page_title: Shí-èr-lǜ
hierarchical_section_title: Shí-èr-lǜ
caption_attribution_description: English: Shí-èr-lǜ scale on C in staff notation.
context_page_description: Shí-èr-lǜ was a standardized gamut of twelve notes. Also known, rather misleadingly, as the Chinese chromatic scale, it was one kind of chromatic scale used in ancient Chinese music. The Chinese scale uses the same intervals as the Pythagorean scale, based on 2:3 ratios. The gamut or its subsets were used for tuning and are preserved in bells and pipes.
  Unlike the Western chromatic scale, the shí-èr-lǜ was not used as a scale in its own right; it is rather a set of fundamental notes on which other scales were constructed.
  The first reference to "standardization of bells and pitch" dates back to around 600 BCE, while the first description of the generation of pitches dates back to around 240 CE.
context_section_description: Shí-èr-lǜ (Chinese: 十二律, [ʂɻ̩̌.âɚ lŷ], 12 pitches) (twelve-pitch scale) was a standardized gamut of twelve notes. Also known, rather misleadingly, as the Chinese chromatic scale, it was one kind of chromatic scale used in ancient Chinese music. The Chinese scale uses the same intervals as the Pythagorean scale, based on 2:3 ratios (8:9, 16:27, 64:81, etc.). The gamut or its subsets were used for tuning and are preserved in bells and pipes.
  Unlike the Western chromatic scale, the shí-èr-lǜ was not used as a scale in its own right; it is rather a set of fundamental notes on which other scales were constructed.
  The first reference to "standardization of bells and pitch" dates back to around 600 BCE, while the first description of the generation of pitches dates back to around 240 CE.
caption: Shí-èr-lǜ on C. About this soundPlay (help·info)
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