TOUCH AND THE LORE OF THE CHINESE LUTE

This now is it. Your deepest need and desire is satisfied by the moment's energy here in your hand. - Rumi

The lore of the Chinese lute gives us an unparalleled window into touch technique. The descriptions and imagery of the kinds of touch used for lute-playing show us that we in the West have a highly underdeveloped vocabulary and imagery for the vast range of gestures, shapes and spirit conveyed through the infinite and different ways we touch. 

Here are sixteen rules for the tones of the lute as adapted from R. H. van Gulik’s “The Lore of the Chinese Lute.”

1.  Ch’ing – The Light Touch
The light touch is the most difficult of all. When applying the light touch one should consider the string being as thin as one single silk thread of one ten-thousandth of an inch.

2.  Sung – The Loose Touch
The loose touch should evoke an impression as of water rising in waves, its substance should evoke an impression as of pearls rolling in a bowl; its sound should be like the resonance of intoning a text.

3.  Ts’ui – The Crisp Touch
The resonance should be like metal or stone; the movement of the fingers should be like the rising wind.

4.  Sua – The Gliding Touch
The tones tend to be drawn out, and to follow each other in slow succession, like the bubbling sound of a stream, that goes on gurgling endlessly.

5.  Kao – The Lofty Touch
This touch is of the utmost tranquility, like a deep well that can not be fathomed, like a high mountain whose top is lost to the eye.  It flows on, like streams that are never exhausted, and it is soundless like the three-fold sound of emptiness.

6.  Chieh – The Pure Touch
In order to perfect the wondrous finger technique, one must necessarily start with cultivating purity in oneself. The way of perfecting finger technique passes from being to non-being, through multiplicity to simplicity.

7.  Ch’ing – The Clear Touch
Then left and right hand shall be like Male and Female Phoenix, chanting harmoniously together. These tones shall in truth freeze alike heart and bones, and it shall be as if one were going to be bodily transformed into an Immortal.

8.  Hsü – The Empty Touch
When the spirit of the melody is expressed, then the heart will become serene as a matter of course; the tones shall naturally be empty with the self-sufficiency of a deep well and irradiating splendour.

9.  Yu – The Profound Touch
Let the fingers express what the heart experiences. The music will be broad and generous like the wind, and unstained by earthly dust.

10.  Chi – The Rare Touch
The rare touch appears in the vibrato and the glissando.  It should evoke an impression as if a thousand mountain peaks vied with each other in verdure, as if the ten thousand streams emulated each other’s effervescence.

11.  Ku – The Antique Touch
It should be grand, broad, and simple, unmoved like a profound mountain like a cavernous vale, like an old tree or a cool stream, like the rustling wind, causing the hearer suddenly to realize the True Way.

12.  T’an – The Simple Touch
Where is it that simplicity dwells? I love its flavour which is like snow or ice. I love its echo, which is like the wind blowing over pines, like rain on bamboo, like lapping waves.

13.  Chung – The Balanced Touch
Only the most excellent musicians are able to transmit this sound, the echo of the empty vale.

14.  Ho – The Harmonious Touch
Neither overdoing nor falling short; it is modulated on the strings, it is experienced in the fingers, it is diversified into the notes.  Then the soul shall be free and the spirit at rest, fingers and strings melt together, and the pure harmony that leaves no trace shall be produced.

15.  Chi – The Quick Touch
The little swift touch must be firm, yet the movement of the fingers should suggest floating clouds and flowing water. The great swift touch the sounds will become like a cascade falling from a high place. 

16.  Hsü – The Slow Touch
Tones are produced here by the fingers broadly roaming over the strings, but observing the right measure – then naturally one produces the rarefied tones of antiquity, and gradually one penetrates the deepest mystery of this music.

How can one read this list and not be inspired to more deeply consider the kinds and qualities of touch that, when cultivated assiduously, will result in the receivers’ opportunity to experience the True Way and the deepest mysteries of this body, mind and spirit?