different metrical forms of each melody separately, although they are aware of relationships between them and may perform a 'suite' of slow, moderate and fast forms of a tune one after another. Example 5 presents in parallel notation the start of three well-known metrical forms of the same theme, a melody most often entitled Liuban from the ensemble genre Jiangnan sizhu.'6
" See also Thrasher, "The Melodic Structure', 24S-4, 248-50. I am obliged to Prof. Chen Yingshi and Mr Steven Jones for providing a number of transcriptions of Liuban tunes in various metres. In

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Example 5. Three metrical forms of the melody Liuban, bars 1-3.

Babani S R S E S

Zhonghua liuban
S Ae R re P r S/O Ae R arp B pEe E e P e r/o 1 pEp rp pE

Annotations:

Italic capitals take precedence over roman capitals. Roman capitals take precedence over lower-case letters. S R, r E, a A, a P, p B, b O, o i 1 i I 1 structural pitch, part of the unchanging metrical skeleton reiteration or return after an auxiliary decoration escape note auxiliary note passing note bridging note octave-transposed note octave-transposed passage link note (leading to next phrase) link passage

To the sizhu musician each metrical format implies a particular performance speed or tempo. Thus, the first stave of Example 5 is performed quickly and perceived as a succession of strong beats, or ban. The second stave is played approximately half as quickly and considered as units of one ban and one weak beat, or yan. The final version is deemed slow music ordered in sets of one ban and three yan. Melodic elaboration, on
performance each form of this theme would be decorated by the addition of a layer of trills, grace notes and glissandi. As with the 'implied' glissando mentioned above, these are generally not notated in Chinese transcriptions, and I have omitted them here since Example 5 contains enough structural and decorative levels to illustrate the argument contained in my text. For further discussion of this melody see Huang Jinpei, trans. Alan R. Thrasher, 'Concerning the Variants of Lao liuban , Asian Music, 13 (1982), 19-31.

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the other hand, increases in direct, inverse relation to tempo decrease, and the cumulative expansion of tempo is, in a way, negated by the corresponding expansion of metre and melodic density; the flow of each form remains audibly similar, structural strong beats just seeming to occur temporally further apart in metrically expanded forms. The symbols added above each stave of Example 5 form a simple melodic analysis suggesting the hierarchical melodic function of each note. A few aspects of this analysis need to be clarified. In the first place, octave transposition of individual notes or short passages occurs in the melodies Xiao liuban and Zhonghua liuban, but not in Baban. To perform Baban, as it appears in Example 5, it would be necessary to tune the strings of the erhu to a and e', and, because not all modal arrangements are used in each tuning, to describe the open strings as 'sol' and 'la' respectively. Xiao liuban and Zhonghua liuban, however, are performed in the 'do-sol' mode with strings tuned to d' and a'. Setting the difference of absolute pitch aside, it remains notable that the expanded forms of the Liuban theme employ a different conception of relative string-tuning from the simpler Baban. When a melody is transposed from one mode to another, octave adjustments of part of the melody may be required and decorations idiosyncratic to the former mode will typically be replaced by those more convenient to the reach of the fingers in the new mode. A second ornament is the 'escape note', a common melodic decoration in Chinese music which elaborates stepwise movement between two notes by touching a third pitch adjacent to either of the pair; thus, the penultimate note of Baban, the pitch e', decorates the pent atonic step from b to d'. The step so embellished may occur in either the pentatonic or the heptatonic forms of the mode of the composition (see Example 2), as may the additional step and leap caused by the escape note itself. The 'bridging note' is effectively the same ornamentation, although octave transposition disguises the stepwise motion of the two principal pitches decorated in this way. It also has an additional foundation in fingering technique. As can be seen in Xiao liuban, the pitch e' is used to decorate movement from b' to d'. Both b' and e' are performed with the same fingering (see Figure 2), the bowhair simply being moved from the higher to the lower string. Auxiliary and passing notes, which again may be based on either pentatonic or heptatonic modal forms, are otherwise similar to their Western counterparts.17 As illustrated in Example 5, the melody Zhonghua liuban consists of superimposed layers of ornamental notes. Each layer is itself functional, consisting of decorative notes of the kinds described above. These decorations are both consistent and technically convenient, large leaps tending to be bridged by octave-transposed passing or escape notes, smaller leaps by passing notes, steps by escape notes and level progressions by auxiliary notes. As each new layer of decorative notes is added, the previous layer
" The terminology applied in this melodic analysis is my own. Many of the contemporary Chinese names for various kinds of ornamentation were themselves created earlier this century from the translation of Western terms.

