Related
The plucked-string section opens with a name — and three instruments stand beneath it.
Wogonghou · shukonghou · fengshou konghou: one native (a small se-like zither, with frets), one that travelled all the way from Mesopotamia (the "barbarian konghou" Emperor Ling of Han loved), one crowned with a phoenix and bodied like a boat (from India by way of Central Asia). One name, three origins — and in the Sui–Tang court's nine ensembles, all three played at once.
⚠️ Its most astonishing fact comes from Qiemo, Xinjiang, 1996: before that year, nobody had ever seen a real konghou — it lived only in poems, murals and reliefs. The Zaghunluq cemetery yielded three (two about 2,500 years old). The researcher called them "a key… filling a blank in the history of Chinese music." ⭐⭐ Rule ㊵: what travelled was not the object but the method — Xinjiang has since produced 24 konghou, and the conclusion is that it spread eastward "not as objects, but made locally from local timber" — poplar for the body, tamarisk for the string-rod. What arrived was not a harp; it was a craft.
| Classification | Value |
|---|---|
| HS class | chordophone · plucked · definite pitch |
| Sub-type | three forms: wogonghou (se-like, 7 strings, with frets) · shukonghou (angular harp, curved soundbox, 22 strings, held upright, both hands) · fengshou konghou (upright form with a phoenix head, boat-shaped soundbox) |
| Family | Chinese · plucked (silk strings; the wogonghou native, the others from the Western Regions and India) |
| Bayin | silk (丝) |
One name, three instruments
| Form | Origin | Key details (source wording) |
|---|---|---|
| Wogonghou | native | "like a se but smaller, seven strings, plucked with a plectrum, as on a pipa"; fretted |
| Shukonghou | Western Regions (harp line from Babylon, Egypt, Greece; via Persia in the Eastern Han) | "curved and long, twenty-two strings, held upright in the arms, played with both hands" |
| Fengshou konghou | India via Central Asia (early Eastern Jin) | phoenix head on the neck; soundbox "boat-shaped" |
⭐ Its naming is equally lovely: "konghou" and "kanhou" — "because it is hollow inside it was called *kong*hou; because it sounds in clacking, marked beats it was also called *kan*hou." (The *Tongdian* adds a third explanation: the maker's surname *Hou* may be in the sound itself.)
"Nobody had ever seen a konghou"
⭐ The line worth carrying away is the researcher's conclusion about how it travelled:
"In spreading from west to east, the konghou did not travel as objects — locals made it themselves from local timber."
- From Ur (real objects from about 2500 BCE) eastward through Mesopotamia, the Altai, the Pamirs and Hami, the structure stays "basically similar" — but the materials are local: the Qiemo harp's body is carved poplar, its string-rod tamarisk;
- hence "localisation": "the poplar and tamarisk materials and some of the craft show local character" — "an embodiment of Chinese culture's inclusiveness."
- ⭐ And one lovely conjecture: "the konghou is thought to have developed from the hunter's bow." Slacken a bow, and you have a harp.
Range
古箜篌（卧 · 竖 · 凤首）均无实测音域记载。现代雁柱箜篌：琴体高 175 厘米 · 宽 85 厘米，两排琴弦每排 44 弦，两排对应弦同音，共 44 个音，按 C 大调七声音阶排列。历代弦数：卧箜篌 7 弦 · 唐代竖箜篌 22 弦（另有 23 · 16 · 7 弦之记）· 明代 20 弦。本图按现代形制的 44 音七声排列取约四个八度示意，不代表古箜篌。记谱即实音。
What kept it alive for 1,400 years
In the Han and Tang it was a star — star enough that:
- it entered folk poetry: *Southeast the Peacock Flies* praises its heroine with "thirteen, she wove; fourteen, she cut clothes; fifteen, she played the konghou; sixteen, she read the poems";
- ⭐ it entered the most expensive poems: Li He's *Li Ping Plays the Konghou* begins "Wu silk and Shu paulownia, taut in high autumn; empty hills hold their clouds, unwilling to drift" — silk strings and paulownia body, right there in the first line;
- it entered the murals and the tomb figurines: Kizil, Kumtura, Simsim, Subashi, Bezeklik; and among the eight Sui-dynasty musician figurines from Zhang Sheng's tomb, a woman plays the upright konghou alongside pipa, five-string, panpipes, flute, cymbals and a double-reed pipe.
