Sheng is a wind instrument in ancient my country, and it is also the earliest instrument in the world to use free reeds, and it is also the only musical instrument in our country that can play harmony.

The shape of the sheng is like a phoenix with wings ready to fly. "Shuowen" says: "The sheng, with thirteen springs, resembles the body of a phoenix; the sheng, the sound of the first month, is called the sheng because of life."

The phoenix has always been regarded as a bird of music. Legend has it that Linglun, a musician during the Yellow Emperor period, was inspired by the sound of the phoenix when he created the twelve melody. In "Shuowen", it is pointed out that Sheng's appearance is like "the body of a phoenix", that is, the unevenness of the bamboo tube is compared to the wings of a phoenix.

The timbre of Sheng is bright and sweet, the treble is crisp, the midrange is soft, and the bass is strong, so it has the reputation of "the sound of the phoenix". There is also a beautiful legend about the origin of Sheng.

Legend has it that there was a music-loving queen in ancient times. By chance, she met a beautiful divine bird (the phoenix) and heard the birdsong. She was deeply attracted by the beautiful voice, but the divine bird flew away quickly.

After the queen returned, she was always obsessed with the appearance and voice of the divine bird, to the point of not thinking about tea and rice. In order to make him happy, the emperor ordered the skilled craftsmen in the world to make a utensil similar to a divine bird. Soon, someone made such an utensil.

The queen was overjoyed, and soon gave birth to a prince, so she named this utensil "sheng", and the music it played was called "feng ming".

Regarding the origin of Sheng, there is no exact record in history books, but it is certain that Sheng was very popular as early as the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period. It can be seen from this that Sheng has a very long history and was born at least 3,000 years ago.

In the early Western Zhou Dynasty, after Duke Zhou "made rituals and music", he established a ritual and music system. On many ceremonial occasions, the sheng was often the main musical instrument, while other musical instruments were only embellishments.

Mozi, a representative of the Mohist school in the Warring States Period, once published a remark that music is useless in his book "Mozi". In his opinion, all entertainment activities are unnecessary, but he himself likes to play the sheng very much. It also reflects from the side that the "sheng" musical instrument was indeed very popular in the society at that time.

Sheng, as a musical instrument, is widely used in all kinds of music. Until now, Sheng is still the main instrument played by some ethnic minorities in the south, such as Dong, Miao, Yi, etc.

The rhythm of historians - borrowing the long history of Chinese culture, taste the charm of five thousand years of civilization history!