Shí-èr-lǜ Shí-èr-lǜ Shí-èr-lǜ (, , "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
Tonic sol-fa latter more directly represents the intervals between pitches in any given key signature. In Curwen's system, the notes of the major scale (of any key) are notated with the single letters d, r, m, f, s, l, and t. For notes above the principal octave, an apostrophe follows the letter; notes below the principal octave have a subscript mark. Chromatic alterations are marked by the following vowel, "e" for sharp (pronounced "ee") and "a" for flat (pronounced "aw"). Thus, the ascending and descending chromatic scale is notated: Such chromatic notes appear only as ornaments or as preparation for a modulation;