Mei-an book

[Si]

Hi,

I just got my mei an qi pu translated tutor guide from Hong Kong Uni Press. Only thing is its does not use Pin Ying - OMG its like a totally different language!

Anyway I am very confused about all this talk of the 12 Lu and the basic pitches. What is it all about and how does it relate to the western ABCDEF etc.


Also what are the usual scales that the qin is tuned to. I saw a kids book on qin and they only used B flat and F i think.

Simon

[Charlie Huang]

You are confusing yourself too much with the pitch theory stuff! Avoid that until you get your basics right. Plus, the romanisation is in Wade-Giles which was used in everywhere until the introduction of Pinyin.

[blueharp]

The chapter about the lu is very confusing. Basically it is about how the pitches of the scale are achieved, and is very similar to Pythagoreas.

The 12 lu are the 12 tones in an octave. Their names are kind of like expanded solfege (do- re- mi... but expanded to do-di-re-ri-mi-fa-fi-sol-si-la-li-ti-do). Theoretically any pitch can be used for "do". Once you decide which pitch to standardize all of the others can be generated in relation to it.

The 12 lu are generated like the Pythagorean Circle of Fifths.

IMPORTANT: I have switched to the names of notes. The book is using the chinese solfege equivalents.

Picking the note F=do as the main note the Circle of Fifths begins like this:

Going up one fifth:
f-c-g-d-a-e-b-f#-c#-g#-d#-a#
or
do-sol-re-la-mi-ti-fi-di-si-ri-li-fa

If you continue you get e#-b#etc. that are supposed to be enharmonically equivalent to f and c. In reality they are not the same at all if the fifths are pure. They will be off by 23.5 cents (hundreths of a semitone).

Flats are generated similarly by descending a fifth.

There is a lot more to this, but I have wasted enough space already.

The different modes are how the notes of the scale are arranged. In the west we mainly use 7 modes (examples in C):

Ionian (c-d-e-f-g-a-b-c)
Dorian (c-d-eb-f-g-a-bb-c)
Phrygian (c-db-eb-f-g-ab-bb-c)
Lydian (c-d-e-f#-g-a-b-c)
Mixolydian (c-d-e-f-g-a-bb-c)
Aeolian (c-d-eb-f-g-ab-bb-c)
Locrian (c-db-eb-f-gb-ab-bb-c)

What they refer to is how the intervals in a scale are arranged giving each mode a characteristic sound.

Boring huh?

I can go on and on and on, but ultimately the only thing that matters is the music.

This stuff has its place and importance in the grand scheme of things (mostly graduate level music theory courses).

I know it because it was drilled into my head at conservatory, and I needed it for Early Music. There are people that have made pitch theory their life's work. They are the Physicists of music.

Don't worry about it. Most musicians don't, they make music.

[Charlie Huang]

Tut tut! Even I can't grasp most of the pitch theory stuff! One things for sure, my PhD won't be on it...

[blueharp]

One needen't be so dismissive. It does have relevance, just not to a whole lot of people! ;D

[Charlie Huang]

I probably need to study it at some point in the future. I read most of it from stuff in the qinpus I have and am still confused by bits of it. Anyways, my PhD will be on qin construction.

[Si]

I look forward to reading your thesis!

So what are the most most common scales that one finds in qin music?

[Charlie Huang]

I haven't started it yet! I'm about 5-10 years from! I still need to plan my way into getting an MMus at SOAS, Uni of London first! I have a 2:2 Bacholars degree in Philosophy, which is a disadvantage coz they are asking for an upper second class degree preferbly in Music (or you might have to do a Undergraduate Diploma for a year, which is expensive to say the least). But at least I can ask Cheng Yu for a reference, which slightly pushes the chances of me being accepted, but by not that much. I'm about 3-5 years from doing that. I'm sitting here right now at a training/job search centre which the Jobcentre put me on for 13 weeks or they'll cut my benefit... *groan* I've still got a long way before my goals. I have to find work first.

[Standard scales]

Zheng diao: 5612356 OR 1245612
Ruibin diao: 2356123
Manjiao diao: 1235612
Huangzhong diao: 1356123
Manshang diao: 1135612
Qiliang diao: 2456123

[Si]

well you could translate as much chinese gu qin books as you can into english and sell them to us. Thats a sure winner. As we all know - the chinese poeple have all our books translated but we dont have many of theirs translated to english.

[Charlie Huang]

Jonathan's in the process of writing his own 'qin manual'. So far, I haven't the time to attempt such projects after my wiki article creation processes.

[Si]

Is Jonathan is the bloke who has the silk qin web site???


Will he be pulishing it?

[Charlie Huang]

No. That's John Thompson. Jonathan Yeung is president of the Toronto Uni Qin Association, etc. Go to my article's reference section for the link to view his manuscript for the manual.