ABSTRACT
Gongchepu is currently used by northern Chinese Buddhist and Daoist shengguan ensembles and in a handful of folk and operatic repertoires. In many shengguan traditions, gongchepu scores are preserved but not much used in the performance or transmission of the music. The characters of the gongchepu system can be altered to expand the gamut of notatable pitches. Yang Yinliu lists seven scales found in music notated with gongchepu; yizidiao, wuzidiao, liuzidiao, fanzidiao, xiaogongdiao, chezidiao, and shangzidiao. Each of these contains the same pitches, but the tonic shifts to the named pitch of each scale. Musician-monks at Shuxiang si, however, say that all of their music is based on one scale. As gongchepu is used at Wutaishan's monasteries today, octave specific indications have little effect on the practice of shengguan music. In many cases, ritual musicians in north China have little use for gongchepu even if scores exist for the repertoires they perform.
