‖ lü, n.
(ljuː)
Also liu, liuh.
[Chinese l{uumlgrave}.]
In ancient Chinese musical theory, a fundamental pitch; any of the twelve pitches in an untempered chromatic scale; also used attrib. to refer to (each of) a series of bamboo pipes used to produce these pitches.
In Chinese, although known collectively as the twelve l{uumlgrave}, there are two separate characters; l{uumlgrave} for the odd-numbered pitches, and l{uumlhacek} for the even-numbered.
| 1655 tr. Semedo's China i. xi. 54 They [sc. the Chinese] have twelve Tones, six to rise, which they call Live, and six to fall, which they call Liu. 1874 Jrnl. N. China Branch R. Asiatic Soc. VIII. 94 The Lu is a demi-note, of which twelve go to the Chinese octave. 1908 C. Engel Mus. Instruments (rev. ed.) v. 39 The tones of the pien-ch'ing are attuned according to the Chinese intervals called lü, of which there are twelve in the compass of an octave. 1954 Grove's Dict. Mus. (ed. 5) II. 221/2 Period of Huang Ti (from c. 2697 b.c.)... His system of the Huang Chung (foundation tone) and the 12 lü (cycle of fifths for transposing) has remained fundamental in Chinese music until the 20th century. 1957 New Oxf. Hist. Music I. ii. 95 The two ‘whole-tone scales’ of the male and female liuh (both leu and liuh are referred to collectively as the twelve liuh) were the result of a classification of the series into two groups by origin. 1974 Encycl. Brit. Micropædia VI. 394/3 Lü pipes, in Chinese music theory, 12 bamboo pipes closed at one end and cut in lengths mathematically proper to produce..the 12 tones of the untempered scale. 1980 New Grove Dict. Mus. IV. 261/1 The names of the 12 lü first appeared in Kuo-yü (4th century BC). |