The ''Yu'' (;

pinyin Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally written in Chinese for ...

: yú) is a free reed

wind instrument A wind instrument is a musical instrument that contains some type of resonator (usually a tube) in which a column of air is set into vibration by the player blowing into (or over) a mouthpiece set at or near the end of the resonator. The pitc ...

used in ancient

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

. It is similar to the sheng, with multiple

bamboo Bamboos are a diverse group of evergreen perennial flowering plants making up the subfamily Bambusoideae of the grass family Poaceae. Giant bamboos are the largest members of the grass family. The origin of the word "bamboo" is uncertain, bu ...

pipes fixed in a wind chest which may be made out of bamboo, wood, or a

gourd Gourds include the fruits of some flowering plant species in the family Cucurbitaceae, particularly ''Cucurbita'' and ''Lagenaria''. The term refers to a number of species and subspecies, many with hard shells, and some without. One of the earli ...

. Each pipe contains a free reed, which is also made of bamboo. Whereas the sheng is used to provide simultaneous tones in

harmony In music, harmony is the process by which individual sounds are joined together or composed into whole units or compositions. Often, the term harmony refers to simultaneously occurring frequencies, pitches ( tones, notes), or chords. However ...

(in fourths and fifths), the ''yu'' is played in single lines melodically. The instrument was used, often in large numbers, in court orchestras of ancient China (and was also exported to Korea and Japan) but is no longer used.

History

Although the ''yu'' is now obsolete, it is known to most Chinese speakers through the saying "Làn yú chōng shù" (), meaning "to fill a position without having the necessary qualifications." The saying is derived from the story of Nanguo (), a man who joined the royal court orchestra of

King Xuan of Qi King Xuan of Qi (; died 301 BC) was from 319 to 301 BC ruler of Qi, one of the seven major states of the Warring States period of ancient China. King Xuan's personal name was Tian Bijiang (田辟疆), ancestral name Gui ( 媯), and King Xuan wa ...

(, 319 BC–300 BC), the ruler of the

State of Qi Qi, or Ch'i in Wade–Giles romanization, was a state of the Zhou dynasty-era in ancient China, variously reckoned as a march, duchy, and independent kingdom. Its capital was Linzi, located in present-day Shandong. Qi was founded shortly ...

(Shandong province) as a ''yu'' player. Although the man did not actually know how to play this instrument, he knew that the orchestra had no fewer than 300 ''yu'' players, so he felt secure that he could simply pretend to play, and thus collect a musician's salary. Upon the king's death, Nanguo was eventually exposed as an impostor when the king's son Min (, 300 BC–283 BC), who had succeeded his father as king, requested that the musicians play individually rather than as an ensemble. On the night before he was to play, Nanguo fled the palace, never to return.

References

External links

"Asian Free-Reed Instruments"
by

Henry Doktorski Henry Doktorski III (born January 30, 1956) is an American accordionist, organist and author. He has performed on accordion with cellist Mstislav Rostropovich, violinists Gil Shaham and Itzhak Perlman during concerts and recording sessions with ...

, Part One: "The Chinese Shêng," from The Classical Free-Reed, Inc.: History of the Free-Reed Instruments in Classical Music

History

References

External links

See also