The Concise History of Chinese Musical Temperament - Episode 1: Formation of Tones

This episode covers the formation of the Chinese understanding of tones and temperament in early history, providing the foundation to the topic and the basic facts on the subject.
Support this project over at Patreon!
/ torguqin
Check out the original text passages cited with dictionary references at CText!
Guanzi: Diyuan
ctext.org/dictionary.pl?if=en...
Lu's Annals: Mid-Summer
ctext.org/dictionary.pl?if=gb...
Late Summer
ctext.org/dictionary.pl?if=gb...
Records of the Grand Historian: Sheng Zhong Fen
ctext.org/dictionary.pl?if=gb...
Music used:
Lead In and Lead Out: Gufeng Cao (Guqin), from Standards of the Guqin (CD)
torguqin.bandcamp.com
Chinese Court Music (Confucius Homage Ceremony)
Zhaoping zhi Zhang
• 釋奠禮樂【昭平之章】（中國雅樂, Chine...
Xuanping zhi Zhang
• 釋奠禮樂【宣平之章】（中國雅樂, Chine...
Jiaping zhi Zhang
• 中和韶樂【嘉平之章】（中國雅樂, Chine...
Da Huo
• 【大濩】

[@RechtmanDon]

Just a suggestion: When describing the up and down leaps, add a keyboard graphic (such as the one at the end) and animate the leaps on the keyboard to provide a strong visual for the ways the temperament is created.

[@jts1702a]

You're gonna love Ep.4 with Cai Yuanding's set...

[@samusbros66]

Found this while i was studying microtones, really amazing stuff, can't understand why the low views, truly gold material!!

[@NP1066]

If you were studying microtones you're not in the right place. You should research middle eastern music instead.

[@jts1702a]

@@NP1066 It helps to go back to the VERY basics of why we even have the concept of microtones, in the first place, and how they're rationalized into a concept...

[@stephenspackman5573]

You-well, anyone reading this comment-should also be aware of the New Tonality KZbin channel, which demonstrates a scientifically grounded _solution(!)_ for the temperament problem-though it only obviously works for electronic instruments, because the trick is to dissociate overtones from harmonics, which to my amazement is a perceptually valid thing. I'm so happy that so much material has showed up on KZbin that's not stuck in this contradictory delusion that 12EDO is the One True Understanding. It seems as if The Algorithm has only recently discovered that it all forms a cluster…?

[@idonnow2]

13:28 Glad to see ancient Chinese scales giving us good trans representation

[@KaneyoriHK]

Man, I've been wanting something like this series for a long time, I appreciate the hell out of this.

[@nicholassmith5822]

非常感谢! This is seriously good stuff! Thanks for including the original Chinese texts as well!

[@gummiesbear]

Great job! This is really thoughtfully presented and very enriching!

[@fotgjengeren]

What a wealth of knowledge! Thanks so much

[@khalilal-bukhari7042]

I am still watching, thank you for this content!

[@JoshWunderlich]

This video is incredible, had no idea I would find a video on this topic on KZbin!! Thank you for putting the time into making this!

[@brianbenet4914]

Bruh you can find a video about literally anything on KZbin.

[@jts1702a]

@@brianbenet4914 I didn't find anything of satisfactory depth on KZbin -- hence why I made this. As the "father of Otakuism" Okada Toshio said - it's our duty to give back to the community as we enjoy and take...

[@p.1346]

I started looking for guqin music and ended up finding your channel... once I took a look into it, I kept watching video after video. The way you explain things is so nice and clear I can't help but keep on wanting to learn more. I've always been interested in eastern music but had no idea about its history nor temperament, so these series of videos are pure gold to me. I'm seriously learning a lot and I do believe, as you said in the previous introductory video, knowing and understanding the very basics and origins of this wonderful music makes all the difference, both to play it and to enjoy it. Thank you very much for all the dedication and hard work you put into these videos, which can absolutely be classified as seminars, really. Lots of love and admiration from Argentina.

[@mikeloOdium]

I'm dying to hear what's next. I'd like to help you on patreon, but unfortunately I can't atm, but I will do in the first opportunity I have. Thanks for your hard effort! Please keep on doing these videos!

[@almishti]

Very nicely done! I have to watch a few segments over again to grasp some points, but overall this was pretty easy to follow and nicely narrated. Looking forward to watching the rest of the series.

[@mattyregelmaessig8654]

Really great set of videos. I use these as recommended viewing with my Musical Acoustics class when we get onto world tunings and temperaments.

