THE BRITISH ACADEMY,
established by Royal Charter in 1902, champions and supports the humanities and social sciences. It is an independent, self-governing fellowship of scholars elected for their distinction and achievement.
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The Prehistory of Chinese Music Theory
This lecture took place on 26 October 2004
Professor Robert Bagley, Princeton University
The tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng (d. 433 BC), excavated by Chinese archaeologists in 1978, contained thirty well-preserved musical instruments, among them sets of chimestones and bells that bear lengthy inscriptions concerning pitches and scales. These inscriptions, the earliest texts on music so far known from China, reveal a high level of theoretical sophistication, in particular a clear understanding of the chromatic scale. The lecture will describe the instruments and inscriptions, then, in an attempt to account for the music theoretical knowledge they embody, it will propose a hypothetical prehistory for Chinese music.
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