ANU Chinese classical music ensemble

The ensemble performs all of its songs using scores written in jianpu - a numbered notation system originating from France, but very popular in China

In jianpu the numbers 1 - 7 represent the notes of the scale (or more specifically the scale degree), and the score will tell you at the top what key you are playing in by listing 1= root note (eg. 1 = C is the key of C major).

So, as you can see in the example below, if the score is in C major then1= C, 2 = D, 3 = E, etc.

An octave above is indicated by a dot placed above the number, and an octave below is indicated by a dot below the number.

A single number represents a single beat/crotchet, and lines are placed below notes to shorten their length by half. One line below = a quaver , two lines below = a semiquaver, etc.

Dashes after a note lengthen it, with each dash representing a lengthening of one beat/crotchet, i.e in the key of C: 1 - - - would represent four beats/a semibreve of C.

Below is an example score from an old Jiangnan Sizhu style piece, 云庆 (Yún qìng).

You can see the score is divided up into eight parts, which in this case are individual instruments (pipa, erhu, yang qin, etc).

At the top left the score tells you to play in the key of D, in 4/4 time, and at a speed of 64 - 76 BPM.

The top centre is the title of the piece (云庆 / Yún qìng).

The top right will usually have the name of the composer, however in this case it is a very old piece, so no composer is listed.

Other scores will be divided into sections rather than individual instruments, such as:

吹管 (Chuīguǎn) - Wind

拉弦 (Lā xián) - Bowed Strings

弹拨 (Tánbō) - Plucked Strings

低音 (Dīyīn) - Bass

打击 (Dǎjí) - Percussion

Many of the dynamics and other notations for jianpu are much the same as you would find in western scores, but with jianpu there are also often instructional notes in Chinese, along with a huge array of instrument specific symbols (although there aren’t many examples of these in the score excerpt below).

We are currently working on some PDF resources to help non-Mandarin speakers make sense of these additional notations, but we also explain these to new members so if you are thinking of joining but are feeling daunted by the notation, please don’t be worried!

Below is a video of the ensemble performing this piece in the ANU School of Music Recording Studio, so you can listen and follow the excerpt below (the first 6 bars).