ContentsOrganization of the Laurence Picken Papers Container List Project Files, circa 1950-1999 |
Laurence Picken PapersProcessed by the Music Division of the Library of Congress2011
Biographical NoteBritish zoologist and musicologist Laurence Ernest Rowland Picken was born on July 16, 1909 in Nottingham, England. He studied piano as a child, and composed music during the mid-1920s and 1930s. In 1928, he won a scholarship to Trinity College, Cambridge and studied natural sciences. During the 1930s, he held a Rockefeller Studentship in the Geneva School of Chemistry for two years where he became fluent in French and German and conducted groundbreaking scientific research. He finished his Ph.D. in 1935. In 1944, he became a fellow at Jesus College, Cambridge, and in 1946 assistant director of research in the zoology faculty, spending the next twenty years researching and teaching biology. In 1944, he joined Joseph Needham’s scientific mission to China where he studied Chinese music and learned to play the zither. In 1959, Picken was appointed visiting professor of zoology at Washington University. He published his landmark book The Organization of Cells and other Organisms the following year in 1960. Though employed as a scientist, Picken published his first musical paper in 1950 on the identification of an unknown fugue by Bach. His reputation as a musicologist grew along with his knowledge and understanding of Asian culture and he continued to publish papers and encyclopedia entries on Asian music throughout 1950s. Picken served as editor for the journal of the International Folk Music Council in the 1960s. In 1966, he was appointed assistant director of research in the faculty of oriental studies at Cambridge. In 1977, he started the journal Musica Asiatica which he would co-edit until 1984. Picken donated over 700 musical instruments to the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology at Cambridge in 1977. The music of the Chinese Tang and Song dynasties was the major focus of Picken's lifelong scholarship. In 1972, he began to transcribe and analyze pieces from the secular Tang court repertory in Japan which led to a projected 25-volume series Music from the Tang Court (1981-2000), of which Picken would complete only seven volumes. Picken also wrote on the music of Turkey, central Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East. In 1975, he published The Folk Musical Instruments of Turkey, a comprehensive study of Turkish instruments. In 1990, Picken and N.J. Nickson supervised and directed a program of Tang and Song dynasty transcriptions at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music. Starting in 1998, Picken was also involved with the Ancient Asian Music Project at the Library of Congress. He died at the age of 97 on March 16, 2007, in Cambridge, England. Return to the Table of Contents Scope and Content NoteThe Laurence Picken Papers span the period 1900-2001 with the majority of materials dating from 1936-1999. The materials include project files, research materials, business and personal correspondence, published and unpublished writings, scores of Picken's own compositions, and photographs. Materials in the Project Files series are centered around Picken's studies in East Asian music and range from the 1950s through the mid-1990s. These contain essay notes and drafts, translations, concert programs, miscellaneous research materials, instrument collection files, and a handful of personal files. Picken's articles and research materials for Musica Asiatica and his influential Music from the Tang Court stand out as items of particular interest. His original folder titles have been used where appropriate, although it is possible that some contain alternative or erroneous spellings and transliterations. The Correspondence series consists of personal and business letters sent or received by Laurence Picken. Many of the letters relating to his activities discuss aspects of Picken's collaborative studies and publications