Dai Changgeng's Talks On Musical Temperament(Lü Hua). A Philological And Critical Study

Talks on Musical Temperament (Lii Hua) by Qing dynasty author Dai Changgeng is a work in three parts that takes as its object of investigation the sections "Measurement of the Lu" (Lu shu), "Division for the calculus of the Zhong tone" (Sheng Zhong fen) and "Technique for the calculus of the Huangzhong tone" (Sheng Huangzhong shu) from the chapter "Treatise on Musical Temperament" (Lu shu) in Sima Qian's Records of the Grand Historian (Shi Ji). By investigating mathematical patterns of temperaments, Song dynasty musical scores, and the practice of guqin zither and di flute playing as they appeared in different written sources, Dai Changgeng endeavours to analyse and account for historical problems present in "Treatise on Musical Temperament."While following mainly the line of Dai Changgeng's research, this dissertation surveys the methodology and opinions of scholars that since the Han dynasty studied the "Treatise on Musical Temperament", then analyses and reviews Dai Changgeng's methodology and the peculiarities of his research on musical temperament.This dissertation is made up of an introduction, three parts and a conclusion. Firstly, it punctuates the text and conducts a philological scrutiny on the more than 43 thousands written characters of the first section of Talks on Musical Temperament. Secondly, it reviews the methodological approaches and opinions that appear in the most representative studies on "Treatise on Musical Temperament" done by scholars of antiquity. Finally, on the basis of the results achieved in the previous two parts, this dissertation discusses the peculiarities of Dai Changgeng's research on musical temperament.