Chuang Min Tsy’s Yuesheng Shengnian (Reference Chuang2019), subtitled Jikong Yuesheng Xiyi Jilupian 祭孔樂生習藝紀錄片 [A documentary film about the training of Confucius Ceremonial music attendants], features the ancient ceremonial at Taipei Confucius Temple as an early twenty-first century musical story of junior high-school students. The film narrates how a group of senior pre-teens/junior teenagers, mostly non-musicians, took the challenge to be trained as music attendants (yuesheng 樂生) at the next Confucian Ceremonial in about a year’s time. Traversing the genres of documentary and ethnographic films, Chuang skillfully integrates contextualised documentation with musically oriented edits, which brings alive ritual music beyond the Ceremonial function. A graduation project in its conception, the fine production of Yuesheng received the Silver Prize at the First China Musics Ethnographic Film Exhibition in Shanghai in November 2019. The film is also recognised by Taipei Confucius Temple as a faithful production of its transmission culture. It is available for public access at the Temple’s media platform (Chuang Reference Chuang2019).

The Confucius Ceremonial is held on 28 September every year. The year-long music training begins in October and lasts till the Ceremonial Day in the following year. Under the directorship of Sun Jui-chin 孫瑞金 (b. 1962), a traditional Chinese flute player by training, the Ceremonial orchestra and choir recruit their musicians from voluntary members of the first class of Chongqing Junior High School in the neighbourhood. Yuesheng features the intensive summer training of the class who performed in the 2018 Ceremonial, and includes episodes of the 2019 class’ initial training in the fall-winter period, as well.

The film begins with the stately rhythm of an unseen resounding drum (jiangu 建鼓, mounted on a wooden stand). A group of thirty-some boys and girls from the 2019 class, dressed in school uniform shorts, some of them holding their flutes besides bottled water, wander around in the courtyard in front of the main hall of the Temple, the Hall of Great Accomplishment (Dacheng dian 大成殿). Striving to move each step in sync with the drum strokes, the students walk attentively on their own. It is in the late afternoon of a Tuesday after school. A few Temple visitors hang around freely. This opening episode sets the scene and tone for the film. The music training sessions and the Ceremonial all take place inside the Temple compound. Divided into vocal and different instrumental groups, the training venues are scattered in the three courtyards, two gateways, and the cloisters. The memorial tablet of Confucius is placed in the main hall, where the Ceremonial takes place. The front centre and sides of the main hall will become the performing stage of the young musicians.

At first, the ceremonial songs and musical instruments come across as foreign knowledge to the trainees. Some vocal group members cannot even correctly pronounce “Da zai Kong sheng” 大哉孔聖 (Great is the sage Confucius!), the first phrase of the first ceremonial song “Perfect Harmony” (“Xianhe Zhi Qu” 咸和之曲).Footnote ¹ The flutists (xiao 簫, dizi 笛子 and chi 箎 of the “bamboo” category of instruments), the string players (qin 琴 and se 瑟 of the “silk” category), and the sheng 笙 players (of the “gourd” category) fumble with their basic embouchure, fingering, and breathing techniques. Beginners of the drums group practise on large truck tires, before Teacher Sun is filmed working with a promising student at the largest drum (jingu 晉鼓). Such are the initiation training episodes of the 2019 class in the fall-winter period. Then, the intensive summer training follows, but time dials back to the previous year. The 2018 class is now the focus.

By summer time, the students are more prepared. But the training is also the toughest. Commencing with a collective rehearsal, Teacher Sun has the several dozens of students positioned ritually at the main hall’s front areas. Sun sings out the command “The Music [orchestra and choir now] perform,” followed by the title of the first ceremonial song above-mentioned (which is played during the ceremonial event of “Welcoming the Spirit” [“Yingshen” 迎神]). After he claps the wooden clappers three times, the percussionists continue. The players of the wooden box (zhu 柷), pellet drum (taogu 鼗鼓), and the large single bronze bell (yongzhong 鏞鐘) strike successively to make a phrase. But not everyone strikes in time. So they need to start over again, with the beats counted aloud this time by Sun. The most challenging segment is the 50-minute regiment-like standing session. Without air-conditioning, the students posture themselves straight and still. Whether in the open courtyard under the scorching sun or along the cloisters that roof off the rain, here and there a student or two would disappear from the head-level shot, having fallen to a sitting position to gasp for a brief rest. The loud chirping of the cicadas and the brutal image of a dead one sensually communicate the unbearable summer heat.

