A variety of musical scales are used in traditional Japanese music. While the Chinese Shí-èr-lǜ has influenced Japanese music since the Heian period, in practice Japanese traditional music is often based on pentatonic (five tone) or heptatonic (seven tone) scales. In some instances, harmonic minor is used, while the melodic minor is virtually unused.
Pentatonic scales Japanese mode: a pentatonic musical scale with the intervals of the scale a major second, minor third, perfect fifth and minor sixth. Akebono scale Hirajōshi scale In scale Insen scale Iwato scale Ritsu and ryo scales Yo scale
Further reading Koizumi Fumio. Musical Scales in Japanese Music. Heibonsha, Tokyo, 1977 Sir Francis Taylor Piggott, Thomas Lea Southgate. The Music and Musical Instruments of Japan. B.T. Batsford, 1893 William P. Malm. Traditional Japanese Music and Musical Instruments. Kodansha International, 2000. , 9784770023957 Cargill Gilston Knott. Remarks on Japanese musical scales. Asiatic Society of Japan, 1891
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