In eighteenth-century Japan, scholars undertook an extraordinary experiment: they reimagined the Chinese seven-stringed qin—long regarded as the most elite of literati instruments—through Japan’s own musical systems. This encounter produced not mere imitation, but a new theory of sound, tuning, and musical order. Running counter to the government-sponsored project led by the legacy of Ogyuu Sorai in the 1710’s, Yamagata Daini’s Kingaku Hakki (1763) was a groundbreaking treatise that unabashedly applied indigenous Japanese ritsuryō pitch systems onto the tuning while justifying its use with Confucian music traditions and Chinese theory.   

Yamagata’s ideas, however, proved as dangerous as they were innovative. In 1767 he was executed by the Tokugawa shogunate for lèse-majesté, and his musical writings were sealed away, unread and effectively erased from the canon. For over two centuries, Kingaku Hakki remained buried—its theoretical breakthroughs unrecognized, its challenge to musical and political authority silenced. 

In this book talk, Juni L. Yeung will introduce the first English translation and study of Kingaku Hakki, and demonstrate through recordings and live performance the thought process of gagaku in transcription and its changes as it traverses instruments, cultures, and time. 

The book talk will be moderated by Hippocrates Cheng, Assistant Professor of Music Theory and Composition, Binghamton University.

Juni L. Yeung received an M.A. in History from the University of Toronto, is a seventh-generation Shu School (Chengdu Ye branch) qin player, and serves as chairperson of the Toronto Guqin Society. Her 2010 publication Standards of the Guqin is the international bestseller for learning the instrument in English. 

Dr. Hippocrates Cheng 鄭靖楠 is a composer, theorist, ethnomusicologist from Hong Kong. He is currently an assistant professor of music theory and composition and an affiliated faculty of Asian and Asian American Studies at Binghamton University. As a composer, he writes contemporary classical music, new music for Asian instruments, and Jazz. As a researcher, he researches the music of Hong Kong composer Doming Lam, East Asian and Southeast Asian music, piano rolls and player piano in early Jazz history and Braille music notation. He has given guest lectures, masterclasses and performances in the United States, Canada, Austria, Germany, China, Japan, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam. He has presented his research at numerous national and international conferences, including those organized by AMS, AMIS, IAML, ICTMD, ISJAC, APME, and others.