[@stevenzheng5459]

Wow, your presentation is very clean and concise!

[@Isxiros100]

This is an amazing video! I love your intro and your explanation of different music substrates and culture understand of sounds and music. Wish you could tell my friends who despise my chinese an middle eastern music playlists!

[@alcyonecrucis]

Love it. Very helpful for us who want to compose and also love the classics

[@blitheringape5321]

i am impressed with your oration, kudos

[@alcyonecrucis]

Watching further, this was hilarious and very beautifully made. I will share it widely

[@edgarmatias]

Great work!

[@thenomad4606]

Wow, this is amazing.

[@empathematics8928]

Brilliant! Thank you.

[@wizard1370]

Incredible

[@TravisTellsTruths]

I love this

[@clifford2222]

太棒了 谢谢你

[@Taporeee]

Could you compare synergy, influences and differences between chinese, japanese, south asian (Indian Raag etc) and Middle Eastern (Maqqam based) classical theories with this wonderful Chinese explanation. Maybe collab witj similiar youtube creators?

[@jts1702a]

Thank you for the suggestion. Prof. LI Mei's PhD dissertation, to which this whole video series is based on, does also cover Arabic, Hindu, and Western temperaments as well, but they are simply presented for what they are without trying to discuss the mutual effects on each other. That is another whole field of VERY dedicated music history that is way beyond my knowledge or capabilities. Nonetheless, there'll be some mention and review at the end of this about this very subject.

[@Taporeee]

@@jts1702a Thank you. I think bringing musicians together to talk and play and ask questions together kike the Darbaar videos (comparing violin and Dilruba or guitar and sitar) are good alternative ideas for future videos

[@Taporeee]

​@@jts1702aThank you very much. It's very important work you have done

[@Juinor]

wow this is very very very deep eastern asian musical knowledges...

[@electriclly]

你很好 👋 i just got the I Ching to read in English, do these 6 tones relate to the hexagram that is talked about in the I Ching? 我想知到如果是不是明白！？😅

[@greensnail_in]

Thanks a lot. It's really interesting. But from another sources it's explained what music was used to harmonize surrounds. And it was used like measurement and also connection between macro and microcosmos. So astronomy and TCM (traditional chinese medicine) is also here. Isn't it ? May be you can share some more information about this connection.

[@yanchenzhang4672]

Excuse me I would like to know about the source of the background music starting from "Welcome to the first episode on the Chinese temperaments..." By the way, is it one single piece for the whole episode from here on? Thank you.

[@jts1702a]

Please see the links in the doobly-do (description). It is a stream of several pieces put together, starting with Da Huo, and then the three Confucius Homage pieces, with a partial loop, and back to Da Huo again.

[@yanchenzhang4672]

​@@jts1702a All right, thank you. Sorry for not realizing that the links are soundtrack bibliographies that I expected there might be.

[@yanchenzhang4672]

I have now memorized the fact that you put the bibliographies in the description section.

[@ColocasiaCorm]

Thank god for you. I desperately wanted to learn. Ore about chinese music as a discipline and philosophy. What orchestration techniques? Forms?

[@CommandoDefau]

Thank you for the discussion between Eastern and Western musical temperaments at this point in the video kzbin.info/www/bejne/g5DIfoiHaM18m68.

[@maxchanhi]

Great video. But I don't think the Diyuen chapter has direct compared five different grains or directions to five primary sounds. Of course, he compared five soils to the five primary sounds. "Gong(宮)" , the soil of Huangtang 黃唐土 "Zhi(微)" , the soil of Heizhi 黑埴土 "Shang(商)" , the soil of Chilu 赤壚土 "(Yu羽)" , the soil of Chizhi 斥埴土 "Jue(角)", the soil of Hechuanwotu 河川沃土 (hopefully it is right) But I went through the text of Diyuen, cannot find the direct mention of the connection of 5 grains or 5 directions has a solid connection of five sounds. I guess he mentioned seperatly the five sound ideology.

[@cdshop1301]

Voice sounds like a Chinese Xidnaf

[@flora5090]

Best takeaway from today is that the note C# is transgender 😂👍

[@jts1702a]

good job!

[@gaiawillis]

Based

[@PlasmaOscillations]

I am not a smart person.

[@jts1702a]

Hah! Me neither. I just nod and say "oh" to the technical stuff, but note that smart people actually saw past the numbers and offered new solutions. Better solutions, each and every time. OK, maybe not EVERY time. (look at Ep.3)