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TimbreArticulation MarksCymbalsDaluo (great gong)YunluoBianzhongTanggu

Seven entries into the percussion family, the beater finally goes away.

The previous six — the bianzhong, the bianqing, the tanggu, the muyu, the yunluo and the daluo — all rely on holding something in the hand and swinging it. The naobo does not: it is two pieces, and they strike each other.

⚠️ It forces the most fundamental question in this site's percussion group: once the beater — the middleman — is taken away, what is left for the hands to control? | | With a beater | Naobo (without one) | |---|---|---| | The contact | an instant of impact | ⭐ the contact can last | | What shapes the timbre | mainly the beater (hard / soft / heavy / light) | ⭐ mainly the hands themselves (force · angle · speed) | | What can be controlled | choose the tool + control the force | ⭐ the tool-choosing step is gone; only the hands remain | So it gains a whole extra family of actions: flat clash · edge clash · muted clash — and even scraping one across the other, and shimmering (a rapid series of tiny clashes). A beater can only strike; hands can close, slide, press and shiver.

Structure: a pair of bronze discs

Three points:

1. The dividing line is the width of that centre piece. The nao has a thin, upturned face with a small, flat-topped boss — about one fifth of the full diameter; the bo has a thick, flat face with a large, round bowl — about one half. Players put it bluntly: "the big bowl is a *bo*, the small cap is a *nao*." 2. A nao and a bo of the same size: the nao sounds lower and rings longer. ⚠️ Another source describes it in terms of colour instead — "the nao's small boss gives a *louder* sound, the bo's large bowl gives a *rounder* one". Both descriptions are recorded here as they stand. 3. It is forged, like a gong. Melting and mixing → hammering to shape → cold working and trimming the rim → drilling the apex of the bowl for the cloth loop. And its final timbre depends on alloy, area, thickness, rim curvature and boss size — two of those five are hand-tuned.

Where it sits in Hornbostel–Sachs: the first "concussion"

This figure is the heart of the page.

The first cut in Hornbostel–Sachs is not "metal or stone" (that is the bayin's question) and not "pitched or not". It is: is the sounding body struck by a non-sounding object (percussion), or do two sounding bodies strike each other (concussion)?

• 111.1 Concussion: until this entry, this site had exactly one instrument here — the naobo.
• 111.2 Percussion: all six earlier entries sit here — the daluo (111.241.1, individual gong), the yunluo (111.241.2, set of gongs), the bianzhong (111.242.221, struck hanging bell) and the bianqing (111.222, set of percussion plaques).

⭐ So this page does not merely add an instrument — it completes half of a map.

(A note in passing: the tanggu is not on this map, because it is a membranophone — category 2, since what vibrates is skin, not bronze or stone. "Percussion" is our everyday word; Hornbostel–Sachs has no such class — it only asks what vibrates.)

Nao and bo: two fates for one character

This page also carries a story no other instrument here has: the character 铙 (nao) has been used twice, for two completely different instruments.

⭐⭐ And the best part: a Song-dynasty writer put it in writing himself.

Ma Duanlin, *Comprehensive Examination of Documents*:

"The bronze nao is a *fuyou* vessel used by Buddhists — small, with a clear sound, which the world calls a nao. Its name is the same as the nao of the four metals, but the thing itself is different."

"Its name is the same… but the thing itself is different." Nine hundred years ago someone wrote down exactly the confusion we would otherwise have made ourselves.

That gives this site's "history of names" a seventh entry:

The first six all had to be reconstructed by scholarship. The seventh did not — someone wrote the explanation into a book at the time.

Timbre, and how to hear it

Four cues:

1. A very short attack and a very long tail. One clash gives a steep onset followed by a long metallic tail — it is naturally a sound of blend, not of points. 2. Bright, with a "watery" ring. The traditional description is *clear, with a deep watery ring*: a high sandy scrape and a low hum arrive together, so it sounds bigger than it is. 3. However you close them is how they sound. Flat clash → one complete impact; edge clash → more high frequency, more sand; muted clash → the two discs never quite meet, and the sound stops at once. 4. It partners the daluo in the percussion section. The daluo supplies weight, the naobo supplies density — the wash of sound underneath a drum-and-gong pattern is usually the naobo's.

