Fine-Tuning a Global History of Music Theory: Divergences, Zhu Zaiyu, and Music-Theoretical Instruments

Abstract

The issue of equal temperament offers an object lesson in the challenges of the new global history of music theory: 12-tone equal temperament was mathematically formulated at almost the same time in Ming-dynasty China and 16th-century Europe. While the old debate got stuck on questions of dates and cultural rivalries, recent work in comparative humanities, especially Kuriyama (2002), opens up new avenues. His concept of “divergence” is applied to the specific “music-theoretical instruments” in which Chinese and European theories of tuning manifested themselves in sound. Zhu Zaiyu’s pathbreaking 1584 theory is reexamined specifically from this angle: he credits the qin (zither) for holding knowledge that the 12 lü, the traditional Chinese pitch-pipes, could not convey. Zhu’s example—and the concept of “divergence”—offers ways forward for a new, materially oriented, global history of music theory.