The exhibition's first section takes a close look some of the earliest instruments in New Mexico, as well as the materiality of music production — a violin painstakingly constructed of rawhide and leather with strings of wood, floss, and copper wire is juxtaposed with a selection of bandurrias (plucked chordophones that originated in Spain).
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Harps' strings rise approximately perpendicularly from the soundboard. Similarly, the many varieties of harp guitar and harp lute, while chordophones, belong to the lute family and are not true harps. All forms of the lyre and kithara are also not harps, but belong to the fourth family of ancient instruments under the chordophones, the lyres, closely related to the zither family. The term "harp" has also been applied to many instruments which are not even chordophones.
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The bandola is one of many varieties of small pear-shape chordophones found in Venezuela and Colombia. They are related to the bandurria and mandolin.
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For many historic membranophones to become playable again, a conservator may have ti weigh replacing the membrane of the piece. # Kettle drums # Tubular drums # Friction drums # Mirlitons - This subsection is unique to the membranophones category as it relies on air passing over the membrane, rather than it being struck. The most common example of a mirliton is a Kazoo # Frame drums/Pot drums/Ground drums Chordophones - Chordophones are instruments that use vibrating strings, which are most commonly stretched across a metal or wooden structure, to create sound. Similar to the membranes used on membranophones, the strings that are used on chordophones may need to be replaced if an instrument is to be performed with.
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This is a list of chordophones used in the Caribbean music area, including the islands of the Caribbean Sea, as well as the musics of Guyana, Suriname, French Guiana, Belize, Garifuna music, and Bermuda.
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Lady playing pulluvan veena Indian musical instruments can be broadly classified according to the Hornbostel–Sachs system into four categories: chordophones (string instruments), aerophones (wind instruments), membranophones (drums) and idiophones (non-drum percussion instruments).
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Instruments with a string attached to the membrane, so that when the string is plucked, the membrane vibrates (plucked drums). Some commentators believe that instruments in this class ought instead to be regarded as chordophones (see below).
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Instruments with a string attached to the membrane, so that when the string is plucked, the membrane vibrates (plucked drums) Some commentators believe that instruments in this class ought instead to be regarded as chordophones (see below).
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The first representation of a simple struck chordophone can be found in the Assyrian bas-relief in Kyindjuk dated back to 3500 BC. Since that time, widely divergent versions of this percussive stretched-string instrument have developed in many far-flung regions of the world. Struck chordophones are sometimes generically referred to as being in the "hammered dulcimer" family. They are, however, formally classified as struck zithers under Hornbostel- Sachs. Building on the struck chordophones common to the region, the Hungarian concert cimbalom was designed and created by V. Josef Schunda in 1874 in Budapest.
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Acoustic and electro- acoustic instruments which have a resonator as an integral part of the instrument, and solid-body electric chordophones. This includes most western string instruments, including lute-type instruments such as violins and guitars, and harps.
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One is an Embergher Artistico mandolin model No. 8, held in the Theatre Museum of St Petersburg.G.I. Blagodatov, K.A. Vertkov (1972) Catalogue of Musical Instruments of The Leningrad Institute of Theatre, Music and Cinematography, Izdatelstvo Muzyka (105)V.V. Koshelev (2014), Plucked Chordophones, Vol. 1.
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Flutes are aerophones An aerophone () is a musical instrument that produces sound primarily by causing a body of air to vibrate, without the use of strings or membranes (which are respectively chordophones and membranophones), and without the vibration of the instrument itself adding considerably to the sound (or idiophones).
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The guitarra morisca had a rounded back, wide fingerboard, and several sound holes. The guitarra Latina had a single sound hole and a narrower neck. By the 14th century the qualifiers "moresca" or "morisca" and "latina" had been dropped, and these two chordophones were simply referred to as guitars.Tom and Mary Anne Evans.
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The building is in Sudanese Sahelian style with dome-shaped roofs. It is in the centre of the city and is easily accessible to the general public. The first collection, put together between September 1998 and March 1999, is constantly growing. Instruments from all families are represented including aerophones, membranophones, idiophones and chordophones.
