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Getting in touch with Confucius through music
By Wang Yong |
January 15, 2011, Saturday
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YESTERDAY, I played Confucius' favorite musical instrument for an American colleague, not sure if she would be a bit confused by something so old, so Chinese and seemingly arcane.
I had reason to doubt. I used to play guqin (a seven-string zither dating back 3,000 years) to many of my relatives (all Chinese, of course) - either Western-educated or exposed to Western living. And they all shook their heads in a polite dismissal of the tranquil music, in much the same way they prefer trendy Italian pizza to old-fashioned Chinese pancakes.
Much to my pleasant surprise, my American colleague closed her eyes as she sat on a sofa, steeped in lingering sounds that she described as "otherworldly." "I never heard it played so close to me, it's lovely and from another world, so tranquil that it makes me tingle," she said in generous recognition of the Confucian music flowing from my yet "green" fingers.
Without any prior knowledge about guqin, she could even tell the "space" sound from the "earth" sound of the instrument. "That's like music from space!" she said with pleasure, referring to the crystal-light sound sparkling from the strings in delicate contact with my left hand.
In Confucian musical and philosophical traditions, guqin combines three kinds of sounds: the earth (a solid sound made when you pluck the strings with your right hand only), the heavens or "space" (an ethereal sound made by briefly touching the strings with your left hand while plucking them with your right), and mankind (a glissando made when you press and slide over the strings with your left hand while plucking them with your right).
It's a trinity of the earth, the space and man that my American colleague discovered on her first close encounter with Confucius' favorite musical instrument. In contrast, many of my Chinese acquaintances chose to be indifferent to, if not dismissive of, ancient Chinese culture, which leaves me wondering how we can truly revive Confucian values in today's world where money is worshipped.
On January 11, Tian'anmen Square in Beijing witnessed the unveiling of a 9.5-meter-high bronze statute of Confucius, a signal that the country is trying to pay its long-overdue respect to the sage. He had been denounced time after time since 1919, when radical Chinese intellectuals wrongly blamed China's lack of material progress and prowess on his focus on spiritual attainment such as that in poems, rituals and music.
In fact, Confucius was never opposed to wealth or material progress, he was only opposed to acquisition of wealth in illegal or immoral ways. The modern history of economics has shown that ill-gotten wealth distributed in an unethical way hardly makes a nation harmonious or its people happy.
So, welcome back, Confucius.
But he is still shrouded by misunderstanding. Ask any Chinese today about core Confucian values, and chances are you get "love" and "rituals" as the answer. Few know that Confucius considered guqin music as the consummate form of moral attainment.
As latter-day Confucian scholars explain, guqin music calms the mind that can be disturbed and disordered. Like calligraphy, or perhaps better, guqin music fosters man's harmony with the earth and heavens (space, as my American friend put it), as no other music can. My American colleague hasn't seen that statute in person, yet she's so close to the sage's heart through music.
I had reason to doubt. I used to play guqin (a seven-string zither dating back 3,000 years) to many of my relatives (all Chinese, of course) - either Western-educated or exposed to Western living. And they all shook their heads in a polite dismissal of the tranquil music, in much the same way they prefer trendy Italian pizza to old-fashioned Chinese pancakes.
Much to my pleasant surprise, my American colleague closed her eyes as she sat on a sofa, steeped in lingering sounds that she described as "otherworldly." "I never heard it played so close to me, it's lovely and from another world, so tranquil that it makes me tingle," she said in generous recognition of the Confucian music flowing from my yet "green" fingers.
Without any prior knowledge about guqin, she could even tell the "space" sound from the "earth" sound of the instrument. "That's like music from space!" she said with pleasure, referring to the crystal-light sound sparkling from the strings in delicate contact with my left hand.
In Confucian musical and philosophical traditions, guqin combines three kinds of sounds: the earth (a solid sound made when you pluck the strings with your right hand only), the heavens or "space" (an ethereal sound made by briefly touching the strings with your left hand while plucking them with your right), and mankind (a glissando made when you press and slide over the strings with your left hand while plucking them with your right).
It's a trinity of the earth, the space and man that my American colleague discovered on her first close encounter with Confucius' favorite musical instrument. In contrast, many of my Chinese acquaintances chose to be indifferent to, if not dismissive of, ancient Chinese culture, which leaves me wondering how we can truly revive Confucian values in today's world where money is worshipped.
On January 11, Tian'anmen Square in Beijing witnessed the unveiling of a 9.5-meter-high bronze statute of Confucius, a signal that the country is trying to pay its long-overdue respect to the sage. He had been denounced time after time since 1919, when radical Chinese intellectuals wrongly blamed China's lack of material progress and prowess on his focus on spiritual attainment such as that in poems, rituals and music.
In fact, Confucius was never opposed to wealth or material progress, he was only opposed to acquisition of wealth in illegal or immoral ways. The modern history of economics has shown that ill-gotten wealth distributed in an unethical way hardly makes a nation harmonious or its people happy.
So, welcome back, Confucius.
But he is still shrouded by misunderstanding. Ask any Chinese today about core Confucian values, and chances are you get "love" and "rituals" as the answer. Few know that Confucius considered guqin music as the consummate form of moral attainment.
As latter-day Confucian scholars explain, guqin music calms the mind that can be disturbed and disordered. Like calligraphy, or perhaps better, guqin music fosters man's harmony with the earth and heavens (space, as my American friend put it), as no other music can. My American colleague hasn't seen that statute in person, yet she's so close to the sage's heart through music.
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