The musical rhythm of the Black-Naped Oriole

The Black-Naped Oriole is the most popular cí tune in the Staatsbibliothek poems. Looking in fascicle 36 of 新定九宮大成南北詞宮譜, there are four melodies set to different versions of the tune, recorded using gōngchě notation.

Of these, the third variant seems the best fit to the meter of the poems in the Staatsbibliothek manuscript, and we can use it to figure out not only the musical tune that accompanied the performance of a Black-Naped Oriole poem, but also the lengths assigned to each syllable when the poem was sung out loud.

The notes in gōngchě notation are recorded to the right of the syllable they accompany, and the timing is indicated by dots and circles to the right of the notes. The dots and circles represent the alternating weak and strong beats of a drum, and by looking at their placement in the tune, we can figure out how long most of the syllables were held for.

The shortest syllable length is half a beat, and all other syllable lengths are multiples of that. If we represent syllable lengths in half-beats (so the shortest syllable is length 1, double that is length 2, and so forth) the Black-Naped Oriole rhythm looks like the following:

Line 1:    1 - 1 - 1 - 3 - 6 (rhyme)
Line 2:    2 - 2 - 2 - 1 - 3 - 2 (rhyme)
Line 3:    1 - 1 - 2 - 2 - 1 - 3 - 5 (rhyme)
Line 4:    1 - 1 - 1 - 2 - 5 (rhyme)
Line 5:    1 - 1 - 1 - 2 - 2 (rhyme)
Line 6:    2 - 2 - 2 - 2 - 1 - 3 - 4  (rhyme)
Line 7:    2 - 2 - 2 (rhyme)
Line 8:    1 - 1 - 2 - 2 (non-rhyming line)
(caesura length 1)
Line 9:    1 - 2 - 1 - 3 - 2 (rhyme)

A number of really interesting features emerge when you look at the poem this way. One of these is that the caesura before line 9 (the punch-line) really is a caesura, and it looks like a unique feature of the Manchu performance of the Black-Naped Oriole. In the Chinese form there is actually a character there that occupies half a beat, but in Manchu there is never a syllable there, and the scribe often puts a line that visually indicates the presence of the caesura.

Another feature is a rhythmic theme at the ends of lines that runs 1 - 3 - 2+. It appears at the ends of lines 1, 2, and 3, but then there is something like a Western musical bridge in lines 4, 5 and 6. Lines 7 and 8 set up the punch-line, and the punch-line returns to the theme.

To apply this to a poem, here is the Fishing poem, with the theme in green and the bridge in blue.

tugi mukei ba
mini boo ya falga
ula tenggin hūi ciha
asu maktara
nimaha niša
nure hūlašacina
wei sasa
nurei hoki
(caesura)
bele edun biya