Letter from Professor Pian to Mary Lou Little, Librarian, Eda Kuhn Loeb Music Library, with helpful information about catalog cards for Chinese materials, 1967

Letter from Professor Pian to Mary Lou Little, Librarian, Eda Kuhn Loeb Music Library, with helpful information about catalog cards for Chinese materials, 1967

1967 年趙如蘭教授致音樂圖書館資深館員 Mary Lou Little 的信，其中提及中文資料目錄卡片的相關信息

Transcription:

Harvard University
Department of Far Eastern Languages
2 Divinity Avenue
Cambridge 38, Massachusetts

May 21, 1967

Miss Marylou Little
The Music Library
Music Building

Dear Miss Little:

Here are the cards with the information which I think relevant for your purposes. The ideal way is to have both the romanization and the English translations, where available, on the card, but organized under subject headings. So far I have made only eight kinds of distinctions on my cards: Peking Opera, Classical Opera (kuenchu), Regional theatrical music (although the Cantonese opera is a big heading itself), Musical Narratives (a traditional genre of professional entertainments), New style musical drama (of the last 2 or 3 decades at most, some portions based upon folk melodies and idioms), Traditional style instrumental music, Folk song arrangements, and Choral music (using some folk materials). I shall be most interested to see how you arrange them.

I have supplied translations for most of the Peking Opera works and some of the more well known instrumental works. They are tentative. Even the most famous ones seem to have several translations in English books. Do you think it is worth while to ask the Chinese Library staff to put in the characters on your finished cards? The Chinese library card-catalogue has them. Mr. Wu might even prefer to have them and be willing to cooperate on this. I have used the following terms for the instruments. Please adjust them as you see fit.

[handwritten note] why not use these terms

Zither: when used alone, it means the l6-stringed jeng, with movable bridges.
Chyn: I have always used the Chinese name. Technically it is a 7-stringed zither, with no bridges.
Oboe: the double-reed suoonah, with a bell-shaped pipe.
pipe: vertical wind instrument with a large double-reed, the goan.
Flute: I mean the horizontal 6-holed flute which has a thin vibrating membrane, which is called dyitzyy.
Vertical flute: known as the shiau, vertical wind instrument without reed or membrane, has a mellow tone.
Fiddle: when used alone, this means the hwu-chyn, the 2-stringed bowed instrument, with very high pitch. Usually used only in opera performances.
Alto-fiddle: the ellhwu, a 2-stringed fiddle of mellower tone. Nowadays often used as a solo instrument.
High-range fiddle: I really do not know. However, I suspect it is pretty close to an ellhwu. Called gauhwu.
Middle range fiddle: probably a little lower than the ellhwu, called Jonghwa. (These last two instruments are recent innovations.)

I still have some doubts about some of the regional, non-Chinese tribal instruments.
I would like to have a set of the finished cards for my own use. I shall be glad to pay for them.

Sincerely,
Rulan Chao Pian

Courtesy of Loeb Music Library / 哈佛大學音樂圖書館 提供

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