Chapter 82 Twenty-eight tunes of Yanle

The palace tunes used in elegant music and vulgar music are different. Although Yan music is also used in the court, it belongs to the vulgar music system.Theoretically speaking, the tones used in Yanyue can also be eighty-four tones, but some instruments in the Yanyue system, such as the pipa (the pipa only had six phases and eleven frets or six phases and thirteen frets until the beginning of the 20th century, did not have All semitones), sheng, zither, flute, etc., do not have twelve semitones, and cannot be transferred very freely, so Yanyue in the Tang Dynasty actually only used 28 palace tones.These twenty-eight palace tones all use the seven-tone scale, but only four of the seven tones can be used as the main tone, that is, there are only four modes.These four sounds are Gong, Shang, Jiao, and Yu, and there is no sign.These four tones only match the seven rhythms of Huangzhong, Taicu, Jiazhong, Zhonglu, Linzhong, Nanlu, and Wushe in the twelve rhythms. A total of twenty-eight tunes.Of course, this is just the simplest explanation.

The names of the twenty-eight tunes of Yanyue are also different from the Yayue system, and use many of the tune names that we often see in Song Ci and Yuan Opera, such as Yue Diao (Huang Zhongshang), Zhenggong (Taicuo Palace), Dashi Tiao (Tai Cu Shang), Ban She Tiao (Tai Cu Yu), Gao Gong (Jia Zhong Gong), Gao Ban She Tiao (J Zhong Yu), Zhong Lu Gong (Zhong Lu Gong), Shuang Tiao (Zhong Lu Shang) , Dao Diao (Lin Zhonggong), Nanlu Palace (Nanlu Palace), Shui Diao (Nanlu Shang), Xianlu Diao (Wu Sheyu), etc. The pitch standard of the Yanyue system is also different from that of the Gagaku system, so I won’t explain it in detail here.