What are the five tones?

The five tones are Gong-Shang-Horn-Zheng-Feather.

The pentatonic scale, also known as the pentatonic scale, consists of five tones in the order in which they occur, starting with the Gong tone and ending with the Feather tone. In the pentatonic scale, the ancient Chinese usually used the "Gong" sound as the first level of the scale, which is also the most important one, and was sometimes used as a substitute for the "five tones". Equivalent to today's first key in the name of the do. "Gong" sound for the five tones of the Lord, the king of the five tones, commanding the sound. The second level of the five tones is the "Shang" tone. It is usually equivalent to the re tone in the first key of the present day.

"Horn" is the third level of the five tones, second to "Shang". It is usually equivalent to the mi sound in the first key. The "徵" is the fourth level of the five tones, after the "角". It is usually equivalent to the sol tone in the present-day diatonic title. "Feather" is the fifth level of the five tones, after "徵". It is usually equivalent to the la tone in the first key.

In the pentatonic scale, respectively, different tones as the main tone, can constitute different modes; modal name is named after the scale name. For example, when the first tone "Gong" is used as the main tone, it is called Gong tuning, when the second tone "Shang" is used as the main tone, it is called Shang tuning, when the third tone "Horn" is used as the main tone, it is called Horn tuning, and the rest of the scale is called Horn tuning. When the third tone "horn" is used as the dominant, it is called the horn mode, and so on.

Features of the pentatonic scale:

The pentatonic scale is characterized by the absence of chromatic intervals, and is known as the "pentatonic scale without semitones" or the "whole-tone pentatonic scale". "It is widely used in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. It is widely practiced in Asia, Africa, some islands in the Central Pacific, Hungary, Scottish folk music, and among Native American tribes before Europeans arrived in the Americas.

The pentatonic scale is often referred to as the "Chinese scale", and its five steps have specialized names in traditional Chinese culture, namely Gong, Shang, Horn, Zheng, and Feather, with "He, Si, B, Shak, and Gong" used during the Tang Dynasty. The intervals are organized as three whole tones in each octave, divided into two strings (Gong-Shang-Jiao) and a single one (Zheng-Yu), separated by an accent.

Based on the pentatonic scale, different additional tones (partial tones) can be inserted into each interval of the mouthpiece to form a seven-tone scale (seven-tone scale with five tones as the main sound), and the partial tones can be changed to Gong, Zheng, Zheng-horn, and Qing-plume, and the additional tones can be inserted in three different ways to form three different scale forms. The pitches of the additional tones are often shifted, and the shifted pitches sometimes divide the interval of the □ tone into two intervals of about three-quarters of a tone each.

Refer to Baidu Encyclopedia - Pentatonic