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The traditional Korean music of Geommu is Samhyeon-Nyukgak. Originally, Samhyeon designated three chordophones, Geomungo, Gayageum, and Hyangbipa and Nyukgak designated Buk, Janggu, Haegeum, and Piri at the Unified Shilla period from 654 to 780. The significance of Samhyeon had disappeared and remained the import of Nyukgak. Nowadays Samhyeonnyukgak indicates the wind instrumental music.
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The tautirut, along with the Apache fiddle are among the few First Nations chordophones which may possibly be pre-Columbian in origin.Beverley Diamond, M. Sam Cronk, Franziska Von Rosen, Contributor M. Sam Cronk, Franziska Von Rosen. Visions of sound: musical instruments of First Nations communities in Northeastern America. University of Chicago Press, 1994 , 978-0-226-14476-4.
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Acoustic and electro-acoustic instruments which have a resonator as an integral part of the instrument, and solid-body electric chordophones. The resonators and string bearers of these instruments are physically united, and they cannot be separated without destroying the instrument. This includes most western string instruments, including lutes such as violins and guitars, and harps.
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The Hornbostel-Sachs system of musical instrument classification defines chordophones as all instruments in which sound is primarily produced by the vibration of a string or strings that are stretched between fixed points. This group includes all instruments generally called string instruments (list) in the west, as well as many (but not all) keyboard instruments, such as pianos and harpsichords.
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Chordophones and aerophones are less common in traditional Zambian music but exist nonetheless. The Valley Tonga play instruments made from animal horns called nyeele. Nyeele are played using an interlocking technique with individual musicians each playing a single horn and interlocking with other musicians who have nyeele of different pitches. A chordophone called a kalumbu was traditionally played by young men to signal their desire to marry.
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In November 2008, their first CD/DVD Live was published with the name Sweet Home Verona. It was filmed on September 6 in the Roman Theater in Verona. The songs in this CD/DVD are accompanied only by chordophones and violins. The DVD placed them suddenly in first place of the Italian DVD-Charts and also between the Top 30 of the Album - market forecast.
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Classical guitars The following is a bibliography of classical guitar related publications. The classical guitar (also called the "Spanish guitar" or "nylon string guitar") is a six-stringed plucked string instrument from the family of instruments called chordophones. The classical guitar is well known for its comprehensive right-hand technique, which allows the soloist to perform complex melodic and polyphonic material, in much the same manner as the piano.
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Many Santal musicians also play the Harmonium. Introduced by the British, the harmonium is a small pump organ with a three- octave keyboard and hand bellows at the back. Although it was originally introduced by outsiders, Indian musicians have adapted it to Indian musical styles and it is now as ubiquitous in India as the guitar is in the West. Chordophones The Dhodro banam is a one-stringed bowed lute.
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Traditional music (known in Bislama as kastom singsing or kastom tanis) is still thriving in the rural areas of Vanuatu. Musical instruments consist mostly of idiophones: drums of various shape and size, slit gongs, as well as rattles, among others. In various regions, aerophones, such as conch shells, whistles or bamboo flutes, are (or used to be) played. Membranophones and chordophones were also found in some areas, but have fallen into disuse during colonial times.
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"The drum of the Black Africans". face-music.ch. Retrieved 31 January 2017. The drums are used in unison with various other melodic musical instruments ranging from chordophones like the ennanga harp and the entongoli lyre, lamellophones, aerophones, and idiophones and the locally made fiddle called kadingidi. Music is played for dancing in the community, Call and response style of singing is common with the Bantu"Traditional music of the Bantu from Uganda – Twins rituals". face-music.ch.
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Harry for the Holidays is American artist Harry Connick Jr.'s second Christmas album, released in 2003. The album features Connick and his 16 piece Big Band and a full section of chordophones. Harry for the Holidays was the best- selling holiday album in the United States of 2003 according to sales figures from Nielsen/SoundScan, with 687,000 copies sold in the U.S. that year. A Harry For The Holidays television special, aired on NBC December 23, 2003.
