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PitchScaleChinese Pentatonic ModesPan FluteXiaoDiziBianzhong

This instrument answers one question with a row of bamboo: what if every note wanted its own tube?

The answer: the scale is split into thirteen tubes of bitter bamboo — one note each. Melody is no longer made by fingers on holes, but by the mouth walking along the tube mouths.

And its luck lies there too — in 1978, two panpipes came out of the tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng: of the 2,400-year-old tubes, one set still had eight pipes that could sound.

⚠️ And its earlier post was the band's tuning reference. The Henan Museum's research says it plainly: "the panpipes did serve to check the tuning of the ancient band." Compared with the bells' pitch series, the agreement is plain to see. ⭐⭐ Rule ㉛: one tube, one note — the scale taken apart into a row of tubes, each made for its single note. And that independence made tuning a very concrete craft: stopping the tube's foot with beeswax — "stop the foot with honey-wax, adding or removing until it agrees." (Cai Yong, via the *Tongdian*.)

⭐ One distinction: the site's pan flute entry covers the instrument worldwide (Greek syrinx, Romanian nai, Andean siku…); this one covers the Chinese paixiao — its archaeology, its names, its fate.

One bundle of bitter bamboo: Zeng Hou Yi's 13 tubes

Three points:

1. A bundle of unequal bamboo. Thirteen bitter-bamboo tubes: level at the top (the blowing plane), ragged below — and the difference in length is the difference in pitch: "long is muddy, short is clear," as the old text puts it. The natural node closes each foot — it is born a stopped pipe. 2. Three strips. Split bamboo strips bind the bundle into one piece — the whole of its assembly. Black lacquer over it, with red coiled and thunder patterns. 3. ⭐ It is a pair. The tomb held two: same form, different lengths — the male longer, the female shorter; the sources say such pairs "played together, like a duet of male and female voices." (Hence the batch's names-history item ⑫: paired instruments named "male and female.")

One tube, one note: melody by walking

The playing method is unusual — no keys, no finger holes, no reeds:

• One note per tube: "the paixiao has no superfluous technique; each tube gives a single note, and playing requires the lips to move quickly and precisely to the right tube."
• Melody by walking: "the hands move the instrument left and right; the head only assists" — "like a harmonica, moved sideways to choose the tube"; long tubes (low) left, short tubes (high) right.
• ⭐ Compare the site's dizi and xiao: they are "one tube, many notes" (fingers walk on holes); the paixiao is "one note per tube" (the mouth walks on tubes). One-tube-many-notes buys gliding and vibrato, at the cost of compromise; the paixiao buys a dedicated tube for every note — even colour, no interference. The cost: it can hardly glide. Between notes, it can only leap.

Range

A row of tubes also means a fixed range — it cannot "grow" the way a fingered instrument can: as many tubes, as many notes.

排箫属边棱音气鸣乐器（有固定音高、一管一音）。通行资料记其音域约 G3–G6；曾侯乙排箫 13 管，出土后一件尚存八管可吹、音阶结构已超出五声，经超吹可上移一到两个八度。历代管数不同（蔡邕记大者 23 管 · 小者 16 管），现代改革的双排管加键排箫扩至五个八度。本图以通行音域示意。记谱即实音。

⭐ Tube count *is* the instrument's whole margin: one more tube, one more note; a touch of wax, a note corrected. That is also why it was later "reformed" — with the old sixteen tubes or so, without new tubes there were no semitones and no wider range.

The wax is the pitch

If every tube owns a note, tuning becomes extremely concrete — it tunes each tube. And the Chinese craftsmen's answer lies at the foot of the tube:

"The xiao is bamboo bound with a closed foot. Twenty-three tubes at the largest, sixteen at the smallest. Long is muddy, short is clear. Stop the foot with honey-wax, adding or removing until it agrees." (Cai Yong, quoted in Du You's *Tongdian*, Tang.)

• Length fixes the note; the wax trims it. Add or remove until it agrees.
• ⭐ After the Han there even appears the "equal-tube" form: all tubes cut to nearly the same length, "the wax plug at the foot forming the tube's sounding length" — the wax's depth is the scale's graduation. In the Tang paixiao fragments kept at the Shōsōin in Nara (18 tubes originally, 9 surviving), the adjustment was paper pellets — the same idea in another material.
• And the beeswax found at the feet of the Zeng Hou Yi pipes ties the whole chain back 2,400 years: it "confirms that wax was used to adjust pitch in ancient China." In this batch's "three tuning actions" (rule ㉕), wax changes the effective length — a case of changing geometry.

⭐ And this instrument that had to be so carefully tuned held a special post in the band: "the panpipes did serve to check the tuning of the ancient band" — its pitch series agrees with the bells; with overblowing raising it one or two octaves, it was "the coordinating instrument of the stone-and-metal music." An instrument that is also a measuring tool — the other half of rule ㉛.

One wing, or two

⭐ This figure is a piece of history of knowing: the texts called it "phoenix-winged" — but was the wing one, or a pair?

• The object's answer: both Zeng Hou Yi pipes are single-wing — "shaped like one wing of a butterfly," like ancient panpipes the world over.
• The Qing answer: double-wing, symmetrical — 16 tubes, "eight yin, eight yang," arranged by lü (the lü names written on the tubes), cord replaced by a wooden frame. The Qianlong court's lacquered example (dated 1743) stands 34.5 cm tall with a shoulder of 37 cm, its tubes labelled with the twelve lü and four extra lü — less an instrument now than a lü-ordered object.
• ⭐ The summary: "through the ages the count and length varied, but always a single phoenix wing; only the Qing changed it to double." Its last great change of form happened after it had moved into the palace.

A name's history: from "xiao" to "paixiao"

One story cannot be left out — the character xiao (箫) shrank over history:

• From pre-Qin to Tang, "xiao" meant this instrument — the bound-tube panpipe. The *Book of Documents*' "xiao-shao nine times, the phoenix comes": it led the Shao music, which took its name; the *Book of Songs*: "xiao and pipes raised together"; Confucius, hearing the Shao, "for three months did not notice the taste of meat." The single vertical tube was then called *di*.
• After the Tang, "xiao" drifted to the single tube (see the xiao entry) — and the many-tubed one had to add a character to find itself again: paixiao. "The name *paixiao* begins with Zhao Lin's *Yinhua Lu* (Tang)"; by the Yuan it was the official term.
• Its older names stayed in the books and the poetry: "dixiao · yaxiao · songxiao · shunxiao · bizhu · cencī · fengyi · duanxiao · yunxiao" — ⭐ the most famous being cencī, "the uneven": the everyday phrase "cencī buqi" (uneven) comes from the shape of its tubes. A musical form became one of the commonest phrases in the language.

Its life: from Shao music to near-silence, and back

⭐ The arc is complete: from a Shao-music lead that "summoned phoenixes," to a lü-ordered court object, to near-silence, to a 1980s rebuild. And it returned the Chinese way: not a replica but a reform — keys, semitone tubes, five octaves.

Common misconceptions

• "You finger the holes on a paixiao