This is one of the traditional Chinese music notation methods. In the Ming and Qing dynasties it was named Gong-che notation, which was derived from the informal-character notation of the banquet music in the Tang Dynasty and the simplified-character notation in the Song and Yuan dynasties, with ten Chinese characters such as gong (工) and che (尺) as the symbols of the syllable names, in which shang (上), che (尺), gong (工), fan (凡), liu (六), wu (五), and yi (乙) correspond to do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, and si (or ti) in the modern music score respectively. The gong-che notation indicates the key name in front of the music to determine the actual pitch of each note, and uses measure symbols to indicate the dynamic and time value of the note. However, the gong-chenotation records the backbone of the melody and can only retain the main features and framework of the melody. The gong-che notations used in different places and dynasties were not uniform. Therefore, the music was not always very accurate when sung according to the score, and was quite variable. This feature also left creative space for traditional artists when passing on their skills.

The Bili (筚篥) instrument now used in the Imperial Song and Dance Troupe has seven holes on the top and two holes on the back, and the music is recorded using ten characters: wu, fan, gong, che, shang, yi, si, liu, gou, and he. (Chen Yang: Book of Music)

Solemn and elegant music: In such works each tune uses the following ten musical notes for composing music and harmonizing sounds: wu, fan, gong, che, shang, yi, si, liu, gou, and he, which are similar to the twelve-tone temperament of yayue (the elegant music), but with one note missing in each of the two categories of lü (律) with falling tone and lü (吕) with falling-rising tone, which makes it look like yayue without the tone of shang (商). (The History of the Liao Dynasty)