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Taiyin daquan ji 太音大全集 "Complete works of antique music" is the oldest extant collection of theoretical discussions on the small zither (qin 琴). The collection was compiled during the Ming period 明 (1368-1644) by Yuan Junzhe 袁均哲.
The book describes methods of constructing the music instrument, how to play it, and hot tunes are noted down. The text is based on a much older text, namely Tian Zhiweng's 田芝翁 Taigu yiyin 太古遺音 "Remnant texts on (zither) music from the remote past" from the Song period 宋 (960-1279). It had a length of 3 juan and was revised by Yang Zuyun 楊祖雲 during the Jiading reign-period 嘉定 (1208-1224). Yang gave it the title Qinyuan xuzhi 琴苑須知 "Must-knows from Zither Garden" and presented it to the throne. During the Yongle reign-period 永樂 (1403-1424) of the Ming era, Zhu Quan 朱權 (1378-1448) acquired three different editions of this text and rearranged it to a book of 2 fascicles, retaining the old title Taigu yiyin.
Yuan Junzhe made use of this version as the core part of a new compilation and enriched it with various other texts on the zither. The result was the 5-juan-long Taiyin daquan ji. This collection was published in several different versions and is therefore available in various shapes. Of the oldest version, the 2-juan Taigu yiyin, only fragments exist in the Beijing Library 北京圖書館. There is the reprint of 5 juan produced by Yuan Junzhe during the Zhengde reign-period 正德 (1506-1521), and a manuscript version from the Zhengtong reign-period 正統 (1436-1449) that is largely identical to the Zhengde version, barring a poem included in the third fascicle. During the Jiajing reign-period 嘉靖 (1522-1566), a new edition was published by Wang Liang 汪諒 with the title Xinkan Taiyin daquan ji 新刊太音大全集.
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Charts comparing the finger movements with motions of a bird, in this case, the thumbs with a crane dancing after being aroused by wind. Concerning the thumb, the text says that the symbol for plucking towards the palm (tuo 托) is 乇, and for plucking away from the palm (bo 擘) is 尸. |
The book of Yuan Junzhe is important because it includes a lot of ancient texts on the qin zither and music scores for this instrument that have not survived anywhere else. Such are the works by Zhao Yeli 趙耶利, Chen Jushi 陳居士 and Chen Zhuo 陳拙 from the Tang period 唐 (618-907) and Tang Zhiweng and Yang Zuyun from the Song period.
The Zhonghua Shuju Press 中華書局 has published all three versions of the text in the series Qinqu jicheng 琴曲集成 from 1963.