Traditional lip-blown aerophones in China

Abstract

Bands and orchestras in present-day China universally employ Western-style valved trumpets and horns, but “natural” lip-blown instruments were known in China as early as the Han Dynasty, when guchui (wind and drum) ensembles played an important role in court rituals and military processions. Drawing on early artworks, treatises, and modern ethnographic studies, my paper demonstrates the enduring use of traditional lip-blown instruments in China, from early imperial times to the present day. The earliest trumpets in China probably were made from animal horns. In the Mogao Grottoes near Dunhuang, on the ancient Silk Road, a mural shows musicians playing animal horns associated with drums, celebrating the defeat of the Tibetan army by Chinese forces in 848, but the trumpets in two brick reliefs dating from approximately three centuries earlier appear to have been made of metal, probably bronze. In China, today natural lip-blown instruments endure in Buddhist ritual music, primarily in Tibet and Mongolia, as well as in certain minority cultures, where they are employed primarily in processions accompanying weddings and funerals.