Melodic Patterns in Korea: Modes and Scales

Akhak kwebŏm, compiled in the late fifteenth century, is a treatise on Korean music theory of that period, and it served as an essential precedent for the theories that were formulated afterward. This work explains the scales and modes that were used in both court music and other music. The akcho (mode and scale) theory is presented as follows. (1) The most common and most representative akcho were p’yŏngjo and kyemyŏnjo, although there were in theory also various other kinds...