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The modern word guitar, and its antecedents, has been applied to a wide variety of chordophones since classical times and as such causes confusion. The English word guitar, the German , and the French ' were all adopted from the Spanish ', which comes from the Andalusian Arabic (') and the Latin ', which in turn came from the Ancient Greek . The early Greek Kithara had only 4 strings when they were introduced from abroad. The Greeks hellenified the old Persian name for a 4-stringed instrument (').
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When a chordophone is played, the strings vibrate and interact with each other. There is usually something that makes the sound resonate, such as the body of a guitar or violin. The strings are set into motion by either plucking (like a harp), strumming (like a guitar), by rubbing with a bow (like a violin, cello or double bass), or by striking (like a piano or berimbau). Common chordophones are the banjo, cello, double bass, dulcimer, guitar, harp, lute, piano, sitar, ukulele, viola and violin.
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3100 BC, Museum number 41632. Like Sachs, Dumbrill saw length as distinguishing lutes, dividing the Mesopotamian lutes into a long variety and a short. His book does not cover the shorter instruments that became the European lute, beyond showing examples of shorter lutes in the ancient world. He focuses on the longer lutes of Mesopotamia, various types of necked chordophones that developed throughout the ancient world: Greek, Egyptian (in the Middle Kingdom), Iranian (Elamite and others), Hittite, Roman, Bulgar, Turkic, Indian, Chinese, Armenian/Cilician cultures.
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A wide variety of techniques are used to sound notes on the electric guitar, including plucking with the fingernails or a plectrum, strumming and even "tapping" on the fingerboard and using feedback from a loud, distorted guitar amplifier to produce a sustained sound. Some types of string instrument are mainly plucked, such as the harp and the electric bass. In the Hornbostel-Sachs scheme of musical instrument classification, used in organology, string instruments are called chordophones. Other examples include the sitar, rebab, banjo, mandolin, ukulele, and bouzouki.
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A krar player. In the highlands, traditional string instruments include the masenqo (also known as masinko), a one-string bowed lute; the krar (also known as kirar), a six-string lyre; and the begena, a large ten-string lyre. The dita (a five-string lyre) and musical bows (including an unusual three-string variant) are among the chordophones found in the south. Also "kebero" ( a drum) used by the religious group like the Orthodox's or other Christian religious group to praise what they believe in.
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This is not the same as an electronic musical instrument, like a synthesizer, which uses entirely electronic means to both create and control sound. Most electric or amplified musical instruments are electric versions of chordophones (including pianos, guitars and violins). Some of the most commonly used electric instruments are electric guitar, electric bass and electric piano. Other electric instruments include the varitone, an amplified saxophone (part of the aerophone family) that was first introduced by The Selmer Company in 1965; and the Hammond organ which uses tonewheels to generate electric sound.
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The kalimba is a modern version of these instruments originated by the pioneer ethnomusicologist Hugh Tracey in the early 20th century which has over the years gained world-wide popularity. Hugh Tracey Treble Kalimba Signature Series Gravikord Chordophones, such as the West African kora, and Doussn'gouni, part of the harp-lute family of instruments, also have this African separated double tonal array structure. Another instrument, the Marovany from Madagascar is a double sided box zither which also employs this divided tonal structure. The Gravikord is a new American instrument closely related to both the African kora and the kalimba.
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The Seperewa belongs to a class of harp-lute chordophones typical in West Africa, with Ghana marking the easternmost area where harp-lutes are played in the region. The Seperewa is one of two types of harp-lutes played in Ghana, the other being the koriduo. Modern Seperewa typically have anywhere between 10 and 14 strings, set onto a standing bridge, and are connected to the neck of the instrument by winding them around it directly. They are recognisable by their square wooden box resonator, which differ from the calabash resonators of Manding harp-lutes like the kora or kamalengoni.
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The classic Sanskrit text Natya Shastra is at the foundation of the numerous classical music and dance of India. Before Natyashastra was finalized, the ancient Indian traditions had classified musical instruments into four groups based on their acoustic principle (how they work, rather than the material they are made of). These four categories are accepted as given and are four separate chapters in the Natyashastra, one each on stringed instruments (chordophones), hollow instruments (aerophones), solid instruments (idiophones), and covered instruments (membranophones). Of these, states Rowell, the idiophone in the form of "small bronze cymbals" were used for tala.
