music called "Yodaya" (the Burmese word for Ayutthaya), which is codified in the Mahāgīta corpus of Burmese classical music. U Sa was responsible for increasing the number of harp strings from seven to thirteen, such that the notes spanned two and a half octaves, from C3 to F5, and for establishing specifications, including improving the harp's tensile strength by using the curved root of the sha tree. The last Konbaung court harpist, Maung Maung Gyi, added the 14th string. Ba Than, a post-independence harpist, created a 16-string saung. After a period of decline before World War II, in 1947, Hmat Kyi, who descended from royal woodcarvers, created 7 harps for the State Schools of Fine Arts. In the 18th century the instrument was introduced to Qing dynasty China, becoming known as zonggaoji (总稿机, a transliteration of "saung-gauk"). The instrument was played at feasts of the Chinese imperial court starting in 1788 as part of tribute. Music and musicians Until the 1800s, the Burmese harp and its music was exclusively used only for chamber music within the royal court, where it held status as the most prized of the court instruments. Since then, it has become popular with the general population, but is still played only in more intimate chamber settings. The harp is usually accompanied by a singer, or more accurately, the singer is accompanied by the harp, with the harp adapting to the singer, who controls the time with a bell and clapper to indicate the music tempo. The principal playing techniques in Mandalay include let-kat (လက်ကပ်), kaw (ကော့), zon-hswe-gyin (စုံဆွဲခြင်း), and tat (တပ်). The Burmese classical music scale is tuned differently from the Western scale, and has been said to be derived from the descending cycle of fifths. The original tuning method extant from 1885 is called hnyin-lon, while musicians also use the auk-pyan, pale, and myin-zaing tuning methods. This is only approximately true, and traditionally, the harp is tuned differently for the four major different modes of Burmese classical music. Recently, due to the overriding influence of Western music, many harpists tune to the Western diatonic scale, since fewer and fewer singers feel fully comfortable with the traditional tunings. Burmese music has not been written down with notation, only the text of the songs are recorded, and the rendition of the music has been passed down through the generations from teacher to student. The last and most