Ling Lun () is the legendary founder of

music Music is generally defined as the art of arranging sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise expressive content. Exact definitions of music vary considerably around the world, though it is an aspect ...

in ancient

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

. In

Chinese mythology Chinese mythology () is mythology that has been passed down in oral form or recorded in literature in the geographic area now known as Greater China. Chinese mythology includes many varied myths from regional and cultural traditions. Much of t ...

, as described in the

Lüshi Chunqiu The ''Lüshi Chunqiu'', also known in English as ''Master Lü's Spring and Autumn Annals'', is an encyclopedic Chinese classic text compiled around 239 BC under the patronage of the Qin Dynasty Chancellor Lü Buwei. In the evaluation of Michae ...

(in ), Ling Lun is said to have created

bamboo flutes The bamboo flute, especially the bone flute, is one of the oldest musical instruments known. Examples of Paleolithic bone flutes have survived for more than 40,000 years, to be discovered by archaeologists. While the oldest flutes currently kno ...

which made the sounds of many birds, including the mythical

phoenix Phoenix most often refers to: * Phoenix (mythology), a legendary bird from ancient Greek folklore * Phoenix, Arizona, a city in the United States Phoenix may also refer to: Mythology Greek mythological figures * Phoenix (son of Amyntor), a ...

. "In this way, Ling Lun invented the five notes of the ancient Chinese five-tone scale (gong, shang, jiao, zhi, and yu, which is equivalent to 1, 2, 3, 5, and 6 in

numbered musical notation The numbered musical notation (, not to be confused with the integer notation) is a cipher notation system used in China, and to some extent in Japan (with 7th being si,), Indonesia (in a slightly different format called "not angka"), Malaysia, Au ...

or do, re, mi, sol, and la in western solfeggio) and the eight sounds made by eight musical instruments. The "

Yellow Emperor The Yellow Emperor, also known as the Yellow Thearch or by his Chinese name Huangdi (), is a deity ('' shen'') in Chinese religion, one of the legendary Chinese sovereigns and culture heroes included among the mytho-historical Three Soverei ...

" (Huangdi) is said to have ordered the casting of bells in tune with those flutes. An alternative text, the ''Lushi Chunqiu (English: Annals of Master Lu)'', from the third century BC credits another culture hero, Kui, (who is often confused with a one-legged mythical monster bearing the same name, Kui) with the invention of music. In one version of the story, Kui makes a drum by stretching animal skin over an earthen jar that defeats another monster.In another version,

fashions a drum from the skin of a ''kui'' monster. For a discussion of the ''hui/kui'' confusion, see Richard von Glahn, ''The Sinister Way: The Divine and the Demonic in Chinese Religious Culture''. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004, pp. 90 ff. In the computer games ''

Civilization IV ''Civilization IV'' (also known as ''Sid Meier's Civilization IV'') is a 4X turn-based strategy computer game and the fourth installment of the ''Civilization'' series, and designed by Soren Johnson under the direction of Sid Meier and his vid ...

'' and ''

Civilization V ''Sid Meier's Civilization V'' is a 4X video game in the ''Civilization'' series developed by Firaxis Games. The game was released on Microsoft Windows on September 21, 2010, on OS X on November 23, 2010, and on Linux on June 10, 2014. In ''C ...

'', Ling Lun appears as a great artist. The 2020 film ''

Bill & Ted Face the Music ''Bill & Ted Face the Music'' is a 2020 American science fiction comedy film directed by Dean Parisot and written by Chris Matheson and Ed Solomon. It is the third film in the ''Bill & Ted'' film series, and the sequel to ''Bill & Ted's Bogus Jo ...

'' features Ling Lun as one of the musicians in the titular characters' band, portrayed by Sharon Gee.

References

See also