Music Creating Literature and Literature Creating Music: Luo Yusheng's Beijing Drum Song Versions of the Story of Yu Boya and Zhong Ziqi

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Notes

1 I would like to express my sincere appreciation to the editor, David Rolston, and the two anonymous reviewers for their substantive help in revising this article.

2 Peter Dayan, Music Writing Literature: From Sand via Debussy to Derrida (Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing, 2006), p. 31.

3 Ibid., p. x.

4 Ibid., pp. 53–54.

5 Introductory information about the relationship between word tone and melody in representative genres of Chinese oral performing literature can be found in Francesca Lawson, The Narrative Arts of Tianjin: Between Music and Language (Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing, 2011), pp. 47–56. In this paper I focus on the broader issues of literary–musical relationships rather than the specifics of rendering word tone to melody.

6 See Kenneth DeWoskin, A Song for One or Two: Music and the Concept of Art in Early China (Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, The University of Michigan, 1982), pp. 172–73.

7 For a discussion about the role of music in Chinese culture as a mediator between different entities, see Erica Fox Brindley, Music, Cosmology, and the Politics of Harmony in Early China (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2012); on relationships between mortals and ghosts, see Judith Zeitlin, The Phantom Heroine: Ghosts and Gender in Seventeenth-Century Chinese Literature (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2007).

8 The historical figure was actually surnamed Bo and not Yu. His surname was widely taken to be Yu because of a pair of Ming dynasty vernacular short stories about him. Zhong Ziqi's real name is actually Zhong Qi, since the zi is just an honorific. For convenience, they will just be referred to as Boya and Ziqi below. It is interesting that in the classical versions of the story, Ziqi is referred to using an honorific while Boya is not, since this completely reverses the social hierarchy between them in the later fictional and popular versions of their story (see below).

9 For an introduction to the Beijing drum song genre, see Lawson, The Narrative Arts of Tianjin, pp. 77–95.

10 As a young artist, Luo was deeply influenced by the legendary founder of Beijing drum song, Liu Baoquan 劉寶全 (1868–1942), who is widely acknowledged as the “King of Drum Singing” (Gujie dawang 鼓界大王), and two of his distinguished contemporaries, Bai Yunpeng 白雲鵬 (1874–1952) and Bai Fengming 白鳳鳴 (1909–1980). Luo eventually became the disciple of Han Yonglu 韓永祿 (1876–1943), Liu Baoquan's “string master” or xianshi 弦師, who was able to train her according to the best traditions of the Liu 劉, Bai 白, and Shao Bai 少白 schools of Beijing drum song. For a discussion about those who influenced her musical style, see Tao Dun 陶钝, ed., Luo Yusheng yanchang Jingyun dagu xuan 駱玉笙演唱京韻大鼓選 (Selections of Beijing drum song as performed by Luo Yusheng; Tianjin: Baihua wenyi, 1983), p. 69, and Liu Shufang 劉書方, “Luo Yusheng changqiang yanjiu” 駱玉笙唱腔研究 (A study of Luo Yusheng's melodic style), Yinyue yanjiu 音樂研究 (Music research) 1983.3: 94–103. Although a comparison between the performances featured in this essay and different musical renditions made by her predecessors and contemporaries would be illuminating, such a project is beyond the scope of this piece.

11 Tao Dun, ed., Luo Yusheng yanchang Jingyun dagu xuan, table of contents.

12 I base my analyses on the transcriptions of the texts and cipher notation of Luo Yusheng's performances provided in Tao Dun, ed., Luo Yusheng yanchang Jingyun dagu xuan and the audio recordings of them available on the second CD of Luo Yusheng Jingyun dagu zhenban diancang 駱玉笙京韻大鼓珍版典藏 (Collector's edition of precious versions of Luo Yusheng's Beijing drum song; Beijing: China Record Company, 2003). Tao Dun does not indicate what recordings or versions of the pieces were used for the transcriptions in Luo Yusheng yanchang Jingyun dagu xuan, but it may be assumed that they were based on the versions that ended up on the CD. There are also several video and audio recordings of Luo's performances of these pieces available on the internet. See, for instance, http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMjc0OTY1Mg==.html; http://www.kuwo.cn/yinyue/282349/; http://www.kuwo.cn/yinyue/1594292/; http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMzMxMDA2NzQw.html; all accessed January 15, 2015.

