Sheng

Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments describes the instrument as a ‘Mouth organ of the Han Chinese’. The bowl-shaped body is of ?black-lacquered wood with a blow hole extending form one side. As is traditional, there are 17 bamboo pipes of different lengths, finished in ?black lacquer, arranged in a circle on top of the wind chamber, with the pipes of approximate equal size positioned opposite each other. According to Grove 3 or 4 of these pipes are ‘dumb’; the rest of the pipes have a small reed fitted at the base. The end of the blow hole and the tops of the pipes are capped with bone or ivory; the base of the wind chamber has a pierced ivory or bone inserted plug.