Tag Archives: melodic modes

What Pentatonicism? – Key Points from the Treatises on Music (c. 680), Chapter 5:2 “The method for the mutual generation of the seven sheng” and 5:3 “On how to understand the two bian notes”

This is the second part of my translation of Key Points from the Treatises on Music (c. 680), or “Empress Wu’s Music Theory Primer.” These two chapters discuss the seven sheng or musical notes of the scale, particularly: (1) what are the topological relations or “mutual generations” between these seven notes vis-à-vis the twelve tuning pitch pipes, and (2) why, according to the here rather opinionated authors of Key Points, pentatonicism is not a thing and must never be a thing.

Empress Wu’s Music Theory Primer — Key Points from the Treatises on Music (c. 680), Table of Content and Chapter 5:1 “Distinguishing the sheng of musical notes, examining the origin of sheng.”

Beginning with this post, I will produce a complete, chapter-by-chapter translation of Key Points from the Treatises of Music (Yueshu yaolu 樂書要錄, c. 680). The treatise is special in many ways. It the earliest extant Chinese monograph on music theory and one of the earliest extant monographs on music at large. It is traditionally attributed to Wu Zetian (624-705), the only female emperor in Chinese history. The treatise’s very survival was also a testimony to the deep cultural integrations between medieval China and Japan. And, if these weren’t enough, the treatise, even with 70% of it lost, turns out to be an excellent textbook to Chinese music theory, particularly the key concepts of sheng (“sounds,” “notes of the scale”) and lü (“tuning” and “tuning pitch pipes”). Hence I am translating the surviving parts of this treatise in full, so that it can serve as a primer to Classical Chinese music theory for English speakers. This post translates the Table of Content and Chapter 1 of juan 5.