Originally I transcribed this 1589 version in an attempt to understand more deeply the rhythm of Jiu Kuang.⁴ What is heard today is usually based on the reconstruction of the 1425 version made by the eminent qin player Yao Bingyan (1920 - 83) in the 1950s.⁵ Yao's reconstruction uses triple rhythms. My original transcription, done before I had heard Yao's version, was in duple rhythm. Virtually all other players follow Yao in using triple rhythms. Traditional qin tablature does not directly indicate rhythm, so how much flexibility was there within the tradition?⁶ To my knowledge, triple rhythms have never been confirmed elsewhere in traditional Chinese music. On the other hand, the triple rhythm versions can certainly be interesting and beautiful. So what is the chance that they have historical authenticity?

This question is particularly important because the triple rhythms commonly heard in modern performances of Jiu Kuang have led a number of writers and even scholars to come up with some new theories about rhythm in early Chinese music. These people apparently were not aware that the idea of triple rhythms for Jiu Kuang came exclusively from Yao Bingyan.

According to what Yao Bingyan wrote in an article on this subject,⁷ when he originally reconstructed Jiu Kuang in the 1950s he used double rhythm; it was later that he changed this to triple rhythms. He knew that triple rhythms were not a known part of traditional Chinese music, but he observed that there were triple rhythms in poetry, the Tang qin master Chen Zhuo described music that could be played triple rhythm,⁸ and Jiu Kuang sounded good in triple rhythm. As a result, he concluded that a correct interpretation required triple rhythms. As mentioned, since then other players have almost exclusively followed this, though perhaps making the tempo irregular, so as to represent the idea of drunkenness.

Yao's reasoning is very interesting. Sometimes I have played Jiu Kuang that way and enjoyed the triple rhythms. However, I never found Yao's reasoning convincing enough to be comfortable with the fact that everyone was playing it that way. And in particular, if I was going to start using triple rhythms I wanted to find out whether they would work with the other surviving versions of Jiu Kuang.

As it turns out, it is difficult but not impossible to put the related melody Liu Shang into triple rhythms, but triple rhythms sound extremely strange when applied to the surviving sung versions. So without saying Yao is wrong, for my own recording of the 1425 version I used predominantly 4/4 rhythms.⁹

As for the sung versions, I found the 1589 version particularly interesting because to my mind it turns the SQMP melody into a quite singable drinking song. Its preface is somewhat different from those in SQMP and Xilutang Qintong, but it still concerns Ruan Ji and the other sages trying to stay away from the machinations of the Sima clan, who controlled the Jin dynasty. The lyrics can easily be sung in duple rhythm, but sound strange in triple rhythm. The basic theme of the lyrics is that we enjoy drink, but we drink in a refined manner because we are gentlemen; this is different from the way the vulgar masses drink. The section titles are also quite evocative.

As for the compiler of the 1589 version, Yang Lun, it is known that he was a recluse in Nanjing.¹⁰ Unfortunately, little else is known, and there are no records indicating how this or any of the sung versions of Jiu Kuang came about, or on what occasions they might have been sung. Since there are three surviving sung versions, the earliest dated 1585 and the last one dated 1618, one can speculate that at one time there were more versions, but that if they were written down, the tablature and/or lyrics did not survive. I have not been able to make the version of 1585 singable; the one from 1618 is very similar to 1589.

As with other qin songs, Jiu Kuang is very word intensive: the lyrics are attached to the music throughout, the Chinese characters (syllables) applied to the music largely on the basis of one character for each right hand stroke, plus for certain left hand plucks. So to give the voice a break during the seven sections, when I created my own version of the Jiu Kuang song I decided to add an instrumental interlude between each section. These instrumental interludes come entirely from the 1425 version.

Although the 1425 version of Jiu Kuang was divided into only four sections, the fourth section was by far the longest. So sub-dividing the fourth section into four separate sections allowed the 1425 SQMP to have seven sections, just as does the 1589 version; both add a coda. This combined version begins with 1425 Section 1, then playing 1589 section 1; it continues like this, ending with the 1589 coda. Because the 1589 sections are sung but the 1425 sections are not, simply by listening one can clearly distinguish between the two versions, thereby gaining a basic understanding of the relationship between them.

This also makes it possible to assess more deeply the appropriateness of using triple rhythms for Jiu Kuang.