Then it vanished.
- "By the Song there were still konghou, small konghou and phoenix-head konghou. After the Ming it was used less and less, until it was lost."
- "It peaked in the Tang, and fell out of fashion after the 14th century";
- Ming court records preserved its specifications (four *chi* eight *cun* long, dragon head, 20 strings) — but that reads like the instrument in a file cabinet, not on a stage.
⭐ It left three living lines:
| Line | What |
|---|---|
| Poems | Li He, Gu Kuang, Wang Changling — in textbooks ever since. The name survived in verse. |
| Images | Murals, figurines, paintings — the shape survived in pictures. |
| Objects | Qiemo, 1996 (three) · a Tang lacquered upright konghou fragment in the Shōsōin · 24 in Xinjiang — the wood finally matched the drawings. |
⭐ Then three reconstruction stages: 1930s copies → 1959, Beijing Musical Instrument Research Institute → 1980, the modern konghou ("combining the Western harp, zheng, pipa and guqin"): double courses, a pear-shaped soundbox, bridges; the *Yanzhu* konghou stands 175 cm tall, 85 wide, with two rows of 44 strings. China's first konghou soloist, Cui Junzhi, put it plainly: "Very few people know the konghou — most mistake it for a harp."
⭐ And the loveliest homecoming happened where it was dug up: in 2015 the artist Lu Lu brought a rebuilt modern konghou back to Qiemo; in 2016 the county and her team founded Xinjiang's first public konghou school — "seed teachers" and "konghou children" — so local kids could learn the instrument that came out of their own soil. The words "homeland of the konghou" returned from an excavation report to children's hands.
Common misconceptions
- "The konghou is a harp." ⚠️ The modern one borrows the harp's shape but has double courses, a pear-shaped box and bridges, and can bend, press and shimmer. "Mistaken for a harp," as its first soloist said — a mistake, not a definition.
- "There is only one konghou." ⚠️ Three: flat (native), upright (Western Regions, 22 strings), phoenix-head (India via Central Asia) — all three in the Sui–Tang ensembles.
- "It came from the Western Regions." ⚠️ Only the upright and phoenix-head ones did; the flat one is native, listed in Han times as "proper Chinese sound" in the Qing-shang repertoire.
- "It died completely." ⚠️ Three lifelines (poems, images, objects) and a 1980 rebuild; Qiemo is still raising "konghou children" today.
- "Instruments spread as objects." ⚠️ The konghou is the clearest counter-example: it travelled as a method, not an object — wherever it arrived, it was rebuilt from local wood (poplar, tamarisk).
Timbre, and how to hear it
Three cues:
1. Hear the "clear and bright." The sources' word for it: "clear-toned, softly cadenced" — silk strings are softer than metal, and closer to a voice. 2. Hear the "double." The modern konghou has two courses: corresponding strings in unison — one walks the melody, the other can bend and press — the biggest difference from a harp. 3. Hear the poem's version. Li He wrote "jade of Kunlun shattering, phoenixes crying" — ⚠️ but remember: he wrote it while the instrument still lived; for the next millennium, people could only imagine it by reading.
The family
| Instrument | Form | Relation |
|---|---|---|
| Konghou | three forms | this page; Han–Tang star, lost by the early Qing, rebuilt 1980 |
| Harp (Western) | upright, single course (modern) | both upright plucked; the modern konghou borrows its principle, adds double courses and bridges |
| Pipa | held across, fretted | ⭐ fellow member of the Sui–Tang "silk strings"; the flat konghou is played "as on a pipa" |
| Zheng | laid flat, bridged | ⭐ fellow "silk string"; the flat konghou is "like a se, smaller" |
| Guqin | laid flat, fretless | the flat konghou was "made after the model of the qin" |
| Geomungo / Baekje zither (Korea) | laid flat | ⭐ the flat konghou died in China and lives on, changed, on the Korean peninsula |
⭐ The last row deserves a second look: an instrument can die where you know it and live on elsewhere — the flat konghou's descendants are still played in Korea.
