Music is an important part of The Chinese civilization has a long history, and a large number of far-reaching instruments have been produced in the past five thousand years. It is said that the Qianlong Emperor collected a mysterious musical instrument "Fang Xiang", but there are few records in the historical materials, and almost no one has seen the actual object, but an expert has restored the "Fang Xiang" and unveiled its mystery... What exactly is "Fang Xiang"? The following Xiaobian will reveal it to you.
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In the history of musical instruments, the oldest instruments must be percussion instruments, which have appeared as early as the primitive social period. With the continuous progress of social productivity, musical instruments have also been greatly developed, for example, by the pre-Qin period, the musical instrument system has been very perfect, and many famous musical instruments have emerged, the most famous of which is the bell. The bell is mainly a chime, a large percussion instrument, arranged in turn according to the tone of the bronze bell, with a small wooden hammer to strike the sound, such as the Zenghou Yi chimes excavated from the tomb of Marquis Yi of Hubei Province, which is the largest and most well-preserved chime, reflecting the highest level of musical instruments in the pre-Qin period. The chime is a musical instrument similar to the bell, but the chime is mainly a stone slab arranged sequentially, and the two differ in timbre.
Archaeological studies have shown that chimes and chimes originated in the Western Zhou Dynasty, developed to their peak in the Spring and Autumn Warring States period, and gradually declined until the Han Dynasty, and began to be replaced by other musical instruments, and this kind of instrument that came after it is the "square sound" that Xiaobian wants to talk about today. In ancient historical materials, there are not many records of "Fang Xiang", such as "Liang has a copper chime, Gai Jin Fang Xiang and the like, Fang Xiang" ("Old Tang Book Music Chronicle"), "Sixteen pieces of jagged length, knocking on the palace merchants are all over the place" ("Fang Xiang Song"). At the beginning, cultural relics experts were also confused about "Fang Xiang", after all, "Fang Xiang" had never been unearthed in archaeological discoveries, but some experts found "Fang Xiang" in the Dunhuang murals.
In the 1990s, when experts were repairing Dunhuang murals, they found a large number of murals about music and dance, and after research, they also found many rare instruments, such as one instrument that looked like a shelf, but there were many small squares of different sizes fixed on the shelf. At first, some people thought that this chime was made, but experts said that the chime had declined at that time, so they speculated that it was a musical instrument that replaced the chime, that is, the "square sound" recorded in the historical records, "square" indicates its appearance characteristics, and "sound" indicates his sound characteristics. Although the experts found the "Square Sound", they still did not find the physical object, so no one knows what the sound of the "Square Sound" is, and the experts feel very sorry.
Fortunately, according to the records of the "Qing Palace Archives", some experts found that the Qianlong Emperor had collected a "Fang Xiang". As we all know, the Qianlong Emperor was one of the greatest emperors of the Qing Dynasty, and he also loved to collect treasures from all dynasties, whether it was bronze jade or calligraphy and painting book stickers, which were all swept away by the Qianlong Emperor and collected in his warehouse. In 2009, an expert from the Beijing Institute of History applied for approval and entered the palace museum's treasury where the Qianlong Emperor's treasures were stored, and after three days of searching, they found a musical instrument similar to that found in the Dunhuang murals, which is known as "Fang Xiang". However, this expert was dumbfounded, the Qianlong Emperor's "Fang Xiang" was very small, only about 35 centimeters in height, not one-third as big as the "Fang Xiang" in the mural, and the sounding iron pieces of the "Fang Xiang" were also rusty and could not make a sound.
Although this expert was very disappointed, he could also see the true face of "Fang Xiang". Therefore, after some efforts, he took Qianlong's "Fang Xiang" as the prototype, enlarged it according to a scale of 3 times larger, and also referred to the modeling characteristics of "Fang Xiang" in the Dunhuang murals, and finally restored a modern "Fang Xiang". It is worth mentioning that the experts have changed the sound part of the "square sound" to a metal block made of aluminum alloy material, on the one hand, it is not easy to rust and can be preserved for a long time, on the other hand, the sound of the aluminum alloy material is more crisp, so the sound is also pleasant when tapping with a small wooden hammer.
After a period of time, the restored "Fang Xiang" appeared in front of the general public, not only exhibited in the museum, but also reported by the major media, which revitalized this ancient instrument that had been silent for a thousand years, and also gave us a new understanding and understanding of the wisdom of the ancient ancestors, as well as the ancient instruments and music.
Resources:
"The Beauty of Ancient Music" by Su Hong, Publisher: People's Music Publishing House
Wenlan Hairun Studio Editor-in-Chief Wen Xiucai, this article is written by: Special History Writer: Liu Lijiang's