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The chordophones used often include the khalam, xalamkat or ngoni (lute with one to five strings), kora (harp lute) and riti (one-stringed bow handled lute). Percussion instruments include dried, hollow gourds, the tamal (armpit drum) as well as the balafon (percussion instrument akin to the xylophone). Senegalese griot playing a tamal Griot playing a Xalamkat One of the most frequently retold oral epics in the geographical region of Senegambia is the mythic story of the Bundu Kingdom’s establishment in the 1690s. The story has varying interpretations and many alternative narratives, however the story follows a common thematic sequence.
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Possible sanxian (left) and pipa, from a 762-827 A.D. painting in the Mogao caves near Dunhuang―Grotto 46 Left interior wall, second panel. Also called cave 112. It has been suggested that sanxian, a form of spike lute, may have its origin in the Middle East, and older forms of spike lute were also found in ancient Egypt. Similar instruments may have been present in China as early as the Qin dynasty as qin pipa (pipa was used as a generic term in ancient China for many other forms of plucked chordophones) or xiantao (弦鼗) , which the Qinqin and Ruan also come from.
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The artwork is confused, and those who are trying to reproduce the art in color have had to work to bring out legible images. One interpretation of the "magician-hunter" image considers his hunting-bow to be a musical bow, used as a single-stringed musical instrument. Whether the bow in the cave illustration is a musical instrument or the hunting tool in a paleolithic hunt, musicologists have considered whether the bow could be a possible relative or ancestor to chordophones, the lutes lyres, harps and zither families. Curt Sachs said that there was good reason not to consider hunters' bows as likely musical bows.
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Chord Bible is the generic name given to a variety of musical theory publications featuring a large number of chord diagrams for fretted stringed instruments. The subject matter applies exclusively to chordophones, stringed musical instruments capable of playing more than one note at a time. Members belonging to the chordophone family include the guitar, banjo, mandolin, ukulele, charango, balalaika, bajo sexto and many other stringed instruments. With the chord bible, the format only tends to apply to fretted or keyboard instruments where a clear diagram can be illustrated to show the musician where to place his or her fingers on the fingerboard or keyboard.
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Numerous stringed instruments of Chinese make on display in a shop String instruments, stringed instruments, or chordophones are musical instruments that produce sound from vibrating strings when the performer plays or sounds the strings in some manner. Musicians play some string instruments by plucking the strings with their fingers or a plectrum—and others by hitting the strings with a light wooden hammer or by rubbing the strings with a bow. In some keyboard instruments, such as the harpsichord, the musician presses a key that plucks the string. With bowed instruments, the player pulls a rosined horsehair bow across the strings, causing them to vibrate.
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The pipa or p'i-p'a () is a four-stringed Chinese musical instrument, belonging to the plucked category of instruments. Sometimes called the Chinese lute, the instrument has a pear-shaped wooden body with a varying number of frets ranging from 12 to 26. Another Chinese four-string plucked lute is the liuqin, which looks like a smaller version of the pipa. The pear-shaped instrument may have existed in China as early as the Han dynasty, and although historically the term pipa was once used to refer to a variety of plucked chordophones, its usage since the Song dynasty refers exclusively to the pear- shaped instrument.
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The Denis d'or was reported to have 14 registers, most of which were twofold, and its complex mechanism fitted in a symmetrical wooden cabinet equipped with a keyboard and a pedal. It was about long, wide, and high. Basically, it was a chordophone not unlike a clavichord—in other words, the strings were struck, not plucked. The suspension and the tautening of the allegedly 790 metal strings was described as more elaborate than a clavichord. The mechanism which had been worked out by Diviš was such that the Denis d’or could imitate the sounds of a variety of other instruments, including chordophones such as harpsichords, harps, lutes and wind instruments.