Playing techniques

• One disc per hand, held by the cloth. A cloth loop runs through a hole at the apex of each bowl; each hand holds one disc — the cloth is both a grip and a filter for excess high frequency.
• Four basic actions: flat clash · edge clash · muted clash, plus shimmer (a rapid series of tiny clashes) and scrape (sliding one across the other). ⭐ In all of these, how long the contact lasts is adjustable — which a beater cannot do: a beater strikes and leaves, whereas hands decide when the two discs come apart.
• It is used as a graded set. Peking opera has several nao — the danaos (about half a metre across, loud and strong) and the xiaojing ("cymbal nest" in the north); and several bo — the shuibo (also called pubo, gongbo, shuicha or "lotus leaf") and the chuidabo ("muted bo"). One instrument, graded into a whole set of positions from bright to thick to dry.
• It is paired with the daluo: one gives weight, the other density.
• It is also a Buddhist ritual instrument and an indispensable part of lion and dragon dances. In southern Fujian a whole acrobatic act — "tossing the naobo" — grew out of it, and is now on the provincial intangible-cultural-heritage list. An instrument that became a circus act.

The family

This table straightens out the "who strikes whom" line: only with the naobo are both the "concussion" and the "percussion" branches of this site's struck idiophones occupied.

History

Its history has a shape no other entry here has: first a character (the Shang nao), a thousand years later a foreign instrument (the bo), and then the foreign instrument borrowed the old character. So reading its history means reading two timelines at once — one of a *character*, one of *bronze discs*.

Common misconceptions

• "Nao and bo are two names for the same thing." They are not: the nao has a small flat-topped boss (about 1/5 of the full width) on a thin, upturned face; the bo has a large round bowl (about 1/2) on a thick, flat face. At the same size the nao sounds lower and rings longer; the bo higher and shorter. "Naobo" is an umbrella term, and the two differ in colour and in use.
• "The naobo came to China from Western cymbals." Only half right: the clashed bo is indeed foreign (arriving with Buddhism around the 4th century), but the character 铙 is over a thousand years older in China — there are Shang-dynasty bronze nao in the ground. An old name was lent to a new instrument; the new instrument did not bring a new name — and a Song-dynasty writer recorded exactly that.
• "No pitch, so it sounds the same however you strike it." The opposite: the timbre of the attack is almost entirely decided by how the two discs close — flat, edge, muted, shimmered or scraped are completely different sounds. On a beater instrument that variable lives in the beater; here it lives entirely in the hands.
• "Two discs = a louder triangle." In classification they are far apart: the naobo is two sounding bodies striking each other (HS 111.1, concussion), while the triangle is struck by a non-sounding object (HS 111.2, percussion) — the first cut falls exactly there.
• "The bayin call it metal, so it belongs with the gongs." As with the earlier entries: the bayin records the material. In Hornbostel–Sachs it shares the struck idiophone class with the daluo but sits on a different branch — concussion, not percussion.

Next

Percussion now has seven entries, and both the gongs and the cymbals of the opera percussion section are in place. But the section is still missing one instrument — and it is the most important one: the bangu (Peking-opera drum).

It is not another loud instrument; it is the instrument that gives orders. The drummer, with two thin sticks and a vocabulary of gestures, directs everyone on stage and off.

And it asks a turning-point question: what makes a percussion instrument qualify to conduct the whole band? :::