What motivates the students to go through the training ordeal? There is no straightforward answer. But through interviews, which are interspersed in-between the training sessions, the thoughts and feelings of several students are heard. One was encouraged by a school teacher who promised him with “some sense of achievement.” Another got his practice ambition to get on par with a talented classmate. In their usual human nature, the students are driven by desiring a sense of self-fulfillment, sometimes through competing with the peers. “The mission of the students,” as the annotation subtitles inform early in the film, “is to be recruited successfully for the Ceremonial performance,”Footnote ² not to worship Confucius musically. For Sun, conducting the ceremonial orchestra is like walking on thin ice. “[The Confucian Ceremonial music] is such little known that it takes only a tiny careless move to make it disappear.” To carry on the tradition, Sun strives to turn “the ancient and unevolved” into “a twenty-first-century fun for the youngsters.” The film, showing Sun exchanging jokes with the students, who would giggle and wiggle spontaneously when the serious moments are off, is largely a sympathetic testimony of Sun’s approach.

As a film about the Confucius Ceremonial, Yuesheng cannot afford to ignore the ritual aspect. The basic facts about the Ceremonial (e.g. its history of 2500 years, its music attendants being students under 15) and the ceremonial function of music are shown in annotation subtitles. Also, the film is temporally structured as a countdown to the Ceremonial Day. The arrival of the Confucius Ceremony (which is cut to less than four minutes from an hourly run),Footnote ³ which is the climax of the training journey, however, does not end the story. The training of the next class (2019 class) now begins. Contextualising the Ceremony in a cyclic flow of training time, Yuesheng stresses continuity of transmission over display of ritual spectacle. The music of three ceremonial events—“First Drum Roll” (“Guchuyan” 鼓初嚴); “Second Drum Roll” (“Yaxian Gu” 亞獻鼓) followed by “Second Principal Presentation” (“Yaxian Li” 亞獻禮), when the song “Tranquil Harmony” (“Anhe Zhi Qu” 安和之曲) is sung; and “Final Principle Presentation” (“Zhongxian Li” 終獻禮), when the song “Luminous Harmony” (“Jinghe Zhi Qu” 景和之曲) is sung—is heard with ceremonial event details explained in the subtitles. But their soundtracks, made from recordings released by the Temple some years ago (Taibei Kongmiao Jikong Yinyue N.d.),Footnote ⁴ are used to accompany the majestic summer standing sessions. Shooting close-ups at the students’ sweating faces, Chuang’s sympathy is clearly conveyed.

Yuesheng is not a primer of the Confucius Ceremonial. The ancient “eight tones” (bayin 八音) classification of musical instruments, the use of bell-chimes and stone-chimes, and the symbolism of Confucianism are not illustrated (Cheung Reference Cheung and Sturman2019). Also, the re-construction of the Temple in the 1920s, and the fifteenth-century Ming-dynasty source of the ceremonial music construction in 1968 are not mentioned (Jikong Liyue Zhi Gaijin 1971). But featuring the story of young music attendants reveals aspects of musical Confucianism that await further examination (Lam Reference Lam and Wilson2002:168). Through filmic representation, Yuesheng explores conversations between heritage preservation and its cultural relevance, between communal responsibility and personal ambition, and the subtle relation between discipline and reward. Music forms an important part of the dialogues.

At the end of the film, as the credits roll, the song “Perfect Harmony” is played straight from its percussive, opening prelude. Once a rehearsal failure, the piece is now powerfully presented in its fullness. Confucius says, “Music! music! they say. But is it just a matter of bells and drums?” (Confucius, Watson trans. Reference Watson2007:122) In order to reflect on what lies beyond the performance of ceremonial instruments, one needs to be moved by their sounds first. Yuesheng facilitates the musical appreciation of a vibrant version of Confucius Ceremonial, enabling new reflections on Confucius and his legacy.