What kind of musical instrument is the gong, does it have strings to play?

The cloud gong, also known as the cloud motorcycle. It is a percussion instrument. In the Tang and Song dynasties, there are already descriptions of playing the cloud gong in poems and lyrics. Cloud gongs were painted in the picture of Cargo by Su Hanchen of the Song Dynasty, in the Yuan Dynasty mural paintings of the Yongle Palace in Shanxi Province, and in the decorative paintings between the arches of the Sanqing Hall (Illustrated Guide to the History of Chinese Music IV-69, IV-70). There are ten to fourteen small gongs used in all the generations of gongs. In the early days, the gongs were used in Taoist life, and then spread to the folk.

The traditional cloud gongs are mostly composed of ten small gongs. The surface of the gong has no umbilical cord, and the edge is fixed by the edge of the gong perpendicular to the surface of the gong, and the edge of the gong is drilled with small holes, and is tied with a rope to a special wooden frame with wooden frames, because the topmost small gong (the name of the "Gao Gong Gong") is not commonly used, and is therefore also known as the "Nine Tone Gongs" in the folklore. Small gongs of the same size, face diameter are 8 centimeters, due to the thickness of the difference, so it can send out a different sound high and low. The sound color is clear and bright, and the range is g1-d3, a1-d3, with more than one octave. Ten small gongs tied to a wooden frame, the frame is divided into three, the left and right two fans are divided into three compartments, the middle of a fan of four compartments, three fans are inserted in a wooden handle, into a whole, the frame height of about 52 centimeters. The arrangement of the gongs varies according to the region, the type of music and the occasion of use. The arrangement of the gongs used in the "Beijing Music" of Zhihua Temple in Beijing is in line with that of the gongs contained in the "Justice of the Laws" of the Qing Dynasty (written in 1764 AD), which is an old arrangement. The tuning of the gongs used in the "Shifan Drums" is the more popular arrangement among the folk. There are two forms of performance, one is to hold the wooden frame handle or handle against the table with the left hand, the right hand with a single whip (bamboo handle, cow horn head), this method of playing fewer points, and the other is to unload the wooden frame handle, the upper end of the three wooden frame, placed diagonally on the desktop, and held in both hands to strike the whip. In the instrumental ensembles such as "Su Nan Blow and Beat" and "Shifan Gongs and Drums", the gongs play the backbone of the melody and have a strong color. "Xi'an Drums and Drums" uses two gongs, each mounted on a special base, placed face-to-face on the table at a certain angle, and struck by one person with a whip, making it a unique double gong performance. Since the sixties of this century, music workers and instrument developers have been reforming the traditional gongs, and in 1963, Zhao Xing of the Jinan Army Avant-garde Literary Troupe cooperated with Shandong Zhoucun Ludong Musical Instrument Factory, and on the basis of the folk gongs of the nine tones, and with reference to the form of bells of the Confucian Temple in Qufu of Shandong Province, they firstly made the twenty-nine tones of the gong, with a range of g-f3. The thirty-six tones of gongs made by Beijing Ethnic Musical Instrument Factory have a range of #c. The Beijing National Musical Instrument Factory made thirty-six gongs with the range of #c-c3. Tian Dezhong of the Shenyang Military Region Cultural and Industrial Troupe cooperated with the Ludong Musical Instrument Factory to make thirty-eight gongs with the range of c1-c4 on the basis of twenty-nine gongs, and there were also fifteen, twenty-six, and thirty-seven gongs.

The alloy composition of the copper used in the reform gongs is different from that of the traditional gongs, and their sound quality is more pure and solid. The gongs are played with two types of flogs, one for each type of gong and one for each type of gong, with one person holding a flog in each of his right and left hands. Soft whip made of soft rubber or with a smaller gong whip, soft, beautiful pronunciation; hard whip made of horn or hard rubber, strong pronunciation, bright, often used in the treble area, playing fast melody is very bright. There are single strike, double strike, rolling strike, light strike, heavy strike or big jump and other techniques, which can play double tone and arpeggio, and each hand holds two floggers at the same time, which can play four-tone chords. Reform gongs can play melody, but also for the music for a variety of rhythmic accompaniment, such as for the colorful section solo, you can get a strong and brilliant sound effects. Its four-tone chord, sound like a grand bell, solemn and majestic. The music includes "Reservoir Song", "The Rising Sun", "Fishing Boat Song", "Steel Water Running" and so on.

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