Music notations for Chinese orchestra
This is a piece of writing I prepared in 2017. When I re-read it after three years, I found my previous writing was wordy and not fluent. I decided to re-write it in September 2020 and publish it online for anyone interested in the notation systems in Greater China.
Abstract
This is an introductory article of three music notation systems used in Greater China and the usage of these systems in modern Chinese folk orchestra (Chinese orchestra). Musicians in the Chinese orchestra usually use jianpu (“simplified score”, a Chinese cypher notation system) and the Western stave to notate and to read music. As most of the traditional musicians in China are trained to read jianpu first, problems arose when orchestras use either jianpu or stave for scoring. By improving notation software and computer music transformation framework, users will be able to re-write music in different systems.
Introduction
The Chinese orchestra (sometimes referred to the Modern Chinese Folk orchestra) is a mixture of Chinese and Western musical practices (Tsui, 1998). The Chinese orchestra follows the Western symphony orchestra model in many aspects, including how the musicians sit in the orchestra, the concert pitch standard and the use of full and part scores. Music composed for the Chinese Orchestra is also strongly influenced by the West in terms of composition technique, music harmony and chord progression. Still, there are few notable differences between the Chinese and the Western orchestra such as music repertoire, music instruments and notation systems.
In terms of music repertoire, there is a wide range of music for Western orchestra such as Western Classical Music and music around the world, ranging from 17th-century dance suite, 21st-century symphonies to Beatles pop song arranged for orchestra. On the contrary, music for the Chinese Orchestra are relatively limited: the first Chinese Orchestral music piece was only composed in the 1920s after the first modern Chinese Orchestra was established. In order to increase the number of repertories for Chinese orchestra, composers and arrangers in the 1950s and 60s transposed Western Classical Music for the Chinese orchestra. For example, Peng Xiuwen, a renowned conductor and composer arranged Pictures at an Exhibition by Mussorgsky and The Firebird Suite by Stravinsky for Chinese orchestra. This practice gradually faded out after more originally composed works for Chinese orchestra emerged after the 1970’s.
A Chinese orchestra also differs from a Western orchestra in terms of music instruments. A Chinese orchestra consists of mainly Chinese instruments which could be divided into strings, plucked-strings, woodwinds and percussions. Several Western instruments, notably cello, double bass and other percussion instruments such as xylophone, marimba, snare drum, bass drum and other Western percussions are also adopted and included in the Chinese orchestra.
Regarding notation system, Western orchestras use stave notation in most of the occasion while Chinese orchestras usually use jianpu (literally “simple notation”, a variant of the cypher notation system) in scoring music. Using jianpu in Chinese orchestra is a distinct feature compare with Western orchestra. Some orchestras have shifted to use stave scores for numerous reasons which will be discussed below.
This essay will first introduce the modern Chinese orchestra and three essential music notation systems used in China, followed with an account of the usage of notation systems in the Chinese orchestra. Problems encountered by composers and musicians will be explained, and possible solutions would be elaborated to tackle the issue brought by the systems.
An introduction of the modern Chinese orchestra
The modern Chinese orchestra, or referred to the modern Chinese folk orchestra, first came in shape when the Great Unity Music Society was established in the 1920’s. The Music Society increase the number of players in a typical Jiangnan sizhu ensemble and divided instruments into sections. Tradition instruments were also improved, and new orchestral pieces were composed for this new type of music ensemble. The development and expansion continued and formed the modern shape of the Chinese orchestra.
