Lin says that in order to find a reasonable explanation, he started to read all the documents about Chinese music he could find, but at that time, Chinese music documentation "was just crudely printed musical notation and old essays talking about the ritual music of the ethnic minorities." There was no way to satisfy his demands, but fortunately, other Chinese cultural experiences provided him with a basis for preliminary comparison.
林谷芳說，為了尋求一個合理解釋吧，他開始窮究中國音樂書籍，但是在當時，中國音樂書籍有的「只是粗陋印刷的樂譜及少數自文史哲談禮樂的老調文章」，無法滿足他的探求，還好的是其他中國文化的經驗，提供了他一個初步類比的基礎。