抑扬顿挫
yì yáng dùn cuò · HSK 7
see 頓挫抑揚|顿挫抑扬[dun4 cuo4 yi4 yang2]
🎵 抑 lower + 扬 raise + 顿 pause + 挫 drop = a voice rising and falling with rhythm
A four-part chengyu describing well-modulated cadence in speech or music. Each character is one move of the voice: press down, lift up, pause, then turn down again, giving spoken or sung delivery its lively up-and-down rhythm.
扬 — hand radical 扌 + 昜 (rising sun)
扬 is a semantic-phonetic compound: the hand radical 扌 gives the meaning (an action done with the hand), while 昜 (sun rising over the horizon) supplies the sound 'yáng'. The original sense was to raise or lift up, which broadened to 'spread, scatter, make known'. The modern simplified form replaces the older 揚.
顿 — 屯 (tún, phonetic) + 頁/页 (head)
A phono-semantic compound. The right side 頁 means 'head', hinting at the original sense of bowing or knocking the head to the ground. The left side 屯 supplies the sound. From 'kowtow' it extended to 'pause, halt' and then to 'a bout/instance', as in 一顿饭 (one meal).