Sheng; mouth organ

Sheng, mouth blown free reed instrument. Metal reed chamber with brass rims. The blowpipe attached to the side has a teardrop-shaped proximal end, into which a metal crook is inserted. The crook is vertical, tapering inwards towards top which is angled towards the player and terminates in wide circular rim. Seventeen bamboo pipes are arranged in an incomplete circle around the top of wind chamber, with a gap on the player's right. Counting clockwise from here, the third and fourth pipes are silent. The others have circular finger hole on outer surface near the bottom. The finger holes of pipes one and seventeen face into gap. The sounding length of each of the speaking pipes is determined by a slot cut in the upper part of the tube. All the pipes are mounted on wooden cones which are cut in half around a third of the way down their length, and are slotted into holes in the reed chamber. The speaking pipes are fitted with free reeds inside the reed chamber. A bamboo strip is wrapped around the pipes above the aligned lowest nodes. Paper labels are adhered to the outer surfaces of the pipes above lowest nodes, with Chinese inscriptions in black ink. Inside the circle, each pipe has Chinese character carved above lowest node.