乐曲
yuèqǔ · HSK 6
musical composition
🎵 yuè (music) + qǔ (tune) = a musical composition
乐 means music or joy, and 曲 means a tune or melody. Together they form the formal word for a musical composition or piece of music, like saying music-tune.
乐 — stylized depiction of a wooden instrument with strings
Originally a pictograph of a wooden frame holding strings or bells, representing a musical instrument. The character first meant 'music' (read yuè), and by extension came to mean 'joy, happiness' (read lè), since music brings pleasure. The simplified form 乐 streamlines the older 樂.
曲 — pictograph of a bent carpenter's tool or curved object
曲 is a pictograph showing a bent or curved shape, originally depicting a carpenter's measuring tool or a curved frame. From this concrete image of bending came the abstract senses of 'crooked,' 'wrong,' and 'tune/melody' (since songs follow winding contours). The reading qū carries the bending senses, while qǔ means 'song.'