Gunnison Valley News | 1919-09-05 | Page 6 | Ratio Makes for Harmony

! RATIO MAKES FOR HARMONY Peculiar Arrangement of Chinese Musical Musi-cal Instruments Said to Be Work of Chinese Emperor. The characteristic musical instrument instru-ment of the Chinese is a series of bum-hno bum-hno tubes, the longest of which measures meas-ures about nine inches, and of which the remainder diminish in length at a regular ratio, each being just Iwo-thlrds Iwo-thlrds the length of the one before. This arrangement was devised by the Chinese they say. by the Emperor Huung-Ti on the following principle: Between heaven and earth there is perfect per-fect harmony. Now, the number three is the emblem of heaven and two of earth. If then two pipes or tubes be made in the proportion of three to two, they will harmonize in tone as perfectly as earth and heaven. So the base tube of the instrument was made nine Inches long and the second two-thirds two-thirds that length, or six inches. Of course, the third has to be two-thirds the length of the second, or four Inches; and so on. The result was that the note of the second tube was what we call an Interval of a fifth above that of the first, that of the third a fifth above the second, and so on through the whole range.