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Gabin Dabiré is a singer, guitarist, kora player, and composer from Burkina Faso (former Upper Volta) who has lived in Italy since 1975.Rough Guide to World Music Volume One: Africa, Europe & The Middle East 1999Banning Eyre's Afropop page for Burkina Faso Born in Bobo-Dioulasso in the African state of Burkina Faso, Dabiré’s first experience in music were was lessons from the great masters of the traditional music of Burkina Faso. In 1975 he traveled to Denmark, where he was exposed to European and contemporary music. In 1976 he toured in Italy and afterwards embarked on a study trip of chordophones and Indian percussion.
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Pipa play on camel The pipa () is a four-stringed Chinese musical instrument, belonging to the plucked category of instruments. Sometimes called the Chinese lute, the instrument has a pear-shaped wooden body with a varying number of frets ranging from 12 to 26. Another Chinese four-string plucked lute is the liuqin, which looks like a smaller version of the pipa. The pear-shaped instrument may have existed in China as early as the Han dynasty, and although historically the term pipa was once used to refer to a variety of plucked chordophones, its usage since the Song dynasty refers exclusively to the pear- shaped instrument.
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The modern English word harp comes from the Old English hearpe; akin to Old High German harpha. A person who plays a pedal harp is called a "harpist"; a person who plays a folk-harp is called a "harper" or sometimes a "harpist"; either may be called a "harp- player", and the distinctions are not strict. A number of instruments that are not harps are none-the-less colloquially referred to as "harps". Chordophones like the aeolian harp (wind harp), the autoharp, the psaltery, as well as the piano and harpsichord, are not harps, but zithers, because their strings are parallel to their soundboard.
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The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that usually has six strings. It is typically played with both hands by strumming or plucking the strings with either a guitar pick or the fingers/fingernails of one hand, while simultaneously fretting (pressing the strings against the frets) with the fingers of the other hand. The sound of the vibrating strings is projected either acoustically, by means of the hollow chamber of the guitar (for an acoustic guitar), or through an electrical amplifier and a speaker. The guitar is a type of chordophone, traditionally constructed from wood and strung with either gut, nylon or steel strings and distinguished from other chordophones by its construction and tuning.
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Prolific contributions of these composers and their contemporaries marked a period of renaissance in the musical history of India and Carnatic music. The impact of this renaissance was further amplified by the close proximity of these composers and theoretician. Paradigmatic changes, such as the merger of madhyama grama into Sadjagrama, the standardisation of all melodic materials within the frame of the Sadjagrama, a new alignment of intervallic values and scalar temperament, tuning of keyboard chordophones, models of melodic classification wrought during this period are reflected in the music and compositions of the Haridasas. The tamburi (a stringed drone instrument) often identified with the Haridasas, is mentioned for the first time by Sripadaraya and subsequently by Vyasarayaru and Purandaradasaru.
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Within each category are many subgroups. The system has been criticized and revised over the years, but remains widely used by ethnomusicologists and organologists. One notable example of this criticism is that care should be taken with electrophones, as some electronic instruments like the electric guitar (chordophone) and some electronic keyboards (sometimes idiophones or chordophones) can produce music without electricity or the use of an amplifier. In the Hornbostel–Sachs classification of musical instruments, lamellophones are considered plucked idiophones, a category that includes various forms of jaw harp and the European mechanical music box, as well as the huge variety of African and Afro-Latin thumb pianos such as the mbira and marimbula.
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Although an acoustic piano has strings, it is usually classified as a percussion instrument rather than as a stringed instrument, because the strings are struck rather than plucked (as with a harpsichord or spinet); in the Hornbostel–Sachs system of instrument classification, pianos are considered chordophones. There are two main types of piano: the grand piano and the upright piano. The grand piano is used for Classical concerto solos, chamber music, and art song, and it is often used in jazz and pop concerts. The upright piano, which is more compact, is the most popular type, as it is a better size for use in private homes for domestic music-making and practice.
