Fangxiang
ancient organized-suspended (bianxuan) Chinese metallophone with its existence lasting over 1,000 years
The fangxiang (also fang xiang, fang hsiang; simplified Chinese: 方响; traditional Chinese: 方響; pinyin: fāngxiǎng; also known in the West as the Chinese chang) is an organized-suspended (bianxuan) Chinese metallophone that has been used for over 1,000 years. It was first used in the Liang dynasty (502—557 CE), and then standardized in the Sui and Tang dynasties mostly for court music.
Construction and design
A fangxiang consists of 16 tuned rectangular iron, bronze, or jade tuned slabs with 16 different chromatic pitches, laid in a frame in two rows. The slabs are struck with a hammer and played melodically. Unlike the metallophone today, Chinese changed the thickness of the metal plates to obtain different pitches. Each of the slabs is of the same length and width but they are of graduated thickness, with the thicker slabs producing lower tones and the thinner slabs producing higher tones. The method of playing is to beat with a gakteo (hangul: 각퇴, hanja: 角槌) in both hands.
History
In ancient times, the fangxiang was a popular instrument in Chinese court music. It was introduced to Korea, where it is called banghyang (hangul: 방향; hanja: 方響) and is still used in the court music of Korea. A similar instrument used in Japan is called hōkyō (kanji: 方響).
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This entry incorporates text from “Fangxiang” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.