What does Chinese music notation look like?

Question

I'm curious to know what music notation looks like in Chinese. Do the Chinese musicians read off of the same system that we use in America? Are there sharps and flats and treble and bass clefs? What about scales and chords?

Answer 1

According to www.cultureofchina.com , there is no standard notation for Chinese music. The various methods may be grouped under: pitch system, descriptive system, hand-and-finger system, Kung Ch'e

system, rhythmic recitation and numerical system.



Chinese music is written according to a number system, known as jianpu, which means "simplified notation" in Chinese. The system's invention is attributed to Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1742) but its development continued in the hands of Pierre Galin (1786-1821), Aimé Paris (1798-1866), and Émile Chevé (1804-1864). In some circles Chinese number notation is simply referred to as the French Chevé system. Variants of the number system are utilized all over Asia.



Nowadays, Chinese musicians can read western notation as well as Chinese. Many of them, when working from a Western staff notated part, will annotate it with the number system, since this is more native to their training.



The number system is similar in many respects with Indian notation, the main difference is that in Indian notation letters, representing the notes of the gamut, are utilized, whereas in Chinese notation numbers are employed. Like Indian notation, Chinese notation can be very useful as a musical shorthand.



More info on Chinese musical notations

http://www.music-notation.info/en/compmus/musicnotation-a4.pdf

http://www.vi-co.org/pdf/China-West_study-guide_general.pdf

http://www.thesolutionsite.com/lesson/1095/Musicprogram.ppt

http://www.cse.ust.hk/~layers/nfa_handout.ppt

Answer 2

Chinese Music Notation

Answer 3

This Site Might Help You.



RE:

What does Chinese music notation look like?

I'm curious to know what music notation looks like in Chinese. Do the Chinese musicians read off of the same system that we use in America? Are there sharps and flats and treble and bass clefs? What about scales and chords?

Answer 4

On some old Chinese music, you can find numbers as music notation:

1 for c (do)

2 for d (re)

3 for e (mi)

4 for f (fa)

5 for g (so)

6 for a (la)

7 for b (si/ti)

However, these music notation is not complete. Most pieces use the international music notation with 5 lines.

Answer 5

As craftylass said music is internationial and the notation for it has become standardised.



As note music will look the same in the USA as it does in China.

Answer 6

Music is an international lanaguage and sheet music looks the same here as anywhere else.



The style of teaching music is different at the beginning level but once the student reaches a certain proficiency, then it's more like anywhere else.

Answer 7

here you are in details:



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numbered_musical_notation

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gongche_notation