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JONATHAN P. J. STOCK

becomes technically redundant, resulting in a flowing, undulating melodic contour which fiddle players find aesthetically pleasing. The very functionality of each layer of ornamentation supports the suggestion that metrically expanded melodies were originally formed unconsciously in the Chinese aural tradition of musical transmission by the gradual slowing down and ornamentation of faster, simpler themes. If the primary means of experiencing new repertory was through the immediate observation of other performers' actual performances rather than through the theoretical medium of notation or tablature, then musicians would not have needed to distinguish between structurally essential pitches and ornamental ones. Pitches considered ornamental or supplementary additions by one musician could thus have themselves been ornamented in the subsequent performance of another fiddle player, losing their original decorative function.18 Ornamentation, then, has two roles in Chinese traditional fiddle music. In the first place, the metrical expansion of commonly performed themes has led to the embedding of decorative patterns within the melodic structures of many traditional genres. Secondly, modally specific patterns of decoration related to finger and hand movements are a significant part of the performance style applied to the surface of these structures by traditional Chinese fiddle players. Musically literate conservatory-trained performers retain these traditional fingering patterns and ornamentational practices in modern China, one reason for which is provided by the kind of musical notation they now favour. I thus proceed to discuss the influence of musical notation on the transmission and continuation of the traditional fiddle performance style by way of an examination of the forms of notation employed by Chinese fiddle players past and present.
NOTATION

At first it might appear contradictory that the increasing employment of musical notation by conservatory-trained professionals in contemporary China sustains the application of a traditional performance style, yet a closer investigation suggests that in this instance musical change has actually reinforced some of the tradition's conservative characteristics. The employment of notation in historical contexts, more as an occasional aid to memory than a universal performance tool or medium of dissemination, was discussed above. This form of notation, used by Chinese fiddlers
" The issue of melodic retardation in classical East Asian Music has been raised by several scholars; see, for instance, Laurence Picken et al., Music from the Tang Court (Oxford, 1981), 5-14, Alan Marett, 'Togaku: Where Have the Tang Melodies Gone and Where Have the New Melodies Come From?', Ethnomusicology, 29 (1985), 409-31, Jonathan Condit, "The Evolution of Yomillah from the Fifteenth Century to the Present Day', Articles on Asian Music: Festschrift for Dr Chang SaHun (Seoul, 1977), 231-64, idem, 'Two Song-Dynasty Chinese Tunes Preserved in Korea', Music and Tradition, ed. D. Richard Widdess and Rembrandt F. Wolpert (Cambridge, 1981), 1-39, and idem, 'Uncovering Earlier Melodic Forms from Modern Performance: The Kasa Repertoire', Asian Music, 9 (1978), 3-20; A significant difference in the contemporary Chinese situation is that multiple metrical versions of a melody coexist and may be linked together in performance. In the Japanese and Korean contexts, melodically expanded forms have entirely replaced earlier, more compact tunes.

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| until the middle of this century, was called gongche, or gongchepu.19 In i this transposable system, which may have developed from early forms i of tablature, a simple Chinese character represents each relative modal ! degree. Absolute performance pitch was fixed by some external means, or . perhaps by convention. Gongchepu characters were written in columns, designed to be read from top to bottom and right to left across the page, following the conventions of traditional Chinese writing. Since this notation was used primarily to aid the recollection of music already studied, metrical and rhythmic annotations are, by Western standards, sparse: crosses, dashes, circles, dots and/or triangular markings at appropriate points beside the column of note symbols show which beat of each metrical unit the marked pitches should be placed on. The rhythmic subdivision of beats and the insertion of ornamentation were left to the performer's interpretation, although sometimes the relative spacing of symbols was used to suggest a certain subdivision. In some scores phrase endings are shown by the allocation of extra space, and the start of a new section by beginning a new column. The main pitch symbols used in gongche notation are listed in Example 6, with their pronunciations,

Example 6. Gongche, cipher and stave notations.

(a) Gongche:
Pronunciation: (b) Cipher: Pronunciation:

^ 0 1 H i
he si

R ^ Z 1L1R1T

yi shang che gong fan liu urn yi shangche gong 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 J 2 3

5 6 7 sol la

si do re mi fa sol la

si do re mi

(c) Stave (three modes shown, each assuming a common tuning of rf'and a'): (i) 'do-sol' mode

(ii) 'sol-re' mode

(iii) 'la-mi' mode

Note: Pitches contained in brackets fall below the tuning of the lowest string.
" See Walter Kaufmann, Musical Notations of the Orient: Notational Systems of East, South and Central Asia (Bloomington, 1967), 69-106. Gong and che are the pronunciations of two of the characters used in this form of notation. Pu may be translated in this context as 'notation'; in other instances it can mean 'chart', 'score' or 'manual'.