Jiu Kuang lyrics (1589; Listen to my recordings in either Chinese ¹¹ or 聽英文 English.¹²)

Jiu Kuang Preface of 1589 : (compare the 1425 preface) ²⁷

 
Footnotes (Shorthand references are explained on a separate page)

1. 40655.70 酒狂 mentions drunken madness in Han Shu and Bo Juyi, but nothing on music. (Return)

2. Ruan Ji 阮籍 himself is also said to have played the qin, though some sources apparently say it was the zheng zither. (Return)

3. Zha Fuxi's Guide, 3/31/36 and 19/180/--; see also the appendix with the 1425 introduction. In sum, the six versions are musically related but no two are identical. The 1539 and 1549 versions have more differences from SQMP (1425) than do their versions of most pieces from SQMP Folio I. The last three all have lyrics, but none of these can be matched to the SQMP music.
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4. It was also for the same reason that I learned Liu Shang. (Return)

5. 姚丙炎 Yao Bingyan. There are many recordings by Yao and others, all with metal strings (see my comments under silk strings. Bell Yong, Celestial Airs of Antiquity, 1997, has a transcription and some discussion, but there is no mention of the metal strings or of the oddity of the triple rhythm.

Xu Jian, QSCB, Chapter 3.B. (pp.36-7) mentions the triple rhythms as though they are an inherent part of the melody, rather than Yao Bingyan's interpretation from the 1950s. (Return)

6. By tradition qin melodies are learned from a teacher, not from tablature. If a melody does not change through several tablatures this may be evidence that it was played from the tablature. There is some discussion of this in the article Historically Informed Performance (see in particular the section Traditional Chinese HIP?). (Return)

7. See Yinyue Yishu, 1981 #5; this and some other related articles by Yao are listed in the bibliography. (Return)

8. In Qinshu Daquan (1590), Folio 8 (QQJC, Vol.V, p.171), Chen Zhuo writes things like, "A four character phrase where the rhythm has three". However, it is not clear to me what this means. (Return)

9. To my mind it is quite clear that Liu Shang and the qin song versions of Jiu Kuang should not have triple rhythm. An argument that they are appropriate for the 1425 Jiu Kuang should thus center on the fact that the tablature is in SQMP, Folio I, melodies for which Zhu Quan said he could find no players. Perhaps at some time prior to the Ming dynasty the melody truly was played in triple rhythms, so the double rhythms used in the Ming dynasty were their incorrect interpretation. However, I do not know of any evidence to support this argument. (Return)

10. 楊掄 Yang Lun
(Return) 11. 楊掄太古遺音酒狂小標題、歌辭﹕ 錄音又有中文唱， 又有英文唱。
The original Chinese section titles and lyrics from Yang Lun Taigu Yiyin are as follows (listen; compare English)

I subsequently modified the English lyrics here so that they could be sung along with the 1589 melody. Although the 1589 melody has lyrics all the way through, instrumental interludes can be added by alternating the 7 sections into which the SQMP version is here divided with the 7 sections of the sung 1589 version, below. This is what I do in my recording, linked below. (In fact the first three lines here can be sung with the opening of the SQMP version.) (Return)

13. The Chinese says 杜康 "Du Kang", the name of a famous wine maker of the 4th c. BCE.
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14. See 襄陽歌 Xiangyang Ge, by the famous poet and drinker 李白 Li Bai (701 -762).
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15. 王績 Wang Ji (585 - 644) wrote a Land of Wine Annal (醉鄉記 Zui Xiang Ji).
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16. Money was usually carried in 貫錢 strings of cash.
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17. The last two Shang dynasty kings had a wine pond with a mound of wine sediment (lees).
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18. Daoist immortals were sometimes called "feather men" (羽人 yuren)
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19. See Li Bai's 獎金酒 Jiang Jin Jiu
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20. Unjust rulers, of course.
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21. See again Xiangyang Ge; 玉山 Yu Shan was 嵇康 Xi Kang, who often stumbled when drunk.
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22. This whole verse refers to stories about Li Bai.
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23. 低地吐酒 Didi tu jiu (Bending over to exhale wine)
     吐酒山翁聲款款 Tu jiu shanweng sheng "kuan kuan" (Calmly the rustic exhales his wine)
     仙人吐酒聲 Xianren Tujiu Sheng (Sound of the Immortal Exhaling his Wine)
A Daoist practice is to exhale bad energies from the body. This idea comes up both as a section title and in the lyrics.

For didi 539.18 says low sound, quoting 西廂記 Xi Xiang Ji. Tu jiu can also mean "retch wine" (嘔 ou), but my interpretation of "tu" here comes from 3359.39 吐納 tu na, a Daoist 修煉 ascetic skill by which people expell impurities (bad qi) inside themselves; there is an example in Qinshu Daquan, Folio 17, #53. Another idea is that this tu might resemble the way Daoist priests spray wine from their mouths during religious ceremonies.
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24. Liu Ling: 3rd C. sage; Bi Zhuo: 3rd/4th c. drinker; Tao Qian: 4th c. poet.
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25. Again see Li Bai's Jiang Jin Jiu.
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26. They are more concerned with achieving an elevated state!
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27. The original preface begins as follows,

28. The original Chinese section titles for the 1589 edition are:

1. 天地鴻茫
2. 醉舞飛仙
3. 浩歌天地
4. 嗜酒形骸
5. 花牋草掃
6. 低低吐酒
7. 托酒徉（佯？）狂
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