| The Tun-huang Musical Scores of Pipa are the ancient scores adapted to be played by pipa. The source was a series of manuscripts discovered in the Mogao Grottos at Tun-huang in1900. Obtained by a French scholar named Paul Pelliot in1909, they have become the collections of the Bibliotheque National in Paris. One of the numerous Buddhist scrolls found intact in the Mogao Grottos was entitled "Chung-hsing Hall section texts in the4th year of Chang-hsing." There detected25pieces of what appeared to be musical scores on the back; these are now widely known as the Tun-huang Musical Scores. The25pieces can be divided into three groups, the Group I, II and III, in accordance with three handwriting styles.The pipa scores brought to Japan from China during the Tang dynasty are still in use to this day in Gagaku, the Japanese classical court music. The Japanese scholar Kenzo Hayashi was the first to interpret the Tun-huang Musical Scores and adapted them into pipa scores, that is to say the Tun-huang Musical Scores of Pipa. With his interpretations of pipa tunings, meter and rhythm, he laid the foundation and made a great contribution to today’s research on the scores. This paper seeks to study Hayashi’s research achievements of over thirty years and intends to explore his research methods.This paper consists of three sections:the introduction, the text and the conclusion. The text contains five chapters.Chapter1provides background information of Kenzo Hayashi himself as well as the overviews of his study fields and research methods.Since analyzing the pipa tunings for Group1of the Tun-huang Musical Scores of Pipa are considered to be by far the most difficult work in his career, Chapter2Section1focuses solely on Hayashi’s study on Group I which contains10. Section2mainly describes the tunings used for Group II and III that comprise other15pieces and discusses how he established the tuning method.Chapter3presents Hayashi’s interpretation on meter and rhythm written in the Tun-huang Musical Scores of Pipa and how his opinions were revised at times while examining his publications in chronological order. Chapter4then describes his thorough research into the ancient literature and notations as well as playing technique and connection between poems and songs. These materials were indispensable for the interpretations of tunings, meter and rhythm.Chapter5explores Hayashi’s analytical methods which are considerable contributions to today’s research into the Tun-huang Musical Scores of Pipa. He proved the validity of his interpretations by categorizing the scores, estimating the pipa tunings, and explaining expression marks. |
