The UCLA Chinese Music Ensemble, directed by Chi Li, performs its annual fall concert featuring traditional and contemporary music, including silk-and-bamboo ensemble, erhu unison, qin unison, pipa duet, zheng unison, Chinese opera, folk dance, and silk-and-bamboo music.
Introduction to Chinese Instruments used in this performance:
Dizi - a transverse bamboo flute with six finger holes, a mouth hole, and a hole covered by a thin bamboo membrane which gives the instrument a wavering poignant sound. There are more than 160 pieces of 7000 years old bone di surface in China He Mu Du.
Qin - an unbridged seven-stringed zither with over 3000 years of history. There are more than 3,600 known ancient Qin compositions collected in nearly 130 Qin manuscripts. Other than regular notes, it has 119 playable harmonics.
Sheng - an ancient mouth organ with 17 or 21 bamboo pipes, each with a reed fitted on its lower end, inserted into a copper base. Has about 3000 years of history.
Ruan - an early Chinese plucked lute having a round body and a long fretted neck with four strings, which are plucked with a plectrum. Has about 2100 years of history.
Erhu - a two-string lute with the horsehair of the bow held in between the two strings. Has about 1000 years of history.
Pipa - a pear-shaped plucked lute with four strings. It has four upper frets and twenty-four lower frets. The Pipa is plucked with five real or synthetic nails of right-hand fingers.
Zheng - a long bridged zither with varying sizes and twenty-one strings plucked with real or synthetic nails.