上古中国人的用耳之道——兼论若干音乐学概念和哲学概念的起源

The Way the Ancient Chinese Used their Ears:With a Discussion of the Origins of Several Musicological and Philosophical Concepts

在书写产生之前,人们主要用听、说来交流和传播知识。通过长期实践,上古中国人建立了对耳和听觉能力的认识与崇拜,也建立了与视觉相对的听觉知识系统,亦即由气象学、历律学、诗学、度量衡学、阴阳学说和各种夜晚知识组成的系统。这个系统以"风""气"为核心概念,在以耳听风、以音律察气、以声音通神、吹律管听军声、发人声听军声、吹律命名、候气等仪式活动的基础上,概括出了"三才""阴阳""丝竹不如肉""声气相应""听之以气""同律度量衡""乐从和"等理论。其承载者则是与"史"相对、以"师"为名的瞽矇集团。直到公元6世纪或更晚的时候,中国主流音乐一直保持了轻节奏、轻旋律而重音高的传统,强调"平和""雅正"的传统,"律""历"合志的传统,神秘主义传统。这都反映了"乐生于音,音生于律,律生于风"的历史过程,有助于重新认识乐、律等事物的起点和初始本质。

Before writing,people mainly communicated through hearing and speaking.Through long practice,the ancient Chinese gained a knowledge and reverence for the ear and the sense of hearing,and set up a system of acoustic knowledge that corresponded to the system of visual knowledge.This was composed of the learning associated with meteorology,the calendar,poetics,metrology,yin-yang theory,and various kinds of knowledge of the night.The system took wind and qi(breath or bodily energy)as key concepts,generalizing them in theoretical terms as the'three talents,''yin and yang,''strings and woodwindscannot match the voice,''voice and qi correspond,''listening with qi,''deriving other measures from measurement of tonality,'and'music follows harmony.'These were based on hearing the wind;examining the qi through tonality;using sound to reach the gods;hearing an army's movements by blowing apitch pipe;and other ritual activities.Unlike record keepers,the bearers of this knowledge were blind musicians,known as masters.Until the sixth century or later,mainstream Chinese music maintained a tradition of placing less weight on rhythm and melody than on pitch and stressing traditions of calmness and elegance,harmonizing tonality and the calendar,and mysticism.All of this reflects the historical process in which'music originates in the voice,the voice in tonality,and tonality in qi,'which facilitates a renewed understanding of the starting points and original nature of music and tonality.