Bianzhong

When we talk about China, we would always refer to its long history, even today, we could still learn from the ancient people by reading their books or digging their stories from Chronicle of Chinese history. You may be familiar with some famous people in China, like Confucians; however, one of the commons these greatest people shared is that they all like playing music. In traditional Chinese thoughts, people who play music can purify themselves from the dirty society and during that process, improve their understanding of life.

Except the well-known music instruments of China, like guzheng, pipa, the most famous ancient music form of China is not noticed by rest part of the world. That is the bianzhong music.

History:

bian zhong or the Chinese bell is the oldest performing form of ancient China; it became popular during the early Wartime dynasty which is more than 2000 years ago. This type of music used to be played outside but then became the palace music. One of the mysteries associated with this instrument is that no one knows exactly how to play it because there are no written records discovered, until one day they found E-bell was missing in one octave. But then a player found he could get that sound by striking the C-bell on its side. He found that the bell played two tones. Later, Chinese musicologists, examining a set of these bells, discovered that every bell in the set had the same property -- it had two tones. Then they found that many of these bells even had marks on the side to show players where to strike the bells to get the two tones. Each bell was, in fact, meant to be two bells in one. The importance of this discovery is clearer if we realize that the Western cathedral bell was the result of a thousand years of development. Bells are very hard to make. Yet these much older bells are remarkably sophisticated. They have a rich tone, but they need far less bronze to get it. And then they produce two sounds for the cost of one. We have nothing...