I have found a wonderful website for tang poetry: http://wengu.tartarie.com/wg/wengu.php?1=Yijing&l=Tangshi&no=0
Browsing this, one of the poems that I liked was 'On Hearing an Wanshan Play the Reed-pipe' by Li Qi.
Bamboo from the southern hills was used to make this pipe.
And its music, that was introduced from Persia first of all,
Has taken on new magic through later use in China.
And now the Tartar from Liangzhou, blowing it for me,
Drawing a sigh from whosoever hears it,
Is bringing to a wanderer's eyes homesick tears....
Many like to listen; but few understand.
To and fro at will there's a long wind flying,
Dry mulberry-trees, old cypresses, trembling in its chill.
There are nine baby phoenixes, outcrying one another;
A dragon and a tiger spring up at the same moment;
Then in a hundred waterfalls ten thousand songs of autumn
Are suddenly changing to The Yuyang Lament;
And when yellow clouds grow thin and the white sun darkens,
They are changing still again to Spring in the Willow Trees.
Like Imperial Garden flowers, brightening the eye with beauty,
Are the high-hall candles we have lighted this cold night,
And with every cup of wine goes another round of music.
At first I wondered whether this was describing the Shakuhachi, since the Shakuhachi had come to Japan during the Tang dynasty. But unfortunately the flute here is a 'bi li' or tartar horn which is a completely different instrument.
觱篥
But it got me wondering about which chinese flutes are closest to the shakuhachi.
According to Wiki Chinese end-blown flutes are called xiao (traditional Chinese:
簫). "It is generally made of dark brown bamboo (called "purple bamboo" in Chinese). It is also sometimes (particularly in Taiwan) called dòngxiāo (traditional Chinese: 洞簫), dòng meaning "hole."
An ancient name for the xiāo is shùdí (豎笛, lit. "vertical bamboo flute", [ʂûtǐ]) but the name xiāo in ancient times also included the side-blown bamboo flute, dizi. The xiāo is a very ancient Chinese instrument usually thought to have developed from a simple end-blown flute used by the Qiang people of Southwest China.
There are various types of xiao. The qinxiao (琴簫) is a version of the xiao, which is narrower and generally in the key of F with eight finger holes, used to accompany the guqin. The narrowness of the qin xiao makes the tone softer.
The nanxiao (traditional Chinese: 南簫), "Southern xiao") or 洞箫(pinyin: "Dong Xiao"), sometimes called chiba (Chinese: 尺八; , "foot-eight," an old name still used for the Japanese shakuhachi) is a short xiao with open blowing end used in the Nanyin, the local Fujianese opera from Quanzhou."
Last week we happened upon a traditional instrument shop selling various kinds of 'dongxiao'.
I thought the big one on the left looked very much like a shakuhachi. The owner firmly corrected me "thats not a shakuhachi, that is a chinese xiao". And indeed the mouthpiece is different with a notch for a blowing edge.
The other type of xiao had a different blowing edge again, with the blowing-end largely closed by the bamboo node and just a small blowing hole.
I came back to the shop today and tried playing these with the intention of buying one. Generally it was not too difficult to get sound both low or high register but I found the placement of the holes odd and none of these instruments seemed to be very in tune.
Im still curious about the chinese flutes but so far the Japanese Shakuhachi seems a much more natural and versatile instrument.