13 See Tao Dun, ed., Luo Yusheng yanchang Jingyun dagu xuan, pp. 43 and 70. In 1925, under the title of “Ma'an shan” 馬鞍山 (Saddleback Mountain; the name of the site where the two friends meet in popular culture), Liu Baoquan recorded two 78 RPM record sides (mian 面) from the beginning of “Ziqi Listens to the Qin” for the Baidai 百代 record label (totaling under six minutes). They can be heard at http://oldrecords.xikao.com/person.php?name=刘宝全 (accessed January 5, 2015). As we will see, both Liu Baoquan and Luo Yusheng were trained to perform Beijing opera (Jingju 京劇; a.k.a., Peking opera). The traditional Jingju play that treats the story of Boya and Ziqi is also performed under the name of “Fuqin fangyou” 撫琴訪友 (Playing the qin and visiting a friend), “Boya shuaiqin” (or just “Shuaiqin”), and “Boya suiqin” 伯牙碎琴 (Boya shatters his qin), but “Ma'an shan” is used most often. Jin Huijun 金慧君 (1910–1973; stage name Xiaohei guniang 小黑姑娘), seems to have recorded the same two sections as Liu Baoquan for the Changcheng 長城 record label in 1931 (see http://oldrecords.xikao.com/person.php?name=金慧君; accessed January 5, 2015).

14 A version quite similar to the one translated below appears in Lü-shi chunqiu 呂氏春秋 (The annals of Master Lü), Chapter 14, “Xiaoxing lan” 孝行覽 (Filial conduct), second section,“Benwei” 本味 (Fundamental tastes), item 3. For a translation that includes the original Chinese text, see John Knoblock and Jeffrey R. Riegel, trs., The Annals of Lü Buwei (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000), p. 308. This encyclopedic text was compiled under the patronage of Lü Buwei 呂不韋 (291–235 BCE).

15 The version in the “Tang wen” (King Tang's questions) chapter of the Liezi 列子, a book that was compiled by Liu Xiang 劉向 (77–6 BCE), lacks Boya's smashing of his qin. For Chinese text and English translation, see Liang Xiaopeng 梁曉鵬 and Li Jianguo 李建國, eds., Liezi 列子 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2005), pp. 128–29.

16 R. H. van Gulik, The Lore of the Chinese Lute: An Essay in Ch'in Ideology (Tokyo: Sofia University and Charles E. Tuttle Company, 1969), p. 73. For the sake of consistency, here and below, non-pinyin romanization in quotations has been converted to pinyin.

17 Wang Liqi 王利器, ed., Fengsu tongyi jiaozhu 通俗通義校注 (Comprehensive meaning of customs and habits, collated and annotated; Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1981), Chapter Six, “Shengyin” 聲音 (Sound), section on the qin, p. 293.

18 A translation of the story under the title “Yu Boya Smashes His Zither in Gratitude to an Appreciative Friend” can be found in Shuhui Yang and Cuiqin Yang, trs., Stories to Caution the World: A Ming Dynasty Collection, Volume 2 (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2005), pp. 7–20. The original Chinese title of the story is “Yu Boya shuai qin xie zhiyin” 俞伯牙摔琴謝知音. The Chinese edition of reference below is Feng Menglong 馮夢龍, Jingshi tongyan 警世通言 (Taibei: Dingwen shuju, 1980). The two woodblock illustrations for the story are reproduced in the front matter. The first shows Boya on his boat playing his qin, facing out toward the middle of the river, with Ziqi standing on the bank, and the moon visible (but quite small). The second shows Boya asking Ziqi's father how to get to the village where Ziqi lives (Boya has two servants in attendance). There are other translations of this story, but this one is particularly interesting because it also includes Feng Menglong's marginal comments.

