Japanese musical scales

A variety of musical scales are used in traditional Japanese music. While a twelve-tone (dodecaphonic) Chinese scale has influenced Japanese music since the Heian period, in practice Japanese traditional music is often based on pentatonic (five tone) or heptatonic (seven tone) scales.

Pentatonic scales

• Japanese mode: a pentatonic musical scale with the intervals of the scale a major second, minor second, major third, minor second, and major third
• Akebono scale
• Hirajōshi scale
• In scale
• Insen scale
• Iwato scale
• Ritsu and ryo scales
• Yo scale

Further reading

• Koizumi Fumio. Musical Scales in Japanese Music. Heibonsha, Tokyo, 1977
• Sir Francis Taylor Piggott, Thomas Lea Southgate. The Music and Musical Instruments of Japan. B.T. Batsford, 1893
• William P. Malm. Traditional Japanese Music and Musical Instruments. Kodansha International, 2000. ISBN 4770023952, 9784770023957
• Cargill Gilston Knott. Remarks on Japanese musical scales. Asiatic Society of Japan, 1891