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Musical Bells and Chime StonesThese are percussion musical instruments unique to ancient China. The zhong are made of bronze while the qing generally of stone. They may be played either individually or in groups. In the latter case ,they are hung in rows on wooden racks and known respectively as bianzhong and bianqing. Struck with wooden hammers,they produce melodious sounds of various notes. In their time ,they were the important instruments played¡ªeither in solo performance or in ensemble or as accompaniment¡ª during imperial audiences, palace banquets and religious ceremonies.
It can be easily imagined that the stone qing must have been one of the earliest musical instrument in China. During the Stone Age, the Chinese forefathers, working with stone implements, found out that certain sonorous rocks, when knocked, produced musical sounds and that, by knocking at rocks of different sizes, they could make music. So the earliest manmade chime stones were born out of those natural rocks. In 1973 a Shang Dynasty(c.17th-11th century B.C.) chime stone was discovered from the ruins of that age in Anyang, Henan Province. It is greycoloured and has tiger patterns engraved on it, showing that it had been used by the imperial court.
To make the chime of bells, an important metal instrument in ancient times bronze as invariably used for the best acoustic effect. Early bells are called yongzhong, rather flat in shape and very much like two concave tiles joined face to face. Later, however, people stressed the beauty of their shape and gave them a more and more round body, at the expense of the tonal qualities. It seems that there was no fixed number of bells for each chime. Judging by those unearthed to date, a chime may be very simple, consisting of 3,6 or 9 bells, or very complicated, with 13,14,16 or as many as 36 bells.
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