bangu

bangu, Wade-Giles romanization pan-ku, also called danpi, Chinese frame drum that, when struck by one or two small bamboo sticks, creates a sharp dry sound essential to the aesthetics of Chinese opera. It is also used in many Chinese chamber music ensembles.

The drum, which is about 25 cm (10 inches) in diameter and 10 cm (4 inches) deep. The frame of the Bangu drum is made of wedges of hard wood glued together to form a circle. Animal skin is then stretched over the frame of wedges, which is then secured by a metal band.

The bangu rests on a stand with the head facing upwards. The player, who is typically seated, can strike the drum with either one or two beaters. When struck the bangu produces a very high pitched and dry sound, almost like a woodblock (see Video, for which the percussionist performs with two beaters).

The eight categories are silk, bamboo, wood, stone, metal, clay, gourd and skin; other instruments considered traditional exist that may not fit these groups. The grouping of instruments in material categories in China is one of the first musical groupings ever devised.

Symbols

The Danso has five finger holes and a U-shaped mouth hole. The saenghwang is a free reed mouth organ with a windchest made of dried gourd. The taepyeongso is a double reed instrument. It has a conical wooden body with a metal mouthpiece and a cup-shaped metal bell, called the dongpallang.

Drums can be used alone or with many other instruments. Among the many kinds of Chinese drums are the bangu, a single-headed frame drum that sits on a wooden stand and is played with bamboo drumsticks. Another is the tanggu, a type of large barrel drum that sits on the floor. Chinese barrel drum or tanggu.

The Bangu is played with two small sticks made of bamboo; struck on the drum's center, which is only around 2 inches in diameter, referred to as the “guxin” or drum heart. The sound produced is high-pitched and dry.

The tanggu (堂鼓; pinyin: tánggǔ, pronounced [tʰɑ̌ŋkù]; literally "ceremonial hall drum"; sometimes spelled tang gu) is a traditional Chinese drum that dates all the way back to the Northern Wei Dynasty.

Common Chinese cymbals include: xiaobo (small cymbals), zhongbo (medium cymbals), shuibo (water cymbals) and dabo (large cymbals). Possessing no definite pitch, a Chinese cymbal's pitch runs relative to its size. The small Chinese cymbals are the highest-sounding, whereas the large Chinese cymbals are the lowest.

The five core tones of Chinese scales are sometimes connected with the five elements, or wuxing (earth, wood, metal, fire, and water), while the 12 pitches of the tonal system are connected by some writers with the months of the year, hours of the day, or phases of the moon.

In the early 20th century, guoyue became a popular term used loosely to include all music written for Chinese instruments in response to a particular nationalistic consciousness. Later, after Communist victory in 1949, a new term minyue, short for minzu yinyue (民族音乐) meaning national or people's music, was used in ...