Bianzhong is an ancient Chinese

China

Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...

 musical instrument consisting of a set of bronze

Bronze

Bronze is a metal alloy consisting primarily of copper, usually with tin as the main additive. It is hard and brittle, and it was particularly significant in antiquity, so much so that the Bronze Age was named after the metal...

 bells, played melodically. These sets of chime bells were used as polyphonic musical instruments and some of these bells have been dated at between 2,000 to 3,600 years old. They were hung in a wooden frame and struck with a mallet. Along with the stone chimes called bianqing

Bianqing

The bianqing is an ancient Chinese musical instrument consisting of a set of L-shaped flat stone chimes, played melodically. The chimes were hung in a wooden frame and struck with a mallet...

, they were an important instrument in China's ritual and court music going back to ancient times.

Several sets of bianzhong were imported to the Korea

Korea

Korea ) is an East Asian geographic region that is currently divided into two separate sovereign states — North Korea and South Korea. Located on the Korean Peninsula, Korea is bordered by the People's Republic of China to the northwest, Russia to the northeast, and is separated from Japan to the...

n court during the Song Dynasty

Song Dynasty

The Song Dynasty was a ruling dynasty in China between 960 and 1279; it succeeded the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period, and was followed by the Yuan Dynasty. It was the first government in world history to issue banknotes or paper money, and the first Chinese government to establish a...

. Known in Korea as pyeonjong

Pyeonjong

The pyeonjong is an ancient Korean musical instrument consisting of a set of 16 bronze bells, played melodically. The bells are hung in a wooden frame and struck with a mallet...

, the instrument is still used in Korean court music. A similar instrument in Japan is called the hensho.

Among the most important sets of Bianzhong discovered are a complete ceremonial set of 65 zhong bells

Bianzhong of Marquis Yi of Zeng

The Bianzhong of Marquis Yi of Zeng , or Zenghouyi Bells, were bianzhong unearthed in 1978 in the Zeng-hou-yi Tomb in Sui County, Hubei Province, China. The bianzhong were made in 433 B.C.....

, found in a near-perfect state of preservation during the excavation of the tomb of Marquis Yi, who died ca. 430 BCE. Yi was ruler of Zeng

Zeng

Zeng is a Chinese family name. In Cantonese, it is rendered as Tsang. In Taiwan, it is rendered as Tseng or Tzeng. In Malaysia, it may be rendered as Chan. In Indonesia, it may be rendered as Tjan. In Vietnam, it may be rendered as Tăng. The surname Zeng is the 32nd most common surname in Mainland...

, one of the Warring States which at the time of his death was under control of the Chǔ

Chu (state)

The State of Chu was a Zhou Dynasty vassal state in present-day central and southern China during the Spring and Autumn period and Warring States Period . Its ruling house had the surname Nai , and clan name Yan , later evolved to surname Mi , and clan name Xiong...

 state. This region is now part of the present-day Hubei province.

Although tuned bells have been created and used for musical performance in many cultures, zhong are unique among all other types of cast bells in several respects. They have a lens

Lens (geometry)

In geometry, a lens is a biconvex shape comprising two circular arcs, joined at their endpoints. If the arcs have equal radii, it is called a symmetric lens.A concave-convex shape is called a lune...

-shaped (rather than circular) section, the bell mouth has a distinctive "cutaway" profile, and the outer surfaces of the large bells feature 36 studs or bosses, symmetrically placed around the body in four groups of nine. This special shape gives zhong bells the remarkable ability to produce two different musical tones, depending on where they are struck. The interval between these notes on each bell is either a major

Major third

In classical music from Western culture, a third is a musical interval encompassing three staff positions , and the major third is one of two commonly occurring thirds. It is qualified as major because it is the largest of the two: the major third spans four semitones, the minor third three...

 or minor third

Minor third

In classical music from Western culture, a third is a musical interval encompassing three staff positions , and the minor third is one of two commonly occurring thirds. The minor quality specification identifies it as being the smallest of the two: the minor third spans three semitones, the major...

, equivalent to a distance of four or five notes on a piano.
The bells of Marquis Yi — which are still fully playable after almost 2,500 years — cover a range of slightly less than five octaves but thanks to their twin-tone capability, the set can sound a complete 12-tone scale—predating the development of the European 12-tone system by some 2000 years—and can play melodies in diatonic and pentatonic scales.

As the image above shows, the bianzhong chimes of Marquis Yi are mounted on intersecting racks set at 90 degrees to each other, consisting of two pairs of massive wooden beams, with three smaller beams (carrying the highest bells) mounted on top of the upper beams. The beams are separated and supported at their ends and intersections by six bronze human figurines with upraised arms and wearing swords; the upper three figures are slightly smaller than the lower, which are cast on their own elaborately decorated bronze pedestals. The ends and intersection of each pair of beams are fitted with decorated bronze caps and front part of the brackets supporting the largest bells are cast in the shape of animals. The longer pair of main beams are provided with extra support in the middle in the form of two slender bronze columns.

These bells usually have inscriptions on them from which scholars used as references for studying ancient Chinese writings (also known as Bronzeware script

Bronzeware script

Chinese Bronze inscriptions are writing in a variety of Chinese scripts on Chinese bronze artifacts such as zhōng bells and dǐng tripodal cauldrons from the Shāng dynasty to the Zhōu dynasty and even later...

). Another related ancient Chinese musical instrument is called qing

Bianqing

The bianqing is an ancient Chinese musical instrument consisting of a set of L-shaped flat stone chimes, played melodically. The chimes were hung in a wooden frame and struck with a mallet...

 (磬 pinyin

Pinyin

Pinyin is the official system to transcribe Chinese characters into the Roman alphabet in China, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan. It is also often used to teach Mandarin Chinese and spell Chinese names in foreign publications and used as an input method to enter Chinese characters into...

qing4) but it was made of stone instead of metal.

Further reading

• Lee, Yuan-Yuan and Shen, Sinyan. (1999). Chinese Musical Instruments (Chinese Music Monograph Series). Chinese Music Society of North America Press. ISBN 1-880464039
• Shen, Sinyan (1987), Acoustics of Ancient Chinese Bells, Scientific American, 256, 94.
• von Falkenhausen, Lothar. (1993). Suspended music: chime-bells in the culture of Bronze Age China. University of California Press.

External links

• Ancient Chinese Bells
• Six-tone scale in a 12-tone system
• Bianzhong video from The Musical Instruments E-book