笙

The instrument

The pipes stand in a ring on a cup-shaped wooden wind chest, often lacquered to keep it airtight, with a mouthpiece on its side. Fifteen of the seventeen pipes sound. The other two are silent, kept, by one account, as the phoenix's wings, and perhaps also to preserve the instrument's symmetry. Each reed is set in place with a heated mixture of beeswax and pine resin and tuned with small dabs of a wax and lead compound. A pipe sounds only when the player covers its finger hole.

The shō sounds whether the player breathes in or out, so it can hold a tone for a long time with only a slight dip as the breath turns. Moisture from the breath collects on the reeds, puts them out of tune and can silence them, so players warm the instrument over a small charcoal brazier or electric heater before and between pieces.

How to listen

In gagaku the shō plays aitake (合竹), clusters of several notes fingered together. There are eleven basic aitake, and the player moves from one to the next gradually, so the harmony seems to change shape rather than switch. Under the nasal line of the hichiriki and the higher, winding ryūteki, the shō gives the ensemble its steady, glowing floor. In sung court forms such as saibara and rōei it plays single notes instead, and in preludes and modal pieces called chōshi it uses special chords of its own.

A short history

The shō descends from the Chinese sheng of the Tang era and reached Japan with the other continental court music around the Nara period (710–794). It is generally smaller than its Chinese relatives. In Japan it became central to tōgaku, the repertoire of Chinese origin, but it is not used in komagaku, the music of Korean origin. The Ashikaga shogun Takauji learned it, and several emperors played it.

In the twentieth century the shō moved into new music. Mayumi Miyata was the first to use it as a solo instrument in contemporary music, and composers including Tōru Takemitsu, Toshio Hosokawa and John Cage wrote for her.

Start with

The 1941 recording of Taishikichō chōshi is a prelude in the taishiki mode for shō, hichiriki and ryūteki. With only the three winds playing, the shō's chords are easy to hear on their own terms.

Questions

What is a shō?

The shō is a Japanese free-reed mouth organ of seventeen bamboo pipes, fifteen of which sound. It is one of the three wind instruments of gagaku, where it plays sustained chords called aitake.

How is the shō played?

The player blows into a mouthpiece on the wind chest and covers finger holes to choose which pipes sound. It sounds on both the in-breath and the out-breath, so it can hold chords without pauses.

Why do shō players heat their instruments?

Breath condenses on the metal reeds, which puts them out of tune and can stop them sounding. Players warm the shō over a small brazier or electric heater before and during a performance to keep the reeds dry.

Is the shō the same as the Chinese sheng?

The shō descends from the Tang-era sheng and works on the same free-reed principle, but it is generally smaller. The modern Chinese sheng is larger and has a wider range.