Sources

• 「铙与钹是两种形制近似的乐器，通常统称为铙钹；铙的碗部较小，钹的碗部较大」依通行乐器资料
• 「铙面薄而翘，帽小而顶平，帽径约当全径的 1/5~1/4；钹面厚而平，碗大而顶圆，碗径约当全径的 1/2。故民间将碗大的称钹，帽小的称铙；大小相同的铙与钹，铙音低于钹而余音较长」依通行乐器资料
• ⚠️ 另有一说从音色角度描述：「铙的碗部较小，发音较响亮；钹的碗部较大，发音较浑厚」—— 与上一条（铙音低 · 钹音高）角度不同，两种说法并存，此处如实并录
• 「铙钹由两个铜制圆盘组成，中间隆起，相击发声；古称铜钹 · 铜盘 · 铜钵；管弦乐团多用直径 35 厘米者，我国京剧中最大的直径 60 厘米，最小的只有 5 厘米」依通行乐器资料
• 「铙钹是一对金属圆片，中间凸起，各有一条钹巾系在中央；演奏时手持钹巾将两片对击」依通行乐器资料
• 「铙用响铜制成，呈圆片形，两面为一副，相击后发音，音色清亮，带有深沉的水音；铙面直径常见 27–55 厘米，最大者达 68 厘米，碗径 7 厘米以上，重 1–2.5 公斤」依通行乐器资料
• 「锆（铙）的制作与钹相同，要经过配料熔炼 · 锻打成型 · 冷砸剪边，最后在帽顶钻孔系以绸布完成；铙的音色 · 音量和传远度，取决于响铜成分 · 面积 · 厚薄 · 边沿部分的弧度 · 帽的大小；鉴别以铙面光洁 · 弧度适度 · 圆度准确 · 边缘厚度一致为佳，中间的帽形大小和两面的音高也要相同」依通行乐器资料
• 「演奏时双手各执一面互击，有平击 · 侧击 · 闷击等手法；用于苏南吹打等民间器乐合奏，昆曲 · 粤剧等地方戏曲和舞狮 · 舞龙等民间歌舞伴奏；在佛教道教音乐中常用」依通行乐器资料
• ⭐ 「商代的「铙」是另一种东西：青铜制 · 体短而阔 · 有中空的短柄插入木柄后可执 · 以槌击之而鸣 · 并且三个或五个一组，大小相次。《周礼·地官·鼓人》：『以金铙止鼓』；郑玄注：『铙，如铃，无舌，有柄，执而鸣之』；殷墟妇好墓出土五柄成组合的铙，是至今发现铙组合的最高数字」依《周礼》郑玄注与考古资料
• ⭐⭐ 「宋·马端临《文献通考》：『铜铙，浮屠氏所用浮沤器，小而声清，世俗谓之铙，其名虽与四金之铙同，其实异』（宋·陈旸《乐书》『铜铙』条同此）」依《文献通考》—— 宋人自己就写明了两者同名异物
• 「铙钹（铜钹）源出西亚（最早见于埃及 · 叙利亚，后流传至波斯 · 古罗马；在东方最早见于古代印度），大约在公元 4 世纪左右随佛教（或《天竺乐》）经中亚传入中国；南北朝时期已在全国普遍流行」依通行音乐史资料
• 「隋代九部乐中，已用于天竺 · 西凉 · 龟兹 · 安国 · 康国五乐；唐代十部乐中有七部用钹，尤其在燕乐中还有正铜钹与和铜钹之分；敦煌千佛洞的隋唐壁画与成都五代前蜀皇帝王建墓的乐舞石刻中，均绘有敲击铜钹的乐伎形象」依通行音乐史资料
• 「《宋史·仪卫志》与《辽史·乐志》载，北宋和辽时铙已用于宫廷仪仗中的鼓吹乐；清·李斗《扬州画舫录》载昆曲伴奏曾用大铙；清《钦定大清会典》：『铙，范铜为之，左右合击，面径一尺二寸，中隆起……径二寸四分五厘』」依文献
• 「京剧的铙主要有：大铙（直径约一尺半多，较水镲薄，中间隆起极小，声音响而壮）· 小镜（北方称「镲窝子」）；京剧的钹主要有：水钹（也叫普钹 · 宫钹 · 齐钹 · 水镲 · 荷叶）· 吹打钹（也叫哑钹，形似大铙而比大铙小，径约半尺）」依京剧乐器资料
• 「铙钹在佛教中常作为寺院法会所用的法器；在闽南等地，由铙钹发展出的「掷铙钹」表演已被列入省级非物质文化遗产代表性项目名录」依通行资料
• 「铙钹属于八音中的金」依通行资料

Used for fact-checking only; all prose is original.