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An ancient Hindu system named the Natya Shastra, written by the sage Bharata Muni and dating from between 200 BC and 200 AD, divides instruments into four main classification groups: instruments where the sound is produced by vibrating strings; percussion instruments with skin heads; instruments where the sound is produced by vibrating columns of air; and "solid", or non-skin, percussion instruments. This system was adapted to some degree in 12th-century Europe by Johannes de Muris, who used the terms tensibilia (stringed instruments), inflatibilia (wind instruments), and percussibilia (all percussion instruments). In 1880, Victor-Charles Mahillon adapted the Natya Shastra and assigned Greek labels to the four classifications: chordophones (stringed instruments), membranophones (skin- head percussion instruments), aerophones (wind instruments), and autophones (non-skin percussion instruments).
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Their scheme is widely used today, and is most often known as the Hornbostel–Sachs system (or the Sachs–Hornbostel system). The original Sachs–Hornbostel system classified instruments into four main groups: # idiophones, such as the xylophone, which produce sound by vibrating themselves; # membranophones, such as drums or kazoos, which produce sound by a vibrating membrane; # chordophones, such as the piano or cello, which produce sound by vibrating strings; # aerophones, such as the pipe organ or oboe, which produce sound by vibrating columns of air. Later Sachs added a fifth category, electrophones, such as theremins, which produce sound by electronic means.The History of Musical Instruments, C. Sachs, Norton, New York, 1940 Modern synthesizers and electronic instruments fall in this category.
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Musicians in a scene from paradise, Yulin Cave 25, Tang dynasty There are considerable confusion and disagreements about the origin of pipa. This may be due to the fact that the word pipa was used in ancient texts to describe a variety of plucked chordophones from the Qin to the Tang dynasty, including the long-necked spiked lute and the short-necked lute, as well as the differing accounts given in these ancient texts. Traditional Chinese narrative prefers the story of the Han Chinese princess Liu Xijun (劉細君) sent to marry a barbarian Wusun king during the Han dynasty, with the pipa being invented so she could play music on horseback to soothe her longings. Modern researchers such as Laurence Picken, Shigeo Kishibe, and John Myers suggested a non-Chinese origin.
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The court yayue orchestra may be divided into two separate ensembles that may represent the yin and yang, a smaller one (the yin) that was meant to play on the terraces of a building, and a larger one (the yang) that performed in the courtyard. The smaller ensemble consisted of mainly chordophones (such as qin and se zithers) and aerophones (such as the dizi and xiao flutes, and panpipes), as well as singers. The larger ensemble was primarily instrumental and contained all the categories of musical instruments with the musicians arranged in five directions (four points of the compass and the center) in the courtyard. The wind instruments occupied the center, and the bronze bells and stone chimes at the four sides, while the drums occupied the four corners.
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Present-day ethnomusicologists, such as Margaret Kartomi and Terry Ellingson, suggest that, in keeping with the spirit of the original Hornbostel Sachs classification scheme, if one categorizes instruments by what first produces the initial sound in the instrument, that only subcategory 53 should remain in the electrophones category. Thus, it has been more recently proposed, for example, that the pipe organ (even if it uses electric key action to control solenoid valves) remain in the aerophones category, and that the electric guitar remain in the chordophones category, and so on. Thus, in present-day ethnomusicology, an electrophone is considered to be only musical instruments which produce sound primarily by electrical means. It is usually considered to constitute one of five main categories in the Hornbostel-Sachs scheme of musical instrument classification, despite not being in the original scheme published in 1914.
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Illustration labeled "cythara" in the Stuttgart Psalter, a Carolingian psalter from the 9th century. The instrument shown is of the chordophone family, possibly an early citole or lute Before the development of the electric guitar and the use of synthetic materials, a guitar was defined as being an instrument having "a long, fretted neck, flat wooden soundboard, ribs, and a flat back, most often with incurved sides." The term is used to refer to a number of chordophones that were developed and used across Europe, beginning in the 12th century and, later, in the Americas. A 3,300-year-old stone carving of a Hittite bard playing a stringed instrument is the oldest iconographic representation of a chordophone and clay plaques from Babylonia show people playing an instrument that has a strong resemblance to the guitar, indicating a possible Babylonian origin for the guitar.