between 1936 and 2001. The letters to his family include postcards from his travels abroad. The Writings series contains articles, essays, and lectures by Picken, his notebooks, and books written for Picken. In addition, there are offprints by Picken, his students, and colleagues that were used in research. Materials in the Music series include manuscript and printed scores of Picken's compositions, dating from the 1920s and 1930s. There are also transcriptions of traditional East Asian music made by Picken and others between the 1950s and 2000. Rounding out the collection is the small Photographs series which contains images of Picken, traditional Chinese and Japanese musical instruments, and various performances of world music, dating from the 1930s to 1990s. Return to the Table of Contents Selected Search TermsPeople
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Return to the Table of Contents Organization of the Laurence Picken PapersThe Laurence Picken Papers are organized in five series:
Return to the Table of Contents Container ListProject Files, circa 1950-1999Chiefly research materials related to published papers and scholarly topics of interest to Picken. Includes photocopies of various original Chinese documents, drafts of publications, correspondence, and notes. Arranged alphabetically by folder title. Picken's original captions have been used whenever possible, although these may contain alternative or erroneous spellings of words. Article titles in the container list may not reflect those of actual published materials. "Acculturation and the Tōgaku repertory" (Picken/Marett)Afterwards for Picken, Adkins, Page"An Afghan quail-lure of typological and acoustic interest""Anatolian drum and shawm come to a Greek smuggler's village"Ancient Chinese songs"Ancient matters" - Koji-ruienAng KunshanArthur Cooper's lecture and correspondenceBach quotations from the 18th CenturyBanshikichōBibliographic data on key manuscriptsBritish Council: "Science in Chungking"BugakuBurmese musicBurmese music - draft papers and correspondence with Muriel WilliamsonCatalogue of documents of music from the collection of the Fushimi-no-miya familyChampaCh'ao-chou requiemCh'ênCh'in schoolsChiang K'ueiChildren's sound producing toysChinaChinese Buddist musicChinese friction chordophonesChinese folksongsChinese musicChinese texts relative to TorodenChū Ōga Ryūteki Yōroku-fuChuang-chênConcert programsConflation and analysisCorrespondence and translations by Ishibashi/FukushimaDai Nihon shiDaoist white-stone [i.e. White Stone Daoist]: Jiang Kui - collected songs and piecesDouble-sided printing of Sadachō itemsDunhuang lute music (Rockwell)Dunhuang piba-puEncyclopedia BritannicaEthiopic liturgical music"The fate of Tang music in Japan"Fengshen Zhuan"Finger techniques for the zithers sô-no-koto and kin in Heian times" (Mitani/Picken)First transcriptions of Meiji and Shōwa printed shō tablaturesFragments of Fengxue"Frequency doubling chordophones" (Adkins/Williams/Flowers/Picken)Fujiwara genealogies"The functional names of notes in Modai note-sets"GagakuGagaku (Harich-Schneider)Gakka-roku (excerpts)GidayuGogenfu (copy of F.R.W.'s transcripts)GoGen Kin-FuNotes on gougche-pu derived from Yang YenLin and Zhang ShipengGuan's comments on Tōgaku titles in Hakuga nofue-fuHaloun: notes for the burning of the booksHayashi KenzōHiradeHonorary doctorate, 1988Hosho-fuHōshō ritsu-kanHyōjōIchikotsuchōInstrument collection"The instrumentarium of a village in Northeast Thailand"Jao Tsung-I preface, 1990Japanese historical linguisticsJCYR"Jew's harps and mouth organs"Jiang KuiJiaofang-jiJieguluJinchi-yorokuJunior sinologuesKaichū-fu"A keyboard fugue by Bach"Kikutei: "Pieces for biwa, notated in calendrically correct tunings, from the Kikutei-ke Monjo of the Heian Hakubutsukan"Ko-fu ritsuKorean court dance under Sejong and SejoKucha music influenceKunaichō shoryōbuKyōkun shōLibo songs in Gi-shi GakufuLibrary of Congress exhibition, 1999"A lion dance of the Song Dynasty"Mabuchi Usaburō"The magic of