Next
The plucked section continues — the next instrument is small but very bright: the pipa family's little cousin, with a moon in its name.
How does something so small sound so bright? And how did it hold a seat in the opera orchestra?
Listen in the library
All tracks from midicn-lib — inline badge is the license tier (C1 commercial / C2 non-commercial / C3 study only).
Sources
- ⭐⭐ 三种形制：「箜篌是古代弹拨乐器，又叫做坎侯 · 空侯。主要有卧箜篌 · 竖箜篌 · 凤首箜篌三种形制」；「隋唐九部乐中箜篌分三种」；「箜篌与琵琶 · 五弦 · 筝合称隋唐俗乐中的丝弦」依通行乐器资料
- ⭐⭐ 卧箜篌（本土那件）：唐 · 杜佑《通典》「汉武帝使乐人侯调所作，以祠太一；或云侯晖所作。其声坎坎应节，谓之坎侯……旧说一依琴制。今按其形，似瑟而小，七弦，用拨弹之，如琵琶也」；「（卧箜篌）与琴瑟相似，但有品……有五弦十余柱，以竹为槽，用木拨弹奏」；「因为中间是空的，所以叫『空侯』；又因为演奏时发出坎坎的节奏分明的声响，所以又叫『坎侯』」；「春秋战国时的楚国就已出现，汉代被作为『华夏正声』的代表乐器列入《清商乐》中」；汉乐府《孔雀东南飞》「十三能织素，十四学裁衣，十五弹箜篌，十六诵诗书」；「卧箜篌在宋代后失传，却在朝鲜和日本得到了流传和改进，成为今天的玄琴和百济琴」依古籍与乐器资料
- ⭐⭐ 竖箜篌（西域那件）：「竖箜篌是古竖琴的一种，最早存在于古代巴比伦 · 埃及 · 希腊的音乐中，东汉时由波斯（今伊朗）传入我国。为避免与汉族的箜篌混同，称竖箜篌，或『胡箜篌』」；《隋书 · 音乐志》「今曲项琵琶 · 竖头箜篌之徒，并出自西域，非华夏旧器」；《通典》「竖箜篌，胡乐也，汉灵帝好之，体曲而长，二十二弦，竖抱于怀中，用两手齐奏，俗谓之擘箜篌」；《后汉书 · 五行志》「灵帝好胡服……胡箜篌 · 胡笛 · 胡舞」；「状如半截弓背，曲形共鸣槽，设在向上弯曲的曲木上……张着 20 多条弦」；弦数有「23 · 22 · 16 · 7 根等数种」；「唐代以后，箜篌专指竖箜篌」依古籍与乐器资料
- ⭐ 凤首箜篌：「东晋初由印度经中亚传入我国，以凤首为饰而得名」；晋 · 曹毗《箜篌赋》「龙身凤形，连翻窈窕，缨以金彩，络以翠藻」；「其音箱设在下方横木的部位，呈船形；向上的曲木则设有轸……曲颈项端雕有凤头」；「今新疆克孜尔石窟 38 窟晋代思维菩萨伎乐所奏乐器即为凤首箜篌」；「明代后失传」依古籍与乐器资料
- ⭐⭐⭐ 考古（且末 · 1996）：「1996 年，且末县扎滚鲁克墓地出土了 3 件箜篌文物，其中 2 件年代在 2500 年前，1 件年代不晚于西汉」；「（一件）属公元前 5 世纪，长 87.6 厘米，出土时仅存音箱 · 琴颈 · 琴首和弦杆。半葫芦形的音箱，长方形的琴颈，菱形琴首上卯眼清晰，柽柳制作的弦杆上，系弦的印痕历历在目」；「音箱和琴颈是用胡杨木雕刻而成」；「被上海大世界基尼斯纪录为『世界上最早的弹拨乐器』，且末县也由此被誉为『箜篌故里』」；「（1996 年之前）在中国，箜篌音乐只是停留在壁画 · 雕塑和有限的复原研究上，谁也没有见过箜篌实物……就像一把钥匙，打开了研究箜篌音乐之门……填补了中国音乐发展史的一项空白」依人民网新疆频道 · 中新社与新疆地方资料