The Chinese orchestra consists of four families of instruments: bowed-strings, plucked-strings, wind and percussion. While most of the instruments in the orchestra are Chinese instruments, few instruments are indeed from the West they and have been adopted in modern Chinese orchestras. For instance, cello and double bass were brought to the Chinese orchestra as there was a lack of Chinese instrument to play the lower register in the orchestra. Western percussion instruments including timpani, xylophone and marimba, snare drums, bass drums and Western cymbals were brought to the Chinese orchestra to enrich the tone colour. In brief, the Chinese orchestra is a modernised Chinese folk orchestra consists of Chinese instrument and Western music practice. Tsui (1998) summarised the Chinese folk orchestra as follows:
I. The orchestra is divided into four sections: wind, plucked strings, bowed strings, and percussion;
II. It has a conductor;
III. Full scores and parts are used;
IV. Musical notation includes cypher notation and Western stave notation;
V. Musicians are supposed to be able to play at sight; and
VI. Music is composed with reference to theories of Western classical tradition, such as the use of harmony.
Three essential music notation systems in China
1. Gongchepu
Gongchepu or gongche notation (工尺譜) is a traditional cypher notation system invented in the Tang Dynasty (618–907) and gained its popularity in the Song Dynasty (960–1279). The system was once popular in China; its glory was lost after jianpu, a simpler cypher notation system was introduced to China in the early 20th century. Chinese characters are used in Gongcheupu to represent notes in diatonic order, and there is no precious rhythmic marking in this system. Beats are written alongside the notes, and musician would need to improvise the rhythm.
As gongchepu only provides a musical framework for musicians to improvise, modern musicians may find the system not accurate and precise for scoring, let alone for orchestral scoring. Although gongchepu becomes less popular in modern time, it is still used in Xiqu (Chinese opera) music and in some traditional music. Still, the wide adoption of gongchepu in the past may help jianpu to become the mainstream system once introduced to China.
2. Jianpu
Jianpu is a cypher notation system widely used in Chinese, from music publication to music sharing between friends. It is believed that jianpu is an adoption of the French Galin-Paris-Chevé system and was introduced to China by Li Shutong, who studied in Japan and brought the system from Japan to China in the 1900s (Ho, 2011).
Compared with gongchepu, jianpu has the advantage of accurate rhythm marking and easy learning and writing as Arabic numerals are used to represent notes instead of Chinese characters. As a result, jianpu replaced gongchepu and become the primary music notation system in China. Majority of Chinese learned jianpu first in their music lesson in schools. Musicians who play Chinese instruments are also learnt to read and write jianpu in their instrument lesson. Majority of music scores and teaching materials for Chinese instruments are also published in jianpu, with the exception of complex or atonal music.
Jianpu uses Arabic numerals 1 to 7 to represent the seven notes in a diatonic major scale and 0 is for rest. For unpitched percussion, large and small cross “X” “x” are used to represent low and high pitch. Dots are added above or lower the number to indicate upper and lower octave. Other notation elements such as bar lines, accidentals, time signatures, dynamics, tempo and expression markings are borrowed from the stave system.
One key advantage of jianpu is the ease of transposing music to other keys. As jianpu is similar to a moveable-do solfege system, changing from one to another key means musician shift from one to another scale to play the music. If a musician decides to play the music in a different key, he or she do not need to re-write the entire score. It is also easy to copy jianpu and other cypher music score by hand or computer as musicians do not need to prepare stave paper or specific computer software to copy music.
3. Stave
The five-line stave notation system from the West is becoming more popular in China nowadays. While jianpu is a diatonic system, it is not ideal for large scale, chromatic and/or atonal music. Musicians and composers are shifting to stave notation for the sake of clarity and greater accuracy (Chua, 2015). Music students from conservatories are also trained to read jianpu and stave at the same time.
While composers in modern days tend to adopt the stave system, earlier works are mostly notated in jianpu. Interestingly, both systems could be found in a single work; for example, the full score is notated in stave while part scores are notated in jianpu.
Notation systems for scoring Chinese orchestral music
Although jianpu is the de-facto notation system in Chinese orchestra, stave notation has gained its popularity in recent decades. Scores are either notated in jianpu, stave or in both systems.
a. Full score and part scores in jianpu
Conductor and musicians in the orchestra play from jianpu with no exception for those who play the cello, timpani and other western orchestral instruments in the Chinese orchestra. Publisher in the past usually publish the full score only, and musicians usually copied their part scores by paper and pen, sometimes resulting in inaccurate notation. In some cases where musicians could not obtain either the full score or part score, they would listen to the recording repeatedly and dictate the music in jianpu. Although jianpu notation software emerged in recent years, they are not well-developed and not designed to notate complicated and orchestral-size music. Jianpu scores are still widely used by amateur music groups.
