British ethnomusicology of the mid-twentieth century; or rather, in terms that he preferred, he was a proponent of a 'general science of musicology' that 'must embrace the study of the music of man as a whole' (Picken 1973, 755). His outstanding achievements were first, to advance the science of organology by analysing musical instruments as the products of human interaction with the biological materials and physical processes of nature, interactions continued across immense spans of time and space. And secondly, he made a seminal contribution to the history of music in Asia, and to the critical study of historical documents and notated repertoires in China and Japan, especially those relating to the Tang and Song dynasties in China. In all his work, a brilliant combination of scientific rigour, imaginative insight and wide vision laid down a lasting challenge to ethnomusicologists and other scholars.By the time he turned to the full-time pursuit of musicology in the 1960s Picken had already led an outstanding career as a biologist spanning three decades. As an undergraduate, graduate student and research fellow at Cambridge he won many honours; but he did not devote all his time to biology. He was active as a pianist, harpsichordist and composer, writing music for piano in the 1930s that was forwardlooking for its time and place; a passion for the music of Bach typically led to his becoming an expert on early editions and quotations of Bach's music (note the early focus on historic notated sources); and like his elder contemporary Joseph Needham, he developed a fascination for the culture and classical language of China. These diverse interests coalesced when he joined a British Council Scientific Mission to China, under Needham's leadership, in 1944. While giving basic science lectures in Chungking, and deprived of his daily Bach practice, he learned to play the gu-qin and