19 While Patrick Hanan did not identify this story as having been “written” by Feng himself, he did classify it as a “newer story” (from 1550 to the publication of the collections). He also pointed out that Feng's story is based on an earlier (published ca. 1610), relatively unknown vernacular story entitled “Guijian jiaoqing” 貴賤交情 (Friendship between the noble and humble). See Patrick Hanan, The Chinese Short Story: Studies in Dating, Authorship, and Composition (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1973), pp. 65, 75, and 239. For the text of “Guijian jiaoqing,” see Lu Gong 路工, ed., Guben pinghua xiaoshuo ji 古本平話小說集 (Collected ancient editions of vernacular fiction; Beijing: Renmin wenxue, 1984), pp. 95–106. Liu Shouhua 劉守華, “Boya, Ziqi chuanshuo de wenhua jiedu” 伯牙, 子期傳說的文化解讀 (The cultural meaning of oral traditions about Boya and Ziqi), Jianghan xueshu 江漢學術 (Jianghan academic journal) 32.1 (2013): 61–64, notes that the oral traditions about this story in the Wuhan area were listed in 2007 by Hunan Province as first level fei wuzhi wenhua yichan 非物質文化遺產 (intangible cultural heritage; p. 61) and that Feng Menglong actually toned down how the earlier vernacular story treated the social gulf between the two men (p. 63).

20 Liu Shufang 劉書方, “Kuxin bu jie tiandao chouqin: Tan guwang Liu Baoquan dui Jingyun dagu yinyuede gaige” 苦心不解天道酬勤: 談鼓王劉寶全對京韻大鼓音樂的改革 (Unending application, Heaven rewards diligence: On the reform of Beijing drum song music by Liu Baoquan, king of drum singing), Zhongguo yinyue xue 中國音樂學 (Musicology in China) 1987.1: 124, claims that the Jingyun dagu version of the story is based on a zidi shu 子弟書 (Manchu bannerman tale) version. For an example of a zidi shu version of the story, see Su wenxue congkan 俗文學叢刊 (Collectania of folk literature), 500 vols. (Taibei: Xin wenfeng, 2001–2005), 401: 1–51.

21 For a translation of the text of a 1962 recording of Luo Yusheng's (referred to by her original stage name, Xiao Caiwu 小彩舞) “Ziqi Listens to the Qin,” and an introduction to the piece and to Beijing drum song, see Rulan Chao Pian, “A Peking Drum Song,” in Victor H. Mair and Mark Bender, eds., The Columbia Anthology of Folk and Popular Literature (New York: Columbia University Press, 2011), pp. 413–19. This translation was originally published in Pian's “The Peking Drum Song, Tzu Ch'i Listening to the Ch'in,” in Festschrift for Dr. Chang Sa-hun, Articles on Asian Music (Seoul: Korean Musicological Society, 1977), pp. 281–96. The translation occurs on pp. 287–91 and the introductory material (which has been slightly modified for the Bender and Mair anthology version) on pp. 281–82. In addition, the older version includes the Chinese text (pp. 291–96; in both it and this version of the translation the couplets are numbered) and musical transcriptions (pp. 283–86) for passages that occur on pp. 47 (top half of page), 46 (second half of page), 45–46 (last line of first page and top half of second), and 47–48 (bottom half of first page to top of second page) of Tao Dun, ed., Luo Yusheng yanchang Jingyun dagu xuan. There are some minor differences between the text of this 1962 version and the text contained in the Tao volume. For example, Tao's version includes four additional lines after the interlude following the spoken section on page 57 and two additional lines from the bottom of page 67 to the top of page 68. Additionally, there are numerous non-lexical syllables added to “fill” the musical space throughout Tao's transcription. For the text of the piece as performed by Sun Shuyun 孫書筠 (1922–2011), see Hu Mengxiang 胡孟祥 and Wang Zhongyi 王中一, eds., Sun Shuyun Jingyun dagu yanchang ji 孫書筠京韻大鼓演唱集 (Collected Beijing drum song performance pieces of Sun Shuyun; Beijing: Zhongguo minjian wenyi, 1989), pp. 211–16 (very similar to the version in the Tao volume but with many small variants; the editors identify the piece as anonymous and traditional [pp. 216 and 249]).

22 The text is unclear as to how he travels to Hanyang. He is not described as returning to his boat after the initial stroll, but in the next sentence he is clearly back on the boat.

23 This interlude is abridged in the cipher notation (p. 45). In the recording by Liu Baoquan, it extends over approximately the last half-minute of the first side and the first half-minute of the second one.