- Full score in stave and part scores in jianpu
This practice is often found in amateur Chinese orchestra (as amateur usually pick up jianpu first): full score is notated in stave while most of the part scores are written in jianpu, with the exception of part scores for Western instrument. For musicians who learn and play with jianpu for years, playing in a familiar system would help them during the sight-reading and playing in orchestra.
- Full score and part scores in stave
Using stave to notate both full and part scores is a recent trend, and this practice is now commonly found in professional Chinese orchestras such as the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra and the Taipei Chinese Orchestra. Musicians in these orchestras are required to read jianpu and stave fluently, and they were tested in sight-reading both systems in their audition. Many musicians in the early stage first opposed the introduction of stave score to Chinese orchestra, but later they accepted the Western notation (Gan, 2005).
With increasing repertoire for Chinese orchestra and the emerge of Western harmony, chromaticism, minimalism and other experimental music elements in Chinese orchestral music, stave compared with jianpu would be much capable of notating these kind of music. The rise of music notation programmes also makes scoring in stave much easier than before. Although jianpu notating programmes do exist, stave notating programmes are versatile and are able to create full and part scores swiftly.
Problems encountered by musicians and composer using jianpu and stave
Orchestra musicians:
As most of the Chinese musicians learnt to play by reading jianpu, most of them will not have much difficulties in reading jianpu full and part scores. On the other hand, they might find it challenging to read (and write) stave; they tend to re-write the music from stave to jianpu, either on a blank paper or on top of the staves (by pen or pencil). Although this process is cumbersome and time-consuming, some musicians believe that it saves effort for translating from sight at later stages. In some occasions, musicians from the wind and plucked-string sections will re-write the music in jianpu in a different key originally notated in the score for their ease of playing. Below is an example of the Angry Birds theme (in A minor) notated for zhongruan (lit. medium ruan, usually tuned in G2 D3 G3 D4.) Instead of notating the music in A minor, zhongruan musicians tend to re-write the music in G major as they are most familiar with G major, the first key they learnt on zhongruan. Although there is no straight rule on notating music in the right key, non-experienced musicians may regard the music is in a different key, in this case, G major or even A Dorian mode.
Composers and score librarians:
Notating jianpu by computer is possible but not in a user-friendly way. User may score jianpu by using word processing software (such as Microsoft Word) and specify-designed fonts such as “KAM jianpu” and “Doulos SIL Cipher” to notate bar lines, accidentals and other musical symbols. Although most of the fonts and word processor are free of charge, this approach has certain drawbacks. Users would need to either install an on-screen keyboard or to memorise the key combination to enter the notes. Applying house style and aligning notes and musical symbols would be an ambitious task. Furthermore, music playback would be impossible; users would not be able to hear what they have notated on their computer.
User may also use jianpu notation programmes such as EOP NMN Master and CuteMIDI. While they solve the problem of music input and playback, these programmes are not well-developed and do not have the capacity of notating large-scale music. Handy features such as part score editing, house style applying, creating musical symbols and exporting music to other notation programmes are missing, making them not the ideal programme for Chinese orchestra scoring.
On the other side, notating stave music by computer programmes is more straightforward than notating jianpu as stave notation programmes have a much longer history and more mature. Professional stave notation software includes functions such as MIDI instruments real-time/step-time input, music playback and full and part score export which help composers and score librarian to notate and publish orchestral music in an easier way. As these programmes are designed to notate stave and (Western Classical) music, music symbols and expression for Chinese music are not included. However, users could overcome these difficulties by manually creating symbols and expression in these programmes and save it for future use.
