Yan Music Half-Character Notation

By late April, the weather had grown quite hot. It was noon, and the sunlight shone straight down, leaving the shadows huddled beneath their feet as though shrinking from the heat.

Ding Youwei turned to look at young Chen Caozhi, who walked half a pace behind her. Seeing fine beads of sweat seeping out along one side of his straight nose, she knew that writing a 128-character poem in four-character lines, in two different scripts with both wrists held aloft, must have taxed his mind and strength. She asked gently, "Caozhi, you must be tired?"

Chen Caozhi smiled. "Not at all. My heart feels very light."

"Mm." Ding Youwei smiled. "So does mine. It feels as though a great stone pressing on my chest has been lifted away. Even these towers, terraces, flowers, and trees look different from when we arrived."

Rain Swallow and A Xiu, following behind them, also laughed with relief. A Xiu said, "Young Master Caozhi really is amazing. He wrote a few characters, and that man named Chu recognized the difficulty and retreated. Tsk, tsk."

Rain Swallow said, "A Xiu, you didn't notice, did you? That man named Chu was all flustered when he took his leave. He stumbled on his way out of the main hall and nearly fell. Where was the bearing of an aristocrat in that? He can't compare with our Young Master Caozhi at all-"

Chen Caozhi laughed. "That's funny, Sister Rain Swallow. Are members of great aristocratic houses not allowed to trip when they walk?"

Both maids giggled, and Ding Youwei smiled with her lips pressed together, telling the two maids not to make fun of guests behind their backs.

The young siblings Zongzhi and Run'er sat waiting beneath the wooden building's veranda. When they saw their mother and Uncle Chou returning, the two worried children instantly broke into beaming smiles. Run'er cheered, "Uncle Chou found Mother! Uncle Chou brought Mother back!"

Ding Youwei's eyes grew a little moist. Bending down, she kissed her daughter's tender pink cheek and whispered, "Mother isn't going anywhere. I'll stay right here with Run'er and Zongzhi."

"And Uncle Chou, and Grandmother," Run'er added. After thinking for a moment, she added another name. "And Yinggu."

Zongzhi reported, "Uncle Chou, Run'er and I have read our books and practiced our writing. We haven't been lazy at all. Run'er was memorizing the 'Advanced Students' chapter of the Analects, and after practicing my writing, I began memorizing 'Peach Blossoms' from the Book of Songs-"

But Run'er pursed her little lips. "Only Run'er and Brother both turned stupid today. We read our books several times and still couldn't remember them, and our writing wasn't as pretty as yesterday's either."

Chen Caozhi naturally understood why. He cherished this adorable, sensitive nephew and niece, and comforted them. "That's because Uncle Chou wasn't studying with you. 'When three walk together, one must be my teacher' means it's best for three people to study together—we'll read and practice our writing again this afternoon. I promise you'll be able to recite it after a single reading, and your writing will be prettier too."

It was lunchtime now. A sturdy serving woman brought over two large lacquered boxes on a carrying pole, each containing four smaller boxes. This was lunch for Ding Youwei, Chen Caozhi, Zongzhi, and Run'er. Xiao Chan and the other three maids did not eat here; moreover, maids and servants had only two meals a day, morning and evening, with no lunch.

After lunch, Ding Youwei, her two children, and Chen Caozhi went up to the second-floor study. Holding the paper scroll Quan Li had given Chen Caozhi, Rain Swallow asked, "Young Master Caozhi, shall I put this scroll in your traveling bag?"

"Let me look at it first," Chen Caozhi said. He took the scroll and unrolled it. To his surprise, it too was written in graceful, elegant small regular script in the style of the Declaration Memorial, some two thousand characters in all. Its dots and strokes possessed an ancient, secluded elegance and captured the very essence of Zhong Yao's Declaration Memorial. It far surpassed the copybook Chen Qingzhi had obtained by tracing another copy at Lu Na's residence in Wu Commandery. This must be Huan Yi's handwriting-

Looking at the contents, he found that they covered every aspect of the dongxiao's construction, tuning, playing techniques, and care throughout the four seasons. Many of the tips were things Chen Caozhi had never heard of, and delight rose to his brows. This Huan Ziye really was a remarkable man: a chance encounter, like duckweed meeting on the water, had brought him so many gifts. He said to Ding Youwei, "Sister-in-law, this is wonderful. Not only can I learn many tips for playing and maintaining a vertical flute, but I can also grasp the marvelous brushwork and spiritual essence of the Declaration Memorial through Huan Yi's calligraphy. Given time, I'm sure my left-handed regular script will improve greatly."

Ding Youwei took the scroll of dongxiao secrets and read it through, then exclaimed admiringly, "Huan Yi has a marvelous understanding of music and is acclaimed as the finest in Jiangzuo. His calligraphy is ranked in the third grade as well. Caozhi, you're fortunate to have won his favor. I'm truly happy for you. Oh, yes-you have to give the two scores to Attendant Quan tomorrow. You should copy them out now."

Chen Caozhi said, "I'll need your help with that, Sister-in-law. Although I can play those two pieces, I don't know how to write them down."