children's sound-producing toys"Mahmut Ragip Gazimihal"Making a Khaein" (Adkins/Page/Picken)Marett transcription of ChōkōrakuMaterial from "Ancient echos of China""Midnight music" (Yebanyue)Miscellaneous articlesMiscellaneous materials in ChineseMiscellaneous music in ChineseMiscellaneous research materialsMongolian articles"Music for a lion-dance" of the Song DynastyMusic of the Tang CourtMusic Research Institute of Chicago (Peking)Musica Asiatica articles"Musical implications of Chinese songtext with unequal lines and the significance of nonsense syllables, with special reference to artsongs of Song Dynasty""Musical inter-relationships between Tang Chinese compositions; Three items with titles in the names of imperial military leaders"Musikethnologische Jahresbibliographie EuropasNamguanNamguan Patsy ChooNawa contentsNeopolitan criesNotesNotes on Hichiriki scores: Nakahara-roseishō and othersNotes on mensural notation in Ō-daiNotes on mouth organ scoringNotes on music manuscripts purhcased by Elling Eide"Notes on some important Togaku manuscripts in Tenri University Library"Notes on tablature system of Kofu/Hōshōfu (Ritsu/Ryokan)OjikichōOkugakiPersonalia and CVPipa techniques and termsPipafuPicken Collection of Musical Instruments, Cambridge University Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology Two-volume card indexPicken donationsPicken libraryPicken's criticism of Robert T. Mok's "Ancient musical instruments unearthed from the number one Han tomb at Ma Want Tui, Changsha"Plainsong notesThe 'plucked drums'PorcelainPublication agreementsR.H. van Gulik's bronzeQui JingsunRadio talk / Chinese 7-string zitherRakusaidō Gagaku manuscripts (Kazuo Fukushima)Reviews and acknowledgementsReviews by Laurence PickenRevue bibliographique de sinologieRuisō-chiyōRyō-ōRyūmeishōSamaifu glossary and definitionsSamaifu copy of Maifu of Shunnōden, Satto and JuhaSandai jitsurokuSango-yōrokuSecond Samaifu copy from Tsuji senseiSecret dragon flute scoreSemsi YastimanSGYRShanghai Conservatory"The shapes of the Shi Jing song texts and their musical implications"Shi JingShi Jing paper (Musica Asiatica, 1977)Shinnō hajinrakuShinraryō-ō SairyōshūShō and Bisa part parallelism (Shō part is cantus firmus)Song textsSōnokoto tuningsThe sound of Areston (Gershevitch)"The sound producing instrumentarium of a village in North-East Thailand"Specimen tune in all Chinese modes at same pitch, both pentatonic and heptatonic"String/table angles in harps, from the third millenium BC to the present"Taigenshō Kyō KunshōTaiheirakuT'ang dance notationTaoist ritual musicTeheran congress 1961Thai mouth organs, correspondence with Peter Bee papersThai music "The making of a Rhāen" correspondenceTōdai-ji Yōroku Kaigen-eTōgaku pieces transcribedToyonaga Satomi papersTranscriptions from Festival of GI"Tunes of T'ang date for the 'get trasure song'?" (Jones/Picken)Tunings and pitch measurements (Ruttner)TurkeyTurkish reviews and lettersTweleve ritual melodies of the T'ang Dynasty'UliliUtsucho - Monogatari; also copy of Noguchi's paper on Utsucho-Monogatari"Water birds on river islands"Wang ZhaojunWamyō ruijūshō"The war of the musicians or lives of canonised spirits of the Taoist Heaven" (Zhu Chanyu)Wei-shi YuepuXeroxes of small booksYuefuYuefu shiqi - song structure, length and rhymesYuefu zaluYFSTZhong Yang, Yin Yue, Xue Yuan, Xue BaoZhu XiZoku-KyōkunshōZokukoto: Rokudan no shirabe nofuCorrespondence, 1900-2001Chiefly letters concerning scholarly projects, family matters, and travel. Arranged in four subseries: letters to Picken; letters from Picken; family correspondence; and related correspondence. Each subseries arranged chronologically. Letters to Picken1935-19711972-19751976-19811982-198719921993-19941995-1996199719981999-2001Foreign language letters, 1968-1998UndatedLetters from Picken1936-19721973-19751975-197619771978-19791979-19801981-19821982-198319841985198619871988-19891990-1991199219931994-199519961997-19981999-2001 and undatedFamily CorrespondenceFamily to Picken, 1939-1945Picken