24 This flowering plant is closely associated with the Mid-Autumn Festival.

25 The full moon at the Mid-Autumn Festival, just like the “Harvest Moon,” was thought to be the brightest and largest of the year. It is particularly meaningful that the earlier rainy sky has cleared up.

26 DeWoskin, A Song for One or Two, p. 145. The qin was the favorite instrument of the literati, whose writings on it and transcriptions of its music are truly voluminous. For an introduction to some of the more important aspects of the instrument, besides DeWoskin's book, the reader can consult Bell Yung, “Music of Qin: From the Scholar's Study to the Concert Stage,” in Joys H. Y. Cheung and King Chung Wong, eds., Reading Chinese Music and Beyond (Hong Kong: City University of Hong Kong, 2010); Fredric Lieberman, tr. and comment., A Chinese Zither Tutor: The Mei-an Ch'in-p'u (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1983); and Gulik, The Lore of the Chinese Lute.

27 DeWoskin, A Song for One or Two, p. 145. Xi Kang's 嵇康 (223–62) “Qin fu” 琴賦 is the most eloquent description of the material aspects of the qin (what material is best, where it can be found) and fashioning the instrument as a form of self-cultivation. For a translation of it, see R. H. van Gulik, Hsi K'ang and his Poetical Essay on the Lute (Tokyo: Sofia University and The Charles E. Tuttle Company, 1969), pp. 72–88.

28 Tao Dun, ed., Luo Yusheng yanchang Jingyun dagu xuan, pp. 45–48. The comparable description in Feng Menglong's story is much briefer (Yang and Yang, Stories to Caution the World, p. 9; Feng Menglong, Jingshi tongyan, p. 2).

29 As we will see below, Boya's final question for Ziqi is about the “theme” of what he was playing and Ziqi's answer repeats a line he quoted as he was listening.

30 In Jingju, for instance, the yueqin 月琴 (a plucked lute with round sounding chamber) is played in intended imitation of the sound of the qin. For a brief example of how this is done in a performance of “Ma'an shan,” see the opening of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLQZx_kpQRc, accessed January 9, 2015, before the narrator begins to speak, and at 7” into the clip to see the initial excerpt in context.

31 Dayan, Music Writing Literature, p. 101.

32 Despite Baudrillard's intention to explain this notion for a post-modern world, his explanation of a simulacrum as simulated representation appropriately describes how poetry simulates the musical performance in this context. See Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation, Sheila Faria Glaser, trans. (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2010), p. 6.

33 The accompanying instruments are the sanxian 三弦 (a three-stringed plucked lute), sihu 四胡 (a four-stringed bowed spike fiddle), and pipa 琵琶 (a four-string plucked lute with pear-shaped body).

34 For an introduction to erhuang and the other melody-types and rhythmic modes used in Beijing opera, see Elizabeth Wichmann, Listening to Theatre: The Aural Dimension of Beijing Opera (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1991), pp. 53–130.

35 Liu Baoquan, who had also been first trained to sing Beijing opera, is often credited as being the one who first included elements of Beijing opera erhuang music into the performance of “Ma'an shan.” In Luo Yusheng's dictated autobiography, Tanban xiange qishi qiu 檀板弦歌七十秋 (Seventy years performing Beijing drum song), Meng Ran 孟然, ed. (Beijing: Xinhua chuban she, 1993), p. 32, she describes how she finally got to see Liu perform in Nanjing in 1930 and talks of his use of erhuang in his version of “Ma'an shan.” In the same work, she says that when she first learned to sing drum songs it was “Erhuang dagu” 二黃大鼓 (Beijing drum songs with erhuang added), including “Ziqi Listens to the Qin,” which she learned from Wang Shuangfeng 王雙鳳 (p. 35). She also says that it was actually one of Liu Baoquan's teachers, Song Wu 宋五 (Song the Fifth; a.k.a., Song Yukun 宋玉昆), who first added erhuang to “Ma'an shan” (p. 56; she says that she got this information from Han Yonglu 韓永祿).

