My understanding is that of the pentatonic scales, yo, ryo and ritsu are
originally Chinese derived, having no half-steps, while "in" scales are
native Japanese, being hemitonic. Having no half-steps, yo scales are more
folk-sounding to some ears, which is perhaps what leads John Neptune to call
yosempo "country" and insempo "city," though that is probably not an
accurate differentiation. But I have never liked the terms "major
pentatonic" and "minor pentatonic" either, as major and minor are backwards
projections of later unrelated scale developments onto pentatonic music and
don't really make a lot of musical sense.
Hope I haven't made this more complicated!
----- Original Message -----
From: "Zachary Braverman" <zachary@kotodama.net>
To: <Shakuhachi@communication.ucsd.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, March 20, 2002 9:49 AM
Subject: Insempo/Yosempo - Help!
> Hi,
>
> I'm in the process of making a translation right now of some of
> Yokoyama-sensei's honkyoku material, and I have run into two terms,
> insempo/yosempo, for which I cannot find good English. I'm hoping someone
> with more background in Western music theory can help me out.
>
> Here is the passage:
>
> The majority of the Honkyoku are in the **Insempo*** mode (D, E-flat, G,
> A-flat, C, or D, E-flat, G, A, B-flat). It is important to note that the
> instrument itself is tuned on the ***yosempo*** mode (D, F, G, A, C) which
> is similar to the tuning of the Oiwake-Bushi melodies.
>
> To me this sounds like the difference between major and minor, but he is
> talking about modes, not scales.
>
> "Senpo" means "mode" and "in" and "yo" are the same as "yin" and "yang",
> which gives further basis for the minor/major hypothesis.
>
> Given this context, can anyone point me to a technically correct English
> equivalent for these two terms? I could always leave them as is, and I
> might have to if there is no good English equivalent, but they are
basically
> meaningless to an English-speaking reader, so I'd like to come up with a
> good English term.
>
> Thanks a lot,
>
> Zachary Braverman
>
> P.S. - If you can read Japanese the characters are $B1"@{K!(B and $BM[@{K!(B.
>
>
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