"Sound Stuff" and Music
by Lynn Whidden
Nowadays most of us think of ourselves as informed consumers. We have television, consumer guides and more than enough daily advice on how to make our purchases. This information is presented to us in quantitative terms; many of us are content to get the most, for the lowest price. And for the average consumer, price is quick and easy to adjudicate.
Quality, though, is more difficult to judge. It is a complex of many elements, and price may not adequately describe the quality of an item. Overall, quality is usually related to longevity of the product, efficiency of function and appearance. While it is possible to judge appearance and usefulness, longevity of the item is tougher to predict.
One criterion that we frequently overlook that is helpful when assessing material goods is the sound of the desired item. Unconsciously, many of us are aware of sound but at the conscious level the information is disregarded even though we have folk sayings such as "as sound as a -----???". Yet for major purchases we often take note of what our ears tell us. For example, while most of us go to look, not to listen, when purchasing a house, we are listening, whether we realize it or not. We try out the plumbing and the electrical; we examine everything assiduously. Do the steps, the floor, sound "solid"? How about the doors, is there a firm sound? Is the sound of the house "hollow", "warm", "dampened"? Assuredly, the sound of the house affects both our decision to purchase and our enjoyment when we do move in.
Car sounds are exceptionally important to purchasers and attended to in a more systematic way. Have you seen the cartoon where the shutting of the used car door sounds good and moments later the car falls apart? Because the decay of most modern machines is not visible to the non-technician, the sound of their operation is key to their "health". Think of your furnace, your refrigerator, or your blender in which the slightest change in sound warns us to check the apparatus.
In organic systems sound is more chaotic and less reliable as an indicator of longevity. Some of us can recall a person who, with a strong voice and a light step, was dead of a coronary thrombosis only hours later. Perhaps this unpredictability of human sounds leads us far too often to ignore the sound of our machines. Beyond houses and cars, we denizens of the modern Western world respond retroactively to the sounds of an object's "life": its production, use and eventual breakdown.
Yet some cultures, have, at all stages, clear sound requirements for their objects. Let's look at the pottery of the Chinese T'ang dynasty (618-907CE). Chinese pottery is known for its artistic and technical integrity. You probably already know of Sung pottery that immediately followed T'ang and built on the technique and style of the T'ang artists. Yet the lesser- known T'ang pottery is more stable, functional, and has lively decoration.
Music, in the T'ang era, increased in quantity and sophistication because of the stimulation of other cultures and also because of ample funding from taxes. The T'ang music world was international and ten kinds of music, according to their place of origin, were officially recognized, as follows: Korean music; Samarkand; Bohkara; Kashgar; Indian; Kucha and Turfan; Chinese folk music; court music; and combined Chinese and Kucha styles. (Malm 116) Much of this music was intended for the emperor and performed by girls especially trained to sing and play plucked lutes. When the emperors were ejected, the girls went to work in teahouses (these are the ancestors of the famous Japanese geishas). As someone who appreciates Chinese cooking, with its great variety of subtle flavours, parallels an equally sophisticated musical "cuisine".
From this rich background of sonic awareness came tea-bowls which were sound as well as visual masterpieces. They could be classified as music instruments for they fit into the first of the Chinese eight-sound (pa yin) system, according to the materials from which they were made: 1) earth (pottery) 2) stone 3) metal 4) skin 5) wood 6) bamboo 7) gourds 8) silk. Notwithstanding the colourful names, the Chinese understood principles of acoustics and committed this knowledge to their superb pottery-making skills. The classification, "tz u", meant that a stoneware piece had to emit a musical note when struck: hardness was the ultimate quality of true porcelain. "Lu Yü, who is supposed to have written his Ch'a ching (Tea Classic) in the eighth century AD, judges porcelain solely in terms of its suitability for making tea-bowls." (Willetts 1958: 435) The criteria for these cups were close texture and pure sound. Scholar of Chinese archaeology, William Willetts, tells us that "During the T'ang dynasty "musical" cups came into vogue, arranged in sets of twelve, and later eight, to make up the notes of a musical scale". (1958:435).
In a short work on music "Yo fu tsa lu" (tenth century), Tuan An-chieh wrote that one of the officers appointed to compose music was Ku Tao-y uan. "He was skilled in the art of playing upon musical cups, and used twelve cups of Yueh-chou and Hsing-chou porcelain, the tones of which surpassed those of the hanging musical stones of jade" (Willets 1958:437). Yueh-chou cups, compared to both jade and ice, were coloured green which strengthened the colour of the tea, making it appear pale red while Hsing-chou porcelain, compared to silver and snow, is white, and the colour of the tea appeared to be bright red. These cups held up to half a pint of tea.
Thus, the tea-bowls exemplified quality: they were a refined interplay of use, sound, and appearance. In the Western world, we specialize; rarely do form, function and sound meet in the everyday objects of the rich or the poor. Unless it is a sound object such as a music box, sound tends to be a by-product of the manufacture. What a pleasure it must have been to drink tea from these cups!
Willets, William. Chinese Art 2. Penguin Books Ltd., 1958.