The ''Yu'' (;

pinyin Hanyu Pinyin, or simply pinyin, officially the Chinese Phonetic Alphabet, is the most common romanization system for Standard Chinese. ''Hanyu'' () literally means 'Han Chinese, Han language'—that is, the Chinese language—while ''pinyin' ...

: yú) is a

free reed A free reed aerophone is a musical instrument that produces sound as air flows past a vibrating reed in a frame. Air pressure is typically generated by breath or with a bellows. In the Hornbostel–Sachs system, it is number 412.13 (a member of ...

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 pitch ...

used in ancient

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

. It is similar to the sheng, with multiple

bamboo Bamboos are a diverse group of mostly evergreen perennial plant, perennial flowering plants making up the subfamily (biology), subfamily Bambusoideae of the grass family Poaceae. Giant bamboos are the largest members of the grass family, in th ...

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. Many gourds ha ...

. 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 concept of combining different sounds in order to create new, distinct musical ideas. Theories of harmony seek to describe or explain the effects created by distinct pitches or tones coinciding with one another; harm ...

(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 (), personal name Tian Bijiang, was from 319 BC to 301 BC the king of the Qi state. King Xuan succeeded his father, King Wei, who died in 320 BC after 37 years of reign. King Xuan reigned for 19 years and died in 301 BC. He wa ...

(, 319 BC–300 BC), the ruler of the

State of Qi Qi, or Ch'i in Wade–Giles romanization, was a ancient Chinese state, regional state of the Zhou dynasty in History of China#Ancient China, ancient China, whose rulers held Zhou dynasty nobility, titles of ''Hou'' (), then ''Gong (title), Go ...

(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 royal palace as he feared being punished for lying about his instrumental abilities, never to return.

References

External links

"Asian Free-Reed Instruments"
by Henry Doktorski, 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