History
Chinese free-reed wind instruments named he and yu were first mentioned in bone oracle writings dating from the 14th–12th centuries BC, and were identified in later texts as types of sheng. The first appearance of the word "sheng" is in some of the poems of Shijing (Book of Odes), dating back c. 7th century BC. Ancient instruments with gourd wind chambers, varying numbers of pipes, with bamboo or metal reeds have been discovered in archaeological finds at the tomb of the Marquis Yi of Zeng (c. 433 BC) in present-day Hubei province, and the Han tombs at Mawangdui (c. 2nd century BC) in Hunan province.
In the eighth century, three yu and three sheng were sent to the Japanese court and these have been preserved in the Shōsōin imperial repository in Nara. All the instruments had 17 pipes with a long curving mouthpiece and are very similar to the traditional sheng in use today. However variants with different numbers of pipes, and chromatic instruments have been documented over the centuries.
Read more about this topic: Sheng (instrument)
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