bend, music, melody, composition, pleasure, injustice, fault, curve, crooked, perverse, lean
曲 centers on something that is not straight: a physical bend or curve, and by extension, a twisting of what is right into injustice or perversity. The music and melody senses come from the idea of a musical composition as a shaped, curved sequence of notes.
曲 is a pictograph of a bent or curved object, possibly a carpenter's square or a curved vessel. The modern form retains the sense of bending, and the musical meaning likely developed from the idea of a shaped or arranged piece.
Picture a straight line being bent into a curved shape, like a flexible ruler. The two vertical strokes inside the box are the bent parts, and the outer frame holds the curve. This bending idea extends to music as a shaped composition and to injustice as a twisted act.
For キョク, imagine a crooked music stand that makes your sheet music slide off: 'kyoku' sounds like 'crooked' with a Japanese twist, and the bent stand matches the kanji's shape.
composition; piece of music; song; track (on a record)
musical composition; tune
composition (of music); setting; writing music
new (musical) composition; new piece; new song
to bend; to curve; to warp; to wind; to twist
famous piece of music; excellent song; (musical) masterpiece
curve
all compositions; the entire composition
curvature; warp; bend
concerto
to bend; to crook; to bow; to curve; to curl
suite
name of a piece of music; (musical) number
drama; play
curve; bend; crook
symphony
melody; tune; song
overture; prelude
(street) corner; turn (in the road); bend
euphemistic; circumlocutory; periphrastic; roundabout; indirect
noh song
bending; winding; meandering; zigzagging
tune (melody, piece of music)
composer
kayōkyoku; form of Japanese popular music that developed during the Showa era