All across the world there are a variety of diverse instruments. Some instruments may be common in one area while unknown in another. In the United States, the yangqin is a foreign instrument that many do not know of. This is because the yangqin is an instrument played mostly in China, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, India, and Pakistan. It also goes by the name of Chinese hammered dulcimer, santur, foreign zither, and cymbalum. The piano, which is very well known in the United States, share an origin with the yangqin. One of their similarities is that they are both stringed instruments. The Chinese hammer dulcimer’s sound is produced by hitting the strings with key- hammers while the piano's sound is produced with one hammer per string. It “…is strung with several courses (from 7 to 18 sets) of strings on four or five bridges. The sets of strings on each bridge are pitched whole steps apart and neighbouring sets of strings on adjacent bridges are pitched a fifth apart…” (Kuiper). This set up allows the yangqin to be a chromatic instrument. This is another similarity it has with the piano. On a piano, it is seen that there are white and black keys, when it is said that an instrument is chromatic, it means the black and white keys are included or in other words, there are semitones. If the black keys or the semitones are excluded, then the instrument would be diatonic. Despite the similarities, the piano and yangqin have their differences. The piano can play a complicated ten- note chord, but the yangqin uses two " hand held" wooden or bamboo hammers to hit the strings and can only hit two notes simultaneously with a maximum of four if each hammer hit two strings at the same time. Unlike the piano, the yangqin produces a bright, ...
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...es a way of communication through provoked emotions produced by the sound an instrument makes. The diversity in music, sound, and instruments opens a wider door to explore creativity and open our minds to other cultures.
Works Cited
• Kuiper, Kathleen. Encyclopaedia Britannica. Ed. Virginia Gorlinski. N.p.:
Encyclopaedia Britannica,Inc, 2006. Print.
• Matina, Mala. "Yangqin." Newsfinder.org. Ed. Newsfinder.org. Newsfinder.org, 22
Mar. 2007. Web. 26 Nov. 2013. yangqin/>. • Melody of China. "Biography: Yangqin Zhao." Melodyofchina.org. Ed. Melody of
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