Page:Things Japanese (1905).djvu/353

Rh The chanting of the Buddhist liturgy, also, at certain temple services is considered classical. This chanting has been held by some to resemble the Ambrosian and early Gregorian tones; but local colouring is sufficiently provided for, inasmuch as each per former utters the strain in the key that best suits the pitch of his own voice. For this classical music there exists a notation, a notation which is extremely complicated. There is none for the more popular instruments,—for the samisen and kokyū,—while that which exists for the koto is kept as an esoteric secret by the heads of the profession, the teachers of the teachers. An attempt to popularise it was made about the middle of the eighteenth century; but the teachers, deeming their authority threatened, success fully opposed the innovation, much as codification is opposed by English lawyers.

It may seem odd that so fundamental a question as the nature of the Japanese scale should still be a matter of debate. Yet so it is. According to Dr. Miiller, one of the earliest and most interesting writers on the subject, this scale consists, properly speaking, of five notes of the harmonic minor scale, the fourth and seventh being omitted, because, as there are five recognised colours, five planets, five elements, five viscera, and so on, there must also be five notes in music,—a method of reasoning which is only too familiar to students of Chinese and Japanese literature and which was not unknown to our own ancestors. Mr. Piggott believes the normal Japanese scale to agree with that of modern Europe, though he allows the prevalently pentatonic character of most of the tunes actually composed. But Drs. Knott and DuBois by no means agree with him, and Dr. Divers twits Mr. Piggott with setting aside the peculiarities that distinguish the Japanese from the European system, instead of accounting for them. The late Mr. Ellis's opinion on the subject will be found in his paper mentioned below. But Mr. Isawa, the greatest Japanese authority on music, says, in a private communication addressed to us, that Mr. Ellis was misled on some important points by his having given too much weight to the performances of an ignorant