作曲
さっきょく · sakkyoku · JLPT N3 · noun
musical composition
🎼🎹 作曲 = make + tune: making a tune is composing
作 (saku) means to make, as in 作る; 曲 (kyoku) means a piece of music. 曲 also means bent, so a melody is a line of notes that bends up and down. saku + kyoku joins into sakkyoku, and the ku sound turns into a double k.
作 — person radical 亻 + 乍
作 combines the person radical 亻 with 乍, which originally depicted a sudden action or making something. The character means 'to do, make, or create,' with 亻 indicating human activity and 乍 supplying the sound. Over time it broadened to cover works, deeds, and acting as something.
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.'