36 Tao Dun, ed., Luo Yusheng yanchang Jingyun dagu xuan, p. 58 (when sung, the line actually has three interpolated instances of the character na 那 [that], which function as a non-lexical syllable). Gulik, The Lore of the Chinese Lute, cites a 14-item list of prohibitions given in a Ming handbook for the qin. The item that seems closest to the intent of the one Ziqi cites just says don't play for “vulgar people” (suzi 俗子; p. 60 n1). In Feng Menglong's version, Ziqi does not explicitly say that Boya has broken any rule. Instead, before he is invited onto the boat, Ziqi impresses Boya by successfully identifying the background and content of the tune Boya was just playing (Yang and Yang, Stories to Caution the World, p. 9; Feng Menglong, Jingshi tongyan, p. 3), something that is reserved for the final question in the drum song (see below), while in Feng's version, Ziqi presents Boya with an extended list of the rules for qin playing, including the prohibitions and the one about only playing for zhiyin right before Boya mentions the story about Confucius’ seeing a cat stalk a mouse while he plays the qin (Yang and Yang, Stories to Caution the World, p. 12; Feng Menglong, Jingshi tongyan, pp. 4–5 [on this last anecdote, see footnote 40 below]).

37 As we have seen, no such concern seems to prevent direct imitation of the qin in Beijing opera.

38 Tao Dun, ed., Luo Yusheng yanchang Jingyun dagu xuan, pp. 64–65.

39 He does not give the name of the piece, but instead repeats something he said about it when he first heard it: “Confucius sighed over Yan Hui as someone of great talent but short-lived” 孔仲尼嘆顏回才高他的命短 (Tao Dun, ed., Luo Yusheng yanchang Jingyun dagu xuan, pp. 52, 68). The piece is surely one in the traditional qin repertoire entitled “Qi Yan Hui” 泣顏回 (Crying over Yan Hui). For a video of someone playing it, see http://www.tudou.com/programs/view/xZi5hUBaUJw/, accessed January 6, 2015. For a transcription in both cipher notation and traditional qin tablature, see Tang Jianyuan 唐建垣, Qinfu琴府 (Treasury of qin material; Taibei: Lianguan chuban she, 1973), pp. 2744–45.

40 Feng Menglong's version includes Ziqi twice successfully identifying what Boya is thinking of (first a tall mountain and then flowing water) as he plays his qin, but prefaces that by having Boya tell Ziqi an anecdote in which Yan Hui hears Confucius playing the zither but is puzzled because he detects murderous thoughts in the music (Confucius explains, when asked by him, that he was watching a cat chase a rat). See Yang and Yang, Stories to Caution the World, pp. 12–13; Feng Menglong, Jingshi tongyan, p. 5. For a similar anecdote in which the murderous thoughts heard in the music are there because the player is watching a praying mantis about to pounce on a cicada, see DeWoskin, A Song for One or Two, p. 182.

41 Even though in common parlance the term is zhiyin, the text refers to Ziqi as a zhiyinzhe.

42 See Brindley, Music, Cosmology, and the Politics of Harmony, p. 126; DeWoskin, A Song for One or Two, p. 162.

43 Brindley, Music, Cosmology, and the Politics of Harmony, pp. 128–29.

44 Dayan, Music Writing Literature, p. 94.

45 Switching the date of the rendezvous to the spring is a rather severe departure from the version in Feng Menglong's story, and one that appears to have been motivated solely because chun 春 (spring) is in the rhyme-category being used and qiu 秋 (autumn) is not. This sacrifices the original idea that they will meet precisely one year later, on a specific date (the Mid-Autumn Festival), a date and season with rich and useful associations.

46 In Feng Menglong's story, Boya remembers that it was his playing of the qin that led to their first meeting and so he plays it again not to relieve his feelings but in the hope that it will bring Ziqi to him (Yang and Yang, Stories to Caution the World, p. 16; Feng Menglong, Jingshi tongyan, p. 8).

47 One line, sung by the narrator, says that several (ji 幾) of the strings broke, while in the next line, which is in dialogue and not sung, the narrator says that Boya saw that all (jun 均) of the strings had broken. The qin has seven strings, and it is quite improbable that they would all break at once. In Feng Menglong's story, no string breaks. Instead, Boya quits playing because the sound of one of the strings is “sad and resentful” (aiyuan 哀怨). He thinks that this means that one of Ziqi's parents has died. Because of that, when he goes to look for Ziqi the next morning, he has his servant bring what would be needed to help Ziqi conduct funeral services for his dead parent (Yang and Yang, Stories to Caution the World, p. 16; Feng Menglong, Jingshi tongyan, p. 8).