to family, 1950-1990sRelated Correspondence1900-2001 and undatedWritings, circa 1930-2000Articles, essays, lectures, and notebooks. Most materials have accompanying correspondence and notes. Includes offprints of works by various authors (including Picken) used in the course of research. Arranged in five subseries: lectures; notebooks; papers edited by Picken; offprints about Chinese music; and books written for Picken. Each subseries is arranged alphabetically by title, author, or subject. LecturesChinese music"Chinese music of a thousand years ago""A comparative journey of the musics of the world""The documentary history of the Tōgaku repertory""Micro-ornament"Miscellaneous lectures"Music aspects of transcription and analysis of the Tōgaku repertory""Music at the Tang Court" (Hume)"Music for a Tang Dynasty ballet of the 7th century""Music from the Tang Court" (Saibara)"A musical background to treasures of Ancient China""Musical instruments in Turkey""Musical survivals of the Tang and Sung Dynasties"Seoul, South Korea"Tang music of the Sung Dynasty""Towards the archaic music of pre-Nora Japan""Turkish folk music and musical instruments""Turkish music""Turkish poetry"University of Washington, SeattleUnidentifiedNotebooksAsian Music ClubAsian notebooks, 1972-1974, 1980Biographical notebook Chiefly business cards, pamphlets, and photographsBuddhist musicCh'au-chou requiem serviceChinese and Sino-Japanese notebooksMiscellaneous notebooksTaoist musicTōgaku notebooks: draft catalogue of pieces, movements, and occurrence in manuscriptsTurkish notebooksPapers Edited by PickenBlench, Roger. "The morphology and distribution of Sub-Saharan musical instruments of North African, Middle Eastern, and Asian origin"Craig, Dale A. "Ancient legacy of music: a Min Dynasty collection of Chin songs"Fletcher, Peter. World musics in contextFukushima, Kazuo. "Descriptive catalogue of the Rakusaidō-Gagaku manuscripts in the Research Archives for Japanese Music of Ueno Gakuen College"Marett, Allan J.Miyoko, Kôkawa. "A method of improvising music at school"Wei, Deng. "Historical and stylistic development in the Chinese four-stringed lute Pipa and in Pipa music"Widdess, Richard. "The reconstruction of early Indian music from notation"Williamson, Muriel C. "The correlation between speech-tones of text-syllables and their musical settings in a Burmese classical song"Offprints about Chinese Music1936-1975 Four bound volumes of Picken's articles"A" - "C""D" - "Picard""Picken" - "Z"Books Written for PickenThree bound essays in honor of Dr. Laurence E. R. PickenMusic, circa 1923-2000Manuscript and printed scores of original Picken compositions and transcriptions of traditional East Asian music. Arranged alphabetically by title of work or folder title. Original CompositionsCanon, waltz and jigComposition sketchbooks, 1923-1927Composition sketchbooks, 1928-1936Compositions and sketchesConcert for two pianosFive songs 1934Four songsJabuke and GroždjaMoralité du petit chaperon rougePrelude to foreign partsLes Saintes Maries de la merSonata movement: SlovenjaSonatinaTranscriptions"The Emperor destroys the military formation"Folk dances choreographed and notated by Liu Fengxue Essen (1971), under Albrecht Knust"Haguga no fue-fu" (Marett)"Korean court dance" (Siyong mubo)"Lion dance"Miscellaneous transcriptions"Music for a thousand autumns""Myit-zu thaká nat-pàn Bwe""Namguan""O-dai hajinraku""Occidental diversions around an Oriental tune" (Albright)"Sandai-en" (Arthur Cooper's lecture)"Shi Jing""T'ai P'ing Yüeh/Taiheiraku""Toraden""Tsuwano"Walker, Robert compositions"Waves of the blue sea""The wine is clear"Wolpert, Rembrandt F., 1975Photographs, circa 1930-circa 1990Individual and group portraits, musical instruments, world music performances, and other images. Includes negatives. Arranged alphabetically by subject. Instruments and performersMiscellanyPicken, alone or with others, 1930s-1960sStages making a Shō reedReturn to the Table of Contents |
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