Fish drum
Chinese percussion instrument
The fish drum (simplified Chinese: 鱼鼓/渔鼓; traditional Chinese: 魚鼓/漁鼓; pinyin: yugu), also known as Daotong (道筒) or zhuqin (竹琴) is a Chinese percussion instrument. The name actually designates two rather different instruments, a membranophone and an idiophone.
Membranophone
The membranophone fish drum is the symbol of Elder Zhang Guo, one of the Eight Immortals. This drum is a long and slender piece of bamboo with a dried fish skin stretched over one end. Two smaller pieces of bamboo resembling golf clubs are used as castanets.
Idiophone
There is also the idiophone, which is also called a wooden fish. This type of fish drum is used to accompany performers of changben or Chinese narrative ballads. They would accompany their singing on a yugu drum. It is also used as a drum to accompany Cantonese opera. This drum is an idiophone, where the whole body of the instrument vibrates to produce sound.
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