[CAUT] Music in Ancient China

[Fred Sturm]

On Sep 15, 2010, at 10:28 AM, James Patrick Draine wrote:

> Joseph Needham compiled a massive encyclopedia (really an entire  
> series of books) on science and inventions in China over the  
> centuries. Your university probably has a copy of this particular  
> volume.


Thanks, Patrick. As it happens, I have a certain amount of familiarity  
with ancient China myself, having cobbled together a major in college  
I called Comparative Greek and Chinese Classical Studies. So I am well  
aware of Needham's massive work, and I believe it is the original  
source of the claim that the Chinese "invented equal temperament."  
Murray Barbour wrote one sentence noting this:
"The first known appearance in print of the correct
figures for equal temperament was in China, where Prince Tsai-
yu's brilliant solution remains an enigma^ since the music of China
had no need for any sort of temperament."
	I believe many people writing subsequently simply relied on Barbour,  
and repeated this in a less precise way. From what I have gathered, it  
was more a matter of mathematics than anything else, and it had to do  
with ritualistic matters, something to do with creating a set of  
temple bells (whether real or simply designed), tuned correctly so  
that they mirrored "heaven." But that is about as far as the sources I  
have read have got me. Perhaps it is far enough, as I haven't troubled  
to dig deeper.
Regards,
Fred Sturm
fssturm at unm.edu
http://www.createculture.org/profile/FredSturm