"All right, then," Ding Youwei said. "Xiao Chan, fetch the Keting Flute and let our young master play." She sat down at the desk, ground ink, and laid out paper to prepare to notate the music.

Zongzhi and Run'er competed to grind ink for their mother. Ding Youwei watched her adorable children with a smile, her heart brimming with warmth and sweetness.

Holding the Keting Flute, Chen Caozhi played "Remembering an Old Friend" and "Red Bean Song" three times each. Ding Youwei lightly drew back her right sleeve with her left hand to keep it from hanging down into the ink. Holding a hairpin brush in her right hand, her fair wrist suspended level, she recorded the scores in the delicate, lovely Han clerical script of the Cao Quan Stele. When she finished, she bent forward, pursed her lips slightly, and blew over the final column of inked characters. Then she straightened and said, "Caozhi, come and see whether I've written anything wrong."

Chen Caozhi walked over with the Keting Flute in hand and knelt beside Ding Youwei, carefully examining the rows of strange Chinese characters whose fresh ink had yet to dry. Some were merely radicals, others had fewer strokes than standard traditional characters, and there were also odd symbols resembling tadpoles-

The boy's memories contained no impression of these strange characters. Thus, although the present Chen Caozhi could use traditional Chinese characters fluently and read numbered musical notation and staff notation, he was utterly at a loss before this peculiar score. He said, "Sister-in-law, I can't read this notation. Please teach me."

Ding Youwei turned to look at Chen Caozhi, a faint smile on her cheeks revealing her dimples. "At last, I've seen Caozhi show a weakness. After two years apart, you've astonished me so much that I thought there was nothing you couldn't do."

Chen Caozhi smiled. "You're teasing me, Sister-in-law. It's precisely because I know so little that you must teach me more. Later, I must also go to Doctor Xu of Wu Commandery to study. I think that as long as one is willing to learn and work hard, there's nothing one cannot learn."

Ding Youwei murmured her approval. "I can still teach you to read these scores, but I can't teach you the other things, like classical scholarship and Xuanxue-I'll teach you the notation in a moment. First, I'll play through this score for you, and you can see whether I've written anything wrong."

Rather than use Chen Caozhi's Keting Flute, Ding Youwei asked Xiao Chan to fetch the Purple Bamboo Xiao. Her slender fingers held the instrument with her left hand above her right. Lowering her lashes, she looked at the score on the desk and began to play, the notes lingering and murmuring. Quite apart from whether the music was pleasing, her very pose formed a portrait of a lovely, graceful lady.

Chen Caozhi listened intently, then pointed out a few small mistakes. Ding Youwei corrected each one while explaining the notation to him in detail.

This method of notation was called Yan Music Half-Character Notation. It had been jointly devised by the Western Jin musician Lie He and Xun Xu, Director of the Secretariat, and was divided into String-Instrument Notation and Wind-Instrument Notation. The dongxiao naturally belonged to the latter, which recorded music according to the lifting, covering, pauses, and quick or slow movements of six fingers. Compared with the numbered notation and staff notation of later ages, it was naturally far cruder and often could not express a piece's subtle details. It seemed that the ancients recorded only a broad outline of music, placing greater emphasis on the performer's musical sensitivity and understanding, and valuing improvisation. Clearly, this method of notation had more drawbacks than advantages.

Chen Caozhi had a grounding in staff notation, and since the fusion of his souls, his memory had become extraordinarily good. With the slightest recollection, events he had experienced and books he had read in his previous and present lives appeared vividly before his eyes. More importantly, he was eager to learn and thirsted for knowledge of every kind. With Ding Youwei teaching him this Yan Music Half-Character Notation so carefully, he actually gained a basic command of it in just two hours.

Ding Youwei sighed with a smile. "Caozhi, being your teacher is truly a pleasure. You infer three things from one and understand at the slightest hint. With a pupil like you, a teacher feels not the least weariness-quite the opposite, it leaves the heart expansive and the spirit refreshed."

Chen Caozhi smiled. "That's because you teach so well, Sister-in-law."

Ding Youwei said, "Today I taught you Wind-Instrument Notation. Tomorrow I'll teach you String-Instrument Notation. First, copy the scores for 'Remembering an Old Friend' and 'Red Bean Song' onto silk, and I'll take them to Uncle later. The sheet I wrote won't do. Attendant Quan recognizes your handwriting."

Xiao Chan, who stood attending them, had held her tongue all afternoon. Now, at last unable to restrain herself, she said cautiously, "My lady, since that Attendant Quan appreciates Young Master Caozhi, why doesn't Young Master Caozhi ask him to put in a word with the head of the household? Perhaps then you could return to Chen Family Cove."

Chen Caozhi and Ding Youwei immediately fell silent. Zongzhi and Run'er, who had been reading nearby, both stared wide-eyed at Chen Caozhi, waiting anxiously to hear what Uncle Chou would say.

I'm continuing to ask for votes. The competition on this week's new-book rankings is truly fierce, and Cold Scholar is actually ranked lower than last week. I urgently need your votes of support, dear readers. Tonight's update will be posted before ten.