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Chinese musicology is the academic study of traditional Chinese Music . This discipline has a very long history. TUNING The ancient Chinese defined, by mathematical means, a gamut or series of 12 Frequencies (called the 十二律12 lü) from which various sets of five or seven frequencies were selected to make the sort of "do re mi" major Scale familiar to people who have grown up in the United States and the United Kingdom . The 12 lü approximate the frequencies known in the West as A, B flat.....G, and A flat. SCALE AND TONALITY Most Chinese music uses a Pentatonic Scale , with the intervals (in terms of lǜ) the same as those of the major pentatonic scale. The notes of this scale are called gong, shang, jue, zhi, and yu. By starting from a different point of this sequence, a scale (named after its starting note) with a different interval sequence is created, similar to the construction of Modes in modern Western music. Since the Chinese system is not an Equal Tempered tuning, playing a melody starting from the lǜ nearest to A will not necessarily sound the same as playing the same melody starting from some other lǜ, since the wolf interval will occupy a different point in the scale. The effect of changing the starting point of a song can be rather like the effect of shifting from a Major to a Minor Key in Western music. SOURCE
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