Page:Philosophical Review Volume 1.djvu/80

64 The foundation of the scale of these melodies is therefore the normal Chinese interval-order of the five steps to the octave, approximate minor thirds (e-g, b-d) alternating with one (d-e) or two (g-a, a-b) approximate tones. The note g' is determined as Koung, and the scale is generally, though not always, completed to a heptatonic order by the introduction of the two pien.

This general conformity with the theoretical seven-step order is accompanied by divergencies of detail which are not without marked effect on the music. In the first place, as our table shows at once, the position of the two pien is different from that assigned to them in theory. As the sixth and seventh numbers of the progression of fifths, the two pien are in the theoretical scale, each placed 90 cents below the next higher note. In these scales the interval between the upper pien-Tche (the lower is omitted in all the songs) and the note above is never less than 185 cents, while that separating it from the note below, which is theoretically 204 cents, is never greater than 125 cents. The intention of these performers is evidently to lower pien-Tche from its theoretical position through a semitone. According to Van Aalst this habitude is at present general in China; and dates from the invasion of that country in the fourteenth century by the Mongols, whose scale was identical with that of the Chinese, with the exception of this semitone's difference in the position of pien-Tche. Although the note was preserved in the scale at both positions for a time by the decree of Kubla Khan, the theoretical pitch was finally given up.