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A kouxian, a plucked idiophone Set of bell plates, range C2–E4, a struck idiophone (played with mallets) or friction idiophone (bowed) Claves (foreground), a struck idiophone An idiophone is any musical instrument that creates sound primarily by the vibration of the instrument itself, without the use of air (as is the case with aerophones), strings (chordophones) or membranes (membranophones). It is the first of the four main divisions in the original Hornbostel–Sachs scheme of musical instrument classification (see List of idiophones by Hornbostel–Sachs number). The early classification of Victor-Charles Mahillon called this group of instruments autophones. The most common are struck idiophones, or concussion idiophones, which are made to vibrate by being struck, either directly with a stick or hand (like the wood block, singing bowl, steel tongue drum, triangle or marimba) or indirectly, by way of a scraping or shaking motion (like maracas or flexatone).
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The yueqin is a type of ruan, what may be China's oldest lute. Ruans may have a history of over 2,000 years, the earliest form may be the qin pipa (秦琵琶), which was then developed into ruanxian (named after Ruan Xian, 阮咸), shortened to ruan (阮).[1][2] In old Chinese texts from the Han to the Tang dynasty, the term pipa was used as a generic term for a number plucked chordophones, including ruan, therefore does not necessarily mean the same as the modern usage of pipa which refers only to the pear-shaped instrument. According to the Pipa Annals 《琵琶赋》 by Fu Xuan (傅玄) of the Western Jin Dynasty, the pipa was designed after revision of other Chinese plucked string instruments of the day such as the Chinese zither, zheng (筝) and zhu (筑), or konghou (箜篌), the Chinese harp.
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A sanxian It has been suggested that the sanxian, a form of spike lute, may have its origin in the Middle East, and older forms of spike lute were also found in ancient Egypt. Similar instruments may have been present in China as early as the Qin dynasty as qin pipa (pipa was used as a generic term in ancient China for many other forms of plucked chordophones) or xiantao (弦鼗). Some thought that the instrument may have been re-introduced into China together with other instruments such as huqin by the Mongols during the Yuan dynasty (1271–1368),楊慎《昇庵外集》:「今次三弦，始於元時」。 however, an image of a sanxian-like instrument was found in a stone sculpture dating from the Southern Song period (1217–79). The first record of the name "sanxian" may be found in a Ming dynasty text.
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It should be particularly noted that this classification does not use the term percussion in its high level grouping, but instead in an esoteric sense, so that other instruments such as the clarinet that are not percussion in any normal sense are described as percussion reeds. Having no explicit category for percussion as normally understood, Hornbostel–Sachs places nearly all percussion instruments in the high level categories of membranophones (high-level category 2, drums and similar) and idiophones (high-level category 1, cymbals, bells, xylophone-like instruments and similar). A few instruments that are sometimes considered percussion are classified as chordophones (high-level category 3, such as the hammered dulcimer) and as aerophones (high-level category 4, such as the samba whistle). Conversely, the members of the Hornbostel–Sachs high-level categories 1 and 2 nearly all fall clearly or loosely into the conventional category of percussion.
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Depiction of Ruan Xian playing a Ruan (figure on right) found in an Eastern Jin or Southern dynasties tomb near Nanjing, dated around 400 AD. Ruan may have a history of over 2,000 years, the earliest form may be the qin pipa (秦琵琶), which was then developed into ruanxian (named after Ruan Xian, 阮咸), shortened to ruan (阮).The music of pipa In old Chinese texts from the Han to the Tang dynasty, the term pipa was used as a generic term for a number plucked chordophones, including ruan, therefore does not necessarily mean the same as the modern usage of pipa which refers only to the pear-shaped instrument. According to the Pipa Annals 《琵琶赋》 by Fu Xuan (傅玄) of the Western Jin Dynasty, the pipa was designed after revision of other Chinese plucked string instruments of the day such as the Chinese zither, zheng (筝) and zhu (筑), or konghou (箜篌), the Chinese harp.《太平御覽》 Imperial Readings of the Taiping Era.
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