- ⭐⭐ 传播方式（最重要的一条）：「截至目前，新疆境内发现的箜篌数量已达 24 件」（另有吉尔赞喀勒 · 洋海 · 艾斯克霞尔南等墓地，最多一处 11 件），「年代跨度从公元前 8 世纪（春秋早期）可能一直延续至唐代」；⭐「箜篌在由西向东流传的过程中，并不是以实物形式传播的，而是当地人采用本地木材自制而成」——「其胡杨 · 柽柳的材质和部分制作工艺已体现本地特色」，「箜篌在新疆的本土化，是中华文化兼收并蓄的体现」依人民网与新华网资料
- ⭐ 更早的源头与推测：「目前所见最早记载有关箜篌原始符号资料的，是在公元前 3200 年前后的苏美尔乌尔城典籍里」；「最早的箜篌实物出自乌尔城公元前 2500 年前后的王室墓地」；「箜篌为波斯语」；「人们推测箜篌是由狩猎时代的弓发展而来」；「从两河流域到阿尔泰地区，从帕米尔高原到新疆的东大门哈密，相继出土了公元前 8 世纪至公元 2 世纪的箜篌实物」依中新社与新疆地方资料
- ⭐⭐ 图像与实物遗存：「箜篌盛行于汉 · 唐时代，在石窟壁画 · 浮雕中时常可以看到」；新疆 4 至 10 世纪石窟（克孜尔 · 库木吐拉 · 森木塞姆 · 苏巴什 · 柏孜克里克）保存大量箜篌图像；「日本奈良县正仓院保存有唐代漆竖箜篌残件，有槽 · 颈 · 脚柱 · 响板 · 梁等部分」；河南博物院藏隋代张盛墓彩绘乐伎俑中有弹竖箜篌者，与琵琶 · 五弦 · 排箫 · 横笛 · 钹 · 筚篥同列依文物资料
- ⭐⭐ 诗与失传：《孔雀东南飞》「十五弹箜篌」；李贺《李凭箜篌引》「吴丝蜀桐张高秋，空山凝云颓不流。江娥啼竹素女愁，李凭中国弹箜篌」；顾况「国府乐手弹箜篌，赤黄绦索金鎝头」；王昌龄「微雨沾衣令人愁，有一迁客登高楼，不言不寐弹箜篌」；「到宋代时，仍有箜篌 · 小箜篌 · 凤首箜篌等多种形制存在。明代以后箜篌逐渐较少使用，以至于失传」；「唐代达到鼎盛，自 14 世纪后不再流行，以致慢慢失传」；「明代燕乐制度中箜篌直长 4 尺 8 寸，并柄上雕龙头，20 弦」依古籍与报刊资料
- ⭐⭐ 复原：「1930 年代有箜篌复制工作，1959 年，北京乐器研究所研制明代的箜篌。1980 年中国研发了新型改良箜篌——现代箜篌」，结合竖琴 · 古筝 · 琵琶 · 古琴等，「主要特征为双排琴弦，琴弦间为形似琵琶的梨形共鸣箱，带有……琴码」；「雁柱箜篌：琴体高 175 厘米 · 宽 85 厘米，有两排琴弦，每排 44 弦。两排对应的弦同音，共 44 个音，按 C 大调七声音阶排列」；中国首位箜篌演奏家崔君芝：「认识箜篌的人确实很少，一般都会误认为是竖琴」；2015 年鲁璐团队带现代箜篌回且末，2016 年建新疆首个箜篌公益教学基地（「种子教师」「箜篌娃娃」项目）依报刊与地方资料
- ⚠️ 音域：古箜篌（卧 · 竖 · 凤首）均无实测音域记载；现代雁柱箜篌「共 44 个音，按 C 大调七声音阶排列」依资料整理
- 「箜篌属于八音中的丝」依通行资料
Used for fact-checking only; all prose is original.