What are the scales commonly used in traditional Japanese songs

This is what many japanese pop theorists have been studying and sorting out. Uehara's exposition in Famous Songs of Pop Music (1895) may be the first comprehensive exposition of Japanese scales by using modern scientific methods. Among them, Japanese scales are divided into "Tian She Festival" and "Du Jie Festival", each of which has an ascending shape and a descending shape. "Tian She Festival" refers to the scale of rural folk songs, and "Du Jie Festival" refers to the scale of urban songs. This theory had a far-reaching influence on the later study of Japanese scale modes.

Uemacho Tanabe distinguishes scales and modes according to Uehara's scale theory. He thinks that there are two kinds of seven-tone scales in Japan, which are divided into Yin and Yang, and each of these seven-tone scales contains a variety of silent modes, which become several "Yin modes" and "Yang modes" respectively. Later, it was revised by some people and became a mature theory of yin-yang model.

To put it simply, as far as the number and interval relationship of modal tones are concerned, the yang mode belongs to the system of "pentatonic scale without semitone" and the yin mode belongs to the system of "pentatonic scale with semitone". As for the pentatonic scale, I won't elaborate without asking. )

Japan's new scale system is established on the basis of studying the scale modes of Japanese folk songs and analyzing the scale modes of other traditional Japanese music genres. According to Koizumi's theory, the main component of the Japanese scale is a "quartic series", in which the first and last nuclear sounds (referring to the frame sounds that make up the quartic series) are pure quartic intervals with a note inserted in the middle. According to the main music categories of different quartet series, we can divide them into four types, namely, Japanese folk quartet series, Du Jie quartet series, rhythm quartet series and Ryukyu quartet series. I think it's hard to understand. Let me give you an example:

The first and last nuclear tones form a pure fourth degree, such as C-F, with a note in the middle. According to the above theory, there will be four situations.

1. Japanese folk song quartet sequence: c-be-f;

2. Du Jie Four Series: C-BD-F;

3. The rhythmic fourth-level tone series: C-D-F;

4. Ryukyu Fourth Tone Series: C-E-F E-F. Then these syllables are connected to form a scale, but the scale in Japanese is quite complicated, and there are two connection methods: "sustain" and "juxtaposition". It's hard to explain. Let me give you another example:

Examples of "continuous" scales (pitches are all from bottom to top, so groups are not marked): A-C-D-F-G; Examples of "coordinate" scales: a-c-d-e-g-a.

In this way, we can see that "extended" A-D and D-G (note that there is only one D in this scale, and D equals ordinary) constitute two pure quartets, while "tied" A-D and E-A constitute two pure quartets, with no ordinary in the middle.

1. Japanese folk music scale: [a]-c-[d]-e-g.

2. Du Jie scale: [E]-F-A-[B]-C.

3. Metric scale: [G]-A-C-[D]-E.

4. Ryukyu scale: [C]-E-[F]-G-B Say more. During the Meiji era, there was a tendency to try to combine the Japanese pentatonic scale with modern European harmony, so the "Qusichi scale" appeared (which is a name relative to western modes), and the result was a "large-tonality Qusichi scale" composed of C-D-E-G-A, which was difficult to write by hand and could not be posted elsewhere without authorization.