48 In Feng Menglong's version, it is not until after Ziqi's father has basically blamed Boya for Ziqi's death before he finds out that the person he is speaking to is none other than Boya (Yang and Yang, Stories to Caution the World, p. 18; Feng Menglong, Jingshi tongyan, p. 9).

49 Tao Dun, ed., Luo Yusheng yanchang Jingyun dagu xuan, p. 76.

50 See Wichmann, Listening to Theatre, pp. 204–11.

51 On inverse (fan) modes in general, see Wichmann, Listening to Theatre, pp. 111–16. Luo Yusheng, in Tanban xiange qishi qiu, p. 331, notes that it was not until 1944 that she, with the help of Liu Wenyou 劉文有, successfully incorporated fan erhuang into “Boya Smashes His Qin.” On the same page she lists this piece and “Ziqi Listens to the Qin” as two of her “representative pieces” (daibiao jiemu 代表節目). Curiously, the Beijing opera play “Ma'an shan” uses only erhuang and not fan erhuang.

52 Ruth Herbert, Everyday Music Listening: Absorption, Dissociation and Trancing (Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing, 2011), p. 197.

53 My transcriptions are based on my experience listening to Luo's 1962 recording, and I have only notated the instrumental portions when Luo is not singing. Although the instruments do accompany the vocal line heterophonically, I have chosen to focus on her singing and the instrumental sections only as they punctuate her vocal lines. I have also chosen to transcribe the musical examples using Western notation because it is more visually descriptive in notating melodic nuances and grace notes (花腔 huaqiang) than the cipher notation used in Tao's transcription. It should also be mentioned that, in addition to the cipher transcription in the Tao volume, Han Baoli also transcribed Luo's performances of the two pieces (without dividing them into sections) from a 1989 recording in Zhongguo quyi yinyue jicheng: Tianjin juan 中国曲艺音乐集成: 天津卷 (Collection of Chinese quyi music: Tianjin volume; Beijing: Zhongguo ISBN zhongxin, 1993), pp. 283–314.

54 In the transcriptions, under the notation, I include romanization with tone marks to make it easier to see how the melodic contours relate to the tonal contours of the syllables.

55 In the Feng Menglong and Beijing opera versions of the story, this concern on the part of Boya for Ziqi's parents climaxes at the end of both in Boya's announcement that he is Ziqi and Ziqi is him (Feng: Wu ji Ziqi, Ziqi ji wu ye 吾即子期, 子期即吾也; Beijing opera: Ziqi shi wo. . . . Wo shi Ziqi 子期是我. . . . 我是子期.) In “Boya shuaiqin,” Boya does not make such a claim but he does say that “On behalf of my worthy younger brother, I will take care of his parents” 我替賢弟孝雙親 (Tao Dun, ed., Luo Yusheng yanchang Jingyun dagu xuan, p. 82). All three versions, however, end with Boya parting from Ziqi's father.

56 In Beijing opera, a typical fan erhuang suite will begin with a slower aria in the 4/4 time of man sanyan 慢三言 (slow meter with three subsidiary beats), at the end of which the couplet structure breaks down, a short phrase is repeated, and the final phrase is unmetered and basically an interjection (as happens in example 3). The next aria in the Beijing opera suite is then in the faster, 2/4, tempo of yuanban 原板 (primary meter).

57 In the versions prior to the two drum songs we have focused on, Ziqi's qualifications as a true “knower of the tone” are proven first and foremost by his ability to hear what Boya is thinking through his qin playing. In the case of this qin performance in “Boya Smashes His Qin,” Ziqi is not explicitly a member of the audience, and the audiences of the piece do not have to guess what Boya is thinking—they are told directly.

58 Herbert, Everyday Music Listening, p. 197.

59 This might also somewhat explain the disparity between the claim that Boya played without stopping and the fact that in the narrative the impression is given that he did not play for very long at all.

60 Dayan, Music Writing Literature, p. 10.

61 The smashing is, of course, followed by ten-plus lines in which, among other things, Ziqi's father attempts to speak for his son.