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JONATHAN P. J. STOCK

cipher (see below) and stave-notation equivalents in vertical alignment underneath. Both gongche and cipher-notation compositions can be headed by an indication of absolute pitch or mode, the same series of symbols representing different absolute pitches within each mode. Stave notation, however, requires the prior fixing of absolute pitch. In Example 6, therefore, I have assumed an arbitrary but common string tuning of d' and a', and notated three of the most frequently employed modes within such a tuning (see also Example 2). Gongche scores for Chinese fiddles written before this century are quite rare, the earliest known today being that entitled Xiansuo shisan tao. This was prepared in 1814 by the courtier Rong Zhai, and includes the ancient music of his day as well as popular folk pieces. A page of the fiddle part of this score has been reproduced as Figure 3. Although this is the earliest surviving score which specifically calls for use of a bowed instrument, other sources, such as song and music collections dating from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, may well include music that was played on forms of Chinese fiddle. The convenience of this system of notation is emphasized by Kaufmann's comment: 'An erh-hsien [erxian a form of two-stringed fiddle] player . . . is able to master the various modes required in operatic music by memorizing a few transposing scales without even altering the tuning of his two strings.'20
rN
_L

Jj^

*H

3-

iL

Hi

rm
fix.

TV*

->~ A
'>

4
-J*y !0

4I

*
.

Figure 3. Page 1 of Rong Zhai's Xiansuo shisan tao (1814), fiddle part. Ibid., 77.

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During the 1930s, under the impact of Western-inspired programmes of modernization and educational reform, certain musicians began to express a desire for a greater precision of rhythmic notation. First, the rhythmic elements of cipher notation, already a widely used tool in Chinese music education, were added to the pitch symbols of gongchepu. These rhythmic elements were themselves largely derived from stave notation, as should be clear from the parallel cipher and stave notations of a traditional erhu solo shown in Example 7.2' Some publications printed parallel columns of equivalent gongche and cipher notation. Since the 1950s the great majority of publications have come to employ cipher notation, now written in horizontal rows, read left to right across the page, in common with Western languages and contemporary (mainland) Chinese text. This form of cipher notation, originally developed by the Frenchman Emile Cheve, was transmitted to China via Japan in the early twentieth century, where it was first adopted in the field of music education.22 For the portrayal of a single melody line it is simple, efficient and quickly written; for the publisher it is cheap and compact. Contemporary fiddle players see cipher notation as similar in intent to gongche, but more 'scientific and modern', important values in twentieth-century Chinese society. Their preference for cipher over stave notation, which all conservatory-trained fiddlers can read, is founded upon its side-effect of reinforcing the traditional modal hand positioning and fingering styles discussed above. In learning cipher notation, players associate fingering patterns and ornamental possibilities with the numerals symbolizing do (1), re (2), mi (3), etc. (see section (b) of Example 6). Experienced musicians can therefore look at a cipher-notation score and perceive likely fingerings, changes of hand position and opportunities for decoration. In stave notation, on the other hand, although absolute pitch and melodic contour are very clearly expressed, mode and modal degree, and thus fingering patterns, are less evident. The adoption of cipher notation may well be the reason that Chinese fiddle players have maintained a relatively conservative performance style, despite dramatic changes in their training and repertory and the social contexts of their performances.23 A few musicians have called for fiddle players to adopt a style of hand positions similar to those of the violin, but while contemporary composers continue to use the traditional modal structure of Chinese music in their fiddle pieces, and performers continue to play music from the traditional repertory, cipher notation and the existing matrix of hand positions and fingering patterns seem likely to endure.
" The source of the cipher notation of this piece is Jiang Fengzhi and Jiang Qing, Jiang Fengzhi erhu yanzou yishu (Beijing, 1987), 86-7. " Emile J. M. Cheve' (1804-64) developed this notation to aid the tuition of sight singing; see Bernarr Rainbow, 'Cheve\ Emile Joseph Maurice', The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, (London, 1980), iv, 216. Cipher notation is now employed for almost all Chinese traditional musical instruments, the one standard exception being the seven-stringed classical zither, or qin. This instrument has its own highly specialized form of tablature which provides information not easily expressed in the simpler cipher format. " Stock, 'Contemporary Recital Solos', 57-9, 60-1, 66, 73-4.

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JONATHAN P. J. STOCK

Example 7. Cipher and stave notations of The Buddhist Triad, bars 1-31. 1 = G (5 2) H
4

J =50
^ 5 ^ ~ 1 1^2.
35 6 I 3 ~~> I 3. 2 3. 25~6 | 2 3~5 3~2 P? \

J =50
It

1 0

6. 15. 6 12 6 1

1 06~~[~5 6 1. 6 | 2 7 1 ^ 5 3 1 ^3..
mp
0 1

3. 2 3 2 5 6 | 2
mf

3 5 3 2 2 7 1 6. 1 5. 6 I 1. 2 6^1

I 1. 2*7

1 2

1 1

2 2

6. 1 5. 6 | 1_27 6. j^| 2. 3 5~3 6 5 | 3 5 2 5 32 561 2 3 j 3 2

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Example 7 (cont.)
6. 1 5. 6 | 1.2 6^-1 ^
| 1. 2 7 | 6. 1 5. 6 | 1 2 7 6. l_ |

-^~.

