Equal Temperament and China

[J Patrick Draine]

Since several of you have cited "3000 years of ET in China", and 
since I vaguely recollected others making such a claim, I e-mailed 
one of my profs (specialist in ancient Chinese literature, history, 
and music too) with a query, to which he replied


>Patrick,
>
>The Ming [Ming Dynasty spanned 1368 - 1644 AD] prince in question is 
>Ju Dzai-yw, who wrote several music
>treatises. The question of implementation of the system is more complicated,
>but there seems to be no doubt that the system itself was transmitted via
>Jesuit missionaries (the Phillippines are a junction point) to Europe,
>whence to Pere Mersenne, with results we know. Between the two discoveries
>lie only several decades, but they were lively decades.



>  Needham [...] describe[d]
>pre-Ming efforts at equal temperament, and point out that distributing 1/12
>of the Pythagorean comma over the existing notes of the natural scale does
>not make that scale equally tempered. The 12th root of 2 is required, to
>define the frequency ratio, and that was apparently Ju Dzai-yw's
>contribution.
>
>Best wishes with those piano tuners. I imagine they are as resistant to
>thoughts of Ju Dzai-yw as are letterpress printers to the notion that beyond
>their god Gutenberg loom the Koreans and others.
>
>Bruce

Perhaps Baoli Liu can give us the "party line" version of the history 
of ET in China.

Sinologically yours,
Patrick Draine