Solution
Unarguably jianpu remains the primary notation system for Chinese music learners and performers. They also find that using jianpu in orchestral scoring is easy and convenient. Contrary, stave notation has gained its popularity in professional Chinese orchestras as the system handles large-scale, chromatic and atonal music better. Although professional orchestra ditched jianpu in favour of stave for accuracy and effectiveness, musicians do not need to take their side; each system has its strengths and weaknesses. In the case of Chinese orchestra, the two notation system would and should co-exist and target for different musicians.
As previously discussed, jianpu programmes are not mature for orchestral scoring. On the other hand, none of the mainstream stave notation programmes natively support jianpu and other cypher notation systems. To tackle the problem, software developers may refine current jianpu and other cypher notation programmes to be able to score orchestral-size music. Programmers may also develop plugins to allow uses to import music from their beloved notation software and to export them in the form of jianpu.
Alternatively, musicians and programmers could adopt a computer generalised transformation framework such as MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) and MusicXML (Music Extensible Markup Language) to convert music into different notation systems (Brown and Robinson, 2012). With the help of a generalised framework, composers could notate music in the favourite stave or other notation programme and export them in jianpu and other notation systems if they prefer. Major stave notation software such as Sibelius and Finale have supported the import and export of MIDI and MusicXML; users would be able to transfer music between different notating and DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) software.
Although specifications of jianpu in MusicXML is established as early as 2011 (MusicXML Documentation, 2015), there is rarely enough real-world application of either displaying or converting to jianpu through MusicXML. While MusicXML is developed in the root of stave where notes are notated in absolute position (e.g. C4, G6), it would be easy to transfer music between stave notation software and DAW programmes (where notes are recorded in absolute position). However, notes in jianpu are recorded according to the sequence of notes in a diatonic scale. For instance, D F# A is the first, third and fifth notes of a D major scale. In jianpu, these three notes would be represented by “1 3 5.”
The difference in recording notes increases the challenge of utilising MusicXML and other transformation frameworks to convert music to different notation. Still, this could be overcome by developing programmes to convert the recording method between absolute and relative position.
Conclusion
It is clear that notation systems used in notating Chinese music is not unified and need not be unified. Both jianpu and stave have their own advantage and position in scoring Chinese orchestra music. While using notation programmes to notate stave music is a common practice in the digital era, this is not the case for notating jianpu as jianpu software are limited and they are incapable to notate large-scale music.
Using a computer generalised transformation framework such as MusicXML to convert music between various notation systems would be a promising approach. By converting music through framework, music would not be limited to a certain type of notation system and could be performed by musicians with the notation they familiar. In the case of Chinese orchestra, musicians and conductor could choose their system they prefer.
Reference
Tsui, Y. (1998). The Modern Chinese Folk Orchestra: A Brief History. In Tradition and change in the performance of Chinese music (Vol. 2). Amsterdam: Harwood academic.
Chua, J. (2015). A Collapse of Musical Categories?: A Closer Look at Ethnic Chinese Music within the Chinese Conservatory Tradition Today. Retrieved October 12, 2017, from http://www.academia.edu/15308879/A_Collapse_of_Musical_Categories_A_Closer_Look_at_Ethnic_Chinese_Music_within_the_Chinese_Conservatory_Tradition_Today
Brown, S., & Robinson, P. (2012). Transforming Musical Notations for Universal Access. In Designing a more inclusive world. London: Springer.
Gan, L. (2005). Jian Pu Yu Wu Xian Pu Zhi Zheng [The debate between jianpu and stave]. Bei Shi guo yue, (206).
MusicXML Documentation (2015). Retrieved September 08, 2020, from http://usermanuals.musicxml.com/MusicXML/MusicXML.htm
MusicXML 3.1 Specification. (2017). Retrieved September 08, 2020, from http://www.musicxml.com/for-developers/
Ho, W. (2011). China: Socio-Political Constructions of School Music. In The Origins and Foundations of Music Education-Cultural Historical Studies of Music in Compulsory Schooling. London: Continuum.