62 Boya and Ziqi did have a fairly robust career in the Later Han and the Six Dynasties (265–589) period as immortals. They were depicted on bronze mirrors and wall paintings and were supposed to help the dead transition to the world beyond mortal existence. See Lü Qinjuan 吕勤娟, “Hanjing tuxiang zhong ‘Boya tanqin’ shenhua” 漢鏡圖像中的 ‘伯牙彈琴’ 神話 (The mythology of “Boya playing the qin” in images on Han dynasty mirrors), Wenwu jiandian yu jianshang 文物鑒定與鑒賞 (The evaluation and appreciation of cultural objects) 2014.11: 64–67, and Wang Zhongxu, “Dunhuang Foyemiao wan mu Boya tan qin huaxiang zhi yuanyuan yu hanyi” 敦煌佛爺廟灣墓伯牙彈琴畫像之淵源與含義 (The origins and meaning of the images of Boya playing the qin at the Foye Temple in Dunhuang), Gugong bowuyuan yuankan 故宮博物院院刊 (Journal of the Palace Museum) 2008.1: 93–107. For an excellent discussion about ghostly characters in Chinese literature, see Zeitlin, The Phantom Heroine.

63 This piece is based on a zidi shu by Han Xiaochuang 韓小窗 (fl. 1830–1890).

64 This piece is also based on a zidi shu by Han Xiaochuang that is in turn based on scene 29 of Hong Sheng's 洪昇 (1645–1704) Changsheng dian 長生殿 (The palace of eternal youth).

65 Zeitlin, The Phantom Heroine, p. 54.

66 Ibid.

67 Ibid., p. 67.

68 It was noted in footnote 62 above that for a certain period of time images of Boya and Ziqi as immortals were popular, but this tradition died out.

69 DeWoskin, A Song for One or Two, p. 105.

70 Ibid., p. 140.

71 Ibid., p. 141.

72 Burton Watson, tr., The Complete Book of Chuang Tzu (New York: Columbia University Press, 1968), p. 302, discussed in DeWoskin, A Song for One or Two, p. 140.

73 Guo Qingfan 郭慶藩, ed., Zhuangzi jishi 莊子集釋 (Collected explanation edition of Zhuangzi; Taibei: Daming Wang-shi, 1975), p. 944.

74 Watson, tr., The Complete Book of Chuang Tzu, p. 32.

75 Guo Qingfan, ed., Zhuangzi jishi, p. 17.

76 DeWoskin, A Song for One or Two, p. 180. DeWoskin's explanation of the Daoist view of audient perception is uncannily similar to American composer and bioacoustician David Dunn's own views about music in the absence of cultural definitions and boundaries: “Music not only primarily consists of the perception of sound in time but it is the perceiver that is engaged in both organizing that perception and assigning it meaning. Beyond this is the realization that this capacity takes place regardless of the intention of the composer or the specific nature of sounds occurring in an environment. It is the nature of perception that is the fundamental ground from which all music arises and not its materials, structures or communicative intent.” See David Dunn, “Santa Fe Institute Public Lecture, August 15, 2001,” posted as http://www.davidddunn.com/~david/writings/sfilecture.PDF (accessed January 10, 2015), p. 6. On the same page Dunn quotes Sean Cubitt: “Music from Russolo to Cage strips itself of inessentials—melody, harmony, counterpoint—to encompass all hearing, transferring the musician's mode of listening to the sounds of the world.” In this lecture Dunn does not identify the source for this quotation, but in a different work he identifies the same quote as coming from a 1996 lecture Cubitt gave in Rotterdam, “Online Sound and Virtual Architecture.”

77 The question as to whether or not Luo and/or her audiences might have believed in a post-mortem relationship between the two friends is, of course, moot. Without having interviewed her or members of her audiences about this question, I do not know whether or not they might have considered this a possibility. However, it is noteworthy that in the zidi shu version of the pieces mentioned above, Ziqi's spirit actually appears and says goodbye to Boya when the latter returns, is frustrated by Ziqi's absence, and drops off to sleep (pp. 34–35).

78 Dayan, Music Writing Literature, p. 131.

79 Tao Dun, ed., Luo Yusheng yanchang Jingyun dagu xuan, comments after “Boya Smashes His Qin,” p. 83.

80 Ibid.