Chou Wen-chung
Chou Wen-chung’s modal system: the Basics
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Example 5. The lw (Lake <110> Water <011>) Modal Complex.
The most interesting thing about this combination of modes as Modal Complex is that the resulting ascending and descending collection of pitches just happens to exhaust all twelve notes on the chromatic scale, as shown in Ex. 6.
Example 6. lw’/C
The lw’/C stands for an ascending Lake mode on C followed by a descending Water mode on C
. The other Modal Complexes that satisfy all three of the above conditions are tm or mt (Thunder-Mountain), ss (Sun-Sun), rr (Rain-Rain), hh (Heaven-Heaven), ee (Earth-Earth), and of course the reverse of lw, wl.
The above is merely a simplistic exposition of the fundamentals of Chou’s modal system: how the sixty-four hexagrams find their ways into Chou’s system for musical composition. The simple, elegant, and intuitive way in which abstract, metaphysical constructs become concrete musical reality is only characteristic of how Chou Wen-chung works. From these simple materials and operations come elaborate structures and tightly controlled designs. Chou’s modal system governs every aspect of the composition, from rhythm to pitch to timbre, from background to surface, and from the tiniest details to the broadest gestures.
However, one should not come away with the misconception that this is just one other compositional system that minimize efforts by the composer. The three yao of an I Ching trigram puts the biggest importance on the middle yao, Man. There may be fixed natural laws governing Heaven and Earth, but Man makes the decision of what course of action among many to take.
In another light, Chou’s endeavor is in fact very close in spirit to what Johann Joseph Fux had done with his definitive textbook on species counterpoint: Fux’s effort was to explore the simplest, most fundamental ways each single-tone in counterpoint would proceed; Chou seeks the same, except that the scope is much broader. His is an effort that, with the help of the I Ching, gets at the most innate nature of each musical note, in a sense, the Tao of music.