ヨナ抜き音階 (Yonanuki Onkai) – Japanese musical scale

11th May – 皐月

Old Japanese music style has unique sounds that are very peculiar, this is because there is a Japanese musical scale exists. Older time before Western music spread in Japan, Japanese used to call the sound of Do Re Mi Fa So La Ti as ヒフミヨイムナ (Hi Fu Mi Yo I Mu Na). Those letters came from the pronunciation of numbers (一 as 1=ヒ,二 as 2=フ, 三 as 3=ミ, 四 as 4=ヨ, 五 as 5=イ, 六 as 6=ム , 七 as 7=ナ). For Japanese musical scale, it takes ヨ(4th) and ナ (7th) off and is called ヨナ抜き音階 (YoNa nuki Onkai) = Do Re Mi So Ra.

This scale started to be used in Meiji period (1868 – 1912) and often adopted in children’s songs. As Japan took the national isolation in the past, Japan was not influenced by the foreign cultures. This remarkably appeared in music.

There is another interesting music scale exists in Japan – it is called 琉球音階 (Ryukyu Onkai). This music scale is from Okinawa and independently prospered in Okinawa. Okinawa used to be one kingdom called 琉球王国(Ryukyu Oukoku) (in 1429~1879), about 450 years long. At that time, Ryukyu had many connection to the other Asian countries and did trading. Therefore, Ryukyu have its own style of music different to Japan. Ryukyu music scale is still often used by the Okinawa singers.

If you listen to Japanese songs, you might find some songs use those scales:)