古琴尚韻不尚聲勢 The guqin's resonance is valued higher than its sound volume

節錄張清治先生於1985年的一篇文--[琴境圖說]
Quote from Mr. Chang Chin-Chi's article [Qín Jìng Túshuō] published in 1985

'古琴尚韻不尚聲勢" The guqin's resonance is valued higher than its sound volume/ force. 
Is my English translation of this saying ok?

以下是我的臉簿友們的回應, 我覺得很值得分享, Below are my FB friends' response and I love this discussion and would like to share them here...· 

• Stephen C. Walker Flavor/tone color rather than resonance? Resonance mainly suggests that the sound is long-lasting.

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• Juni L Yeung Stephen C. Walker: What happens if it IS resonance that the source text is talking about? As we know, pre-1603 and post-1603 qin music have drastically different aesthetics...
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• Stephen C. Walker Hence the question-mark.  I guess knowledge of the source would help.
  
  
• Shuengit Chow 尚韻 : nuance? Its in the suggestion, the play of the entending non spoken sounds which follows the original "attack" as well?
  
  
• Peiyou Chang 語出張清治先生於1985年寫的一篇文--[琴境圖說], “Resonance” 的英文是在他文中提出的: “... 古琴尚韻(Resonance), 不尚聲勢. 蓋音樂之道!有以聲勝者, 有以音勝者,有以韻勝者; 若古琴者, 純以韻勝, 不然便是[煩手淫聲], 乃[慆堙心耳], [君子弗聽]. 余以為善品者,品其餘味,善聽者,聽其餘韻...”
  
  *慆堙(tao yin)心耳 –查了字典, 意為喜悅縱慢的音充塞耳朵.
  
  
• Chen Zhang Mr. Zhang may be limiting the meaning of 韻 by translating it as "resonance" because the word doesn't have the sense of subtle tenor suggested by a sound that lingers even after the sound ceases. Maybe translate it as "lingering tenor"?
  
  
• Shuengit Chow when 2 people speak the same sentence, one person might have much more 韻 than another. Person one might be flat saying the sentence, Person 2, with 韻 would give it some charm, with expression, variation of length of syllables, pause etc. 韻 usually follows with " wei (taste)" - its the subtleties of the extending weaker sounds - like a brush stroke with little tails... Like the after taste of good tea and good coffee.
  
  
• Jim Binkley this is a good example of why it can be hard to translate something as e.g., 韻 which could be translated resonance and as soon as you do that you lose the other meaning which applies to the construction of all known guqin tunes - "rhyme" - meaning that musical phrases tend to end with contrasting tone colors - an open note and a pressed note being most common. resonance is a reasonable choice here BUT something is lost. But maybe a fair number of guqin players arent aware that yun is a technical term too?
  
  
• Peiyou Chang Yes, I agree Yun is a technical term too... just was thinking about the technique "放合"and
  
  
• Peiyou Chang "應合"and "虛罨"等等
  
  
• Jim Binkley true
  
  
• Scott Drake "Like the after taste of good TEA and good coffee."＝ 古琴的“回甘”吧。。 
  
  

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My attempt translation of this part that Mr. Chang Chin-Chi wrote: "琴樂之特色大約有八... 天人合一"

The major 8 qualities of the qin sound:

音兼金石 Has both the bell (metal) and chime (stone) sound concurrently.

聲希音淡 Fine sound and light tone.

節奏緩雅  Slow and elegant rhythm. (難怪明末的徐青山要說[稚朝飛] 跟[烏夜啼]屬"奇"音, no wonder the [Midnight Raven] was said to be an "unusual" melody by Xu Qing-shan in late Ming dynasty)

韻長味久 Lasting longer the resonance and tone flavor.

情趣靈動 It will bring our emotion and interests to a brighter and attentive level.

神遠體清 It will bring our spirit and body to a faraway, calm and clear stage.

道藝並傳 We will inherit not only the playing skill but the achievement of well personalities.

天人合一 It will help us to be harmonized between nature and human.

For the last one, 天人合一, I think it is also about how to 做人, 調心, 養性 be a human, how to balance our negative and positive thoughts, so we not only can play nice music to please listeners, but also can we be peaceful with everyone and everything. And this is a goal same as practicing meditation, that we can be aware of ourselves, others and nature, and always keep our mind and body centered, and not easily to be disturbed by surroundings. )

楚戈說古琴 Chu Ko talked about the Guqin

楚戈, 這個我從來沒有注意到的名字, 在他過世後的四年才開始瞭解. 源於一篇朋友轉贈之基隆市立文化中心, 1989年出版的[大雅清音]古琴古樂展專輯中一篇由楚戈先生寫的好文

袁德星 Yuan De-xing, Pen Name: Chu Ge (or Chu Ko) 楚戈(1931－2011), who was a connoisseur of antiquities, modern poet, prose writer, painter and calligrapher. Chu Ge was born in Hunan province, China and moved to Taiwan in 1949 during civil war. I did not know him until recently read one of his article about the guqin.

這個LINK有有關楚戈先生的介紹, 及他的手筆字跡寫的詩(窗子的夢). Introduction of Chu Ge in Chinese and picture of his hand writing of his poem "The Dream of A Window".

His poetry looks very interesting to me. I hope to find his book. 更多楚戈的詩 (準備回台灣時買他的詩集)

節錄一些他說古琴的文 - (古琴的聯想) ... Quot from some parts of his article about the guqin...

My brief translation:

A politics of rogue-- Han dynasty (206 BC – 220 AD) was founded by Liu Bang who was a local punk and he dis-root ancient aristocracy system, no matter if they were good or bad. 楚戈先生說:貴族制度有百害而仍有一利, 那就是對文化的的提升與保存. Even though aristocracy culture had hundred of bad habits, but there was one good part which is for the promotion and preservation of culture. Liu Bang established vulgarization of the upper class and that has been extended for 2000 years long. However, Chinese culture does not destroyed by those vulgar leaderships, instead it survived by deep accumulation from regular folks. Even though Chinese culture experienced again and again the catastrophe, there will always be a fresh life revived. Except that the culture revolution, as the Red Guards devastation, China cannot suffer that to happen for a 2nd times. The guqin is like an unique flower blooming after experiencing holocaust, and saved by local folks.

The torch of Chinese musical culture has been able to hand on, due to that the Guqin not only pleasant our ears but also our mind, and is for accomplishment of personality to rely upon....  

The Han Dynasty, Chinese music theorist, mathematician and astrologer, Jing Fang (78–37 BC), used the sound of different length of flutes to set family names. That shows that music sound had already matched the pronunciation of words. Poetry and family names are like high class language, and they seemed to record during the "process" of music playing, as computer has the function of correcting typing (sound of word). In the chapter of Offices of Spring of the Rites of Zhou, there is a word called "Yue Yu" Musical Language. The highest goal of Yue Yu is to promote the way of life.... Despite that whether in the Pre-Qin era, ancestors really practiced this ideal or not, there is written down records, means part of it came from experiences. Able to obey the rules or not, and whether there was the rules or not, they are two different issues.  

不知古人還用音律來定姓氏. 而詩跟姓是高級語言. 詩可以瞭解, 姓就不明白為什麼了...? 

Listening elegant great music, we need to clean our mind and ears, clean our auditory canals that are so used to the noise around us. Then we can hear the pure call from the sound of our home land that was originally belong to our nature.