7.c. Musical features
ii. Mode
Traditional Chinese music was based on the Pentatonic scale, which means five-relative tone, in addition to the Pentatonic scale, Ancient China even established a twelve-pitch scale (12 letters names, 12 absolute pitches) in the Spring and Autumn period (770 to 481 BC), more than 2000 years earlier than the West. However, the pitch system at that time was not the same as the modern equal temperament. Musicians at the time based on 3:2 ratios, a method similar to the Pythagorean scale to formulate the pitch of the twelve temperaments.
Chinese music mode is composed of two core elements: "tone 音"(relative) and "law 律" (absolute pitch). The concept of "tone" is similar to the Western solfège, referring to the five main notes, i.e., “Gong, Shang, Jue, Zhi, Yu”, known as pentatonic; and the “law” is referring to the 12 absolute pitches, which are of half-tone or semitone.
When it comes to the view of Huang Tzu’s art songs embodying the integration of Chinese and Western cultures, we can easily explain from the aspect of the mode. On the basis of western composition, he added the Chinese pentatonic scale, in which he was particularly fond of adding traditional Chinese modes to ancient poems. Since it was much closer to the traditional side. This type of songs derived from the ancient poem usually highlight the characteristics of both traditional Chinese melody and western harmony. Of course, it is worth mentioning that Huang Tzu also tried to explore the possibility of Chinese national harmony, which will be discussed in detail later in the chapter of harmony.
(to the previous page)
Pentatonic Mode
"A Flower in the Haze" is in the pentatonic D Gong mode (D Chinese Pentatonic), with 4 sentences in a total of 10 bars. The melody was completely based on the five relative tones. The relationship between the tones and letter name is as shown in the table below:
Taking the first sentence as an example, we can see the characteristics of the melodic mode:
