''Jieshi Diao Youlan'' () or just "Solitary Orchid" ("Secluded Orchid" or "Elegant Orchid" in some translations) is the name of a piece of Chinese music or melody for the

guqin The ''guqin'' (; ) is a plucked seven-string Chinese musical instrument. It has been played since ancient times, and has traditionally been favoured by scholars and Scholar-bureaucrats, literati as an instrument of great subtlety and refinemen ...

which was composed during the 6th or 7th century, with the earliest preserved text dating from the 7th century, and is possibly the oldest surviving piece of written music in East Asia.

History

The manuscript was written during the early Tang Dynasty during the 7th century, and it is now found in

Kyoto Kyoto (; Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in Japan. Located in the Kansai region on the island of Honshu, Kyoto forms a part of the Keihanshin metropolitan area along with Osaka and Kobe. , the c ...

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the n ...

. It is believed to be a copy of an earlier manuscript and contains a lot of written 'corrections', mistakes and vagueness. Because it is damaged in some places, there has been much study into how it is played.

Notation

The manuscript of Youlan is written in a special old form of guqin notation, known as ''wenzi pu'' (lit. "written character notation").

Tonality

The melody is noted for its use of microtones, especially at the cadences at the end of each of its four sections when three tones between ''ti'' and ''do'' (and in the case of the third section, the halfway tone between ''ti'' and ''do'' is further divided) are used. This creates a mysterious effect that sounds modern to new listeners.

References

:''Please see:'' References section in the guqin article for a full list of references used in all qin related articles.

Notes

Guqin Chinese traditional music {{china-music-stub