2.

3 5 3 65 | 3 5 2 5 3 2 5 6

|2

35 3 2 6 1

7.

6 | 5

MUSICAL STYLE

In the discussion above I have demonstrated how cognitive and technical aspects common to Chinese fiddle playing in general (instrumental structure, posture, articulation, mode, tuning, finger technique, hand positioning, ornamentation and notation) interconnect to create and sustain a certain performance style in traditional and much contemporary music for these instruments. I have not looked at questions of individual creativity or how Chinese fiddle players and their audiences negotiate and explain musical style within the wider context of social interaction, issues avoided in this instance because I wished to concentrate on the specifically musical level of fiddle style. But why is such a style constructed at all, and how does it function? As Baily has argued, patterning arising from motor behaviour may be hard to avoid: 'Once the player's motor structure has been established and a set of skilled movements acquired, it can function in a generative manner'. 24 Equally, the creation of a musical style allows certain performance decisions to be relegated to a lower level of consciousness, providing a set of 'standing orders' for the musician. Although Blacking locates performance decisions 'in the context of real or imagined social interaction', it may also be suggested that, once formed, a musical style
Baily, 'Movement Patterns', 329. Nicholas Cook mentions the linkage between the recall of musical sounds and physical activity, commenting: 'A great deal of the productional imagery employed by musicians is kinaesthetic in origin.' See Nicholas Cook, Music, Imagination, and Culture (Oxford, 1990), 95. Patterned performance movements thus assist musical recreation as well as generation.
14

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JONATHAN P. J. STOCK

can itself take care of much low-level decision-making on behalf of the performer: the musician seems to know how something should go without having to concentrate on the detailed physical technicalities of its production. The experiencing of regular, patterned behaviour in a musical performance must also affect the perception of style by audiences. For example, Chinese fiddlers tend to decorate changes of hand position with ergonomically convenient glissandi; audiences come to accept fiddle glissandi as a 'normal' part of fiddle style; and were any fiddle player now to omit these glissandi the charge of 'unstylishness' would be laid at his or her feet. Musical style will tend, then, to be inherently conservative, acting to maintain and reproduce itself. But, like many simplistically structuralist explanations, the above circle of patterned performance (behaviour-style-perception of aesthetic 'normality'-pressure to conform-behaviour, etc.) suffers from the drawback of appearing closed, inviolable and ultimately unconstructable. If such a process were indeed entirely closed and self-feeding, it could never have arisen in the first place. I would thus prefer to describe the process leading to the construction of a musical style as one more responsive to change, each of its elements constantly being reconsidered and redefined. Thus, cognitive and physical factors such as those introduced during this study act more as a matrix of influences which bear upon the acts of composition and performance. Musical composition, and especially musical performance, take place under the shadow of the human body, the structure of any instruments involved, the technical liaison between bodily movement and instrumental format and the specifics of performance location; composition and performance take place in light of what has gone before culturally and musically, and they take place in the nexus of social interaction. Although a cycle of behaviour-style-perception, etc. may guide composition and performance, each of these elements is itself constantly being impinged upon by the wider matrix of cognitive and physical considerations, considerations which are themselves continually under review. And the ongoing review of any one of these considerations can, in turn, suggest new possibilities prompting a partial or general realignment of the others. Adaptation of instrumental structure, for example, may necessitate or encourage corresponding changes in performance technique and hence musical style. The desire to reach a new note or produce a different tone, conversely, may lead to the transmutation of an instrumental structure. In certain respects, the analysis of a musical style represents the abstraction of a slice which cuts through all the physical and cognitive perspectives of music-making. Performers, composers, audiences and music analysts alike form their own, possibly quite contradictory, definitions of musical style according to their own preconceptions, experiences and needs. I have emphasized above how fiddle-playing musicians in many Chinese musical genres share a common performance style. Conversely, it may be suggested that listeners' perceptions of these fiddlers as individuals, i.e. their personal styles, are generally founded upon the recognition and evaluation of what each does differently from the others, that which their performances do not have in common. The concept of

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'musical style' as applied to fiddlers in general is thus a unifying force, but when applied to specific musicians emphasizes their individuality. Both of these views are abstractions, from differing perspectives, of the same matrix of physical and cognitive elements realized in musical performance. A musical style, then, must be defined flexibly enough to incorporate all perspectives and the different abstractions which arise from them. This can most easily be achieved if such a definition is couched in procedural terms, describing how we come to experience musical style rather than the disparate experiences themselves. In the case of traditional Chinese fiddle music at least, such a definition may be tentatively proposed as follows: musical style arises from the recognition, evaluation and/or formulation of the cognitive and physical patterns which constitute human music-making. University of Durham