Shenglü tongkao 聲律通考

Shenglü tongkao 聲律通考 "Thorough investigation of sounds and temperament" is a book on musical temperament compiled during the late Qing period 清 (1644-1911) by the philosopher Chen Li 陳澧 (1810-1882).

In view of the imminent extinction of ancient music, the book of ten juan length examines the ancient and modern systems of sound an temperament (sheng lü 聲律) and the rules of ancient music. Chen says that the ancient music, actively used from the Han 漢 (206 BCE-220 CE) up to the Song period 宋 (960-1279), has been declining, but has not yet been extinguished. The only exception is that modern popular music made use of gamuts with seven tones, while traditional music made use of twelve-tone gamuts (shi'er lü 十二律). Similarly, the ancient twelve keys (shi'er gong 十二宮) had been replaced by a sipmlified system of just seven keys. Modern musicians made use of a system of notation symbols (gongche zipu 工尺字譜, a special reading) for different musical instruments, and neglected the traditional system of notation with five notes (gong 宮, shang 商, jue 角, zhi 徵, yu 羽). Chen holds that the composition techniques (lifa 立法) of ancient music was simple, and that the later generations had lost the purpose of musical arithmetic and the interplay of Yin and Yang. He therefore wrote his book as a corrective measure, for instance, by providing the "right", Han-period measures of pitch pipes in "feet" (chi 尺, see weights and measures), with the help of which exact tone pitches could be determined. Chen's source were the standards (zhun chi 準尺) of Wang Pu 王樸 (d. 959) that are recorded in the respective chapter of the official dynastic history Songshi 宋史.

The Shenglü tongkao was printed in 1861.