How to Play the Sheng Funny
When I was younger I started to play the harmonica. My grandmother would never fail to ask me about my harmonica when I came over to visit. Only she always called it a mouth organ, which I found strange. It obviously looked nothing like an organ. Well despite the regional term of mouth organ in the western hemisphere for the harmonica, the Chinese have created a real mouth organ called the sheng. Because of its vast and interesting history, I will only be focusing on this one instrument for this week's post.
Modern Sheng
According to legend, the first sheng was created by a mythical goddess named Nyn-Kwa in 3000 B.C. The earliest written records of the instrument being played were before 550 B.C., before the time of Confucius (who also played the sheng). The sheng was and is a very versatile instrument and was heavily used as Confucian ceremonial music as well as in folk music. The standard sheng has 17 long, bamboo pipes with free-reeds in each. To allow air to move past the reeds in the pipes, all players have to do is close holes in the pipes with their fingers. This could be used to make large chords as accompaniment or solo pieces like modern pianos and organs today. The sheng can be payed by blowing air or by sucking air in.
In some of the attached videos we hear a man playing and exemplifying different tonguing techniques to get a very interesting sound. It does seem like it would get tiring to hold up an awkwardly weighted instrument for a long period of time. Before any performance, the instrument is heated to above room temperature to keep moisture from accumulating on the reeds. As individual notes are played, it sounds almost harmonica like. However, players of the instrument use complex tonguing patterns to create a wide variety of styles. Along with most traditional Chinese music, most songs were passed down by memory instead of writing them down. When it needed to be written down "Gongche" notation was used.
Gongche Notation
Despite its traditional use there are very few sheng players that can read this notation anymore. I personally would love to get my hands on one of these and play it, as seems like a very unique and sophisticated instrument. Given its elegance, complexity, and beauty I am genuinely surprised I have not heard of it before in the United States.
The look on my roommates face when I play strange music videos of instruments is priceless. Well in this case it startled both of us to hear such a big noise out of such a tiny instrument. Straight out of Basque comes our next instrument (Basque is an ethnic region located to the northern side of Spain and France). Although its music does not sound Spanish or French at all but rather a very medieval tone. Its name is the alboka and is an extremely compact fixed reed instrument that almost sounds like a snake charmer at times because of a lower droned note.
The alboka's existence has been known since the 13th century when it was referenced in "Poema de Alexandre." This instrument has been used in the Basque area for centuries yet no one is quite sure of its origin. It is usually played by circular breathing in order to continuously play the instrument. Instruments such as the didgeridoo are also played with this technique. The instrument is made of 2 different pipes connected to a small half circle of wood. These have fixed reeds within them with 5 finger holes on the left tube and 3 finger holes on the right tube. This is one of the very few wind instruments that I have seen that actually allow for players to vary two tones at once and not just an extra drone note like on a bagpipe. The mouth piece and upturned bell are both made from pieces of cow horn. Even with its small size its sound is explosive and very loud as the attached video will show you. Most instruments are able to achieve a full 8 note scale but many are tuned to start on different notes.
This instrument has apparently been making a resurgence among the younger populations in the Basque region. As you can hear in the video below, it has a very powerful tone and volume that would be easy to hear over any medieval party. I would also suspect that because this is a single reed instrument just as the sheng is I mentioned above, it would have some problems with the reeds becoming too moist. As I was looking on the internet to where I could buy such an interesting instrument, I kept coming up cold or with websites in Spanish. If you happen to know where I can get one to annoy all of my neighbors within a 500-yard radius, please be sure to mention that in the comments below.
Works cited
"Wind Instruments | Gandharva Loka: The World Music Store in Christchurch, New Zealand – Musical Instruments from around the World." Gandharva Loka. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Feb. 2016. <http://www.gandharvaloka.co.nz/instruments/wind.html>.
"History of Asian Free-Reed Instruments: The Sheng." The Classical Free-Reed, Inc. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 Feb. 2016. <http://www.ksanti.net/free-reed/history/sheng.html>.
"Alboka." NABO. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Feb. 2016. <http://www.nabasque.org/alboka.html>.
"Albogues." FolkWorld. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Feb. 2016. <http://www.folkworld.eu/45/e/albo.html>.
Source: https://sites.psu.edu/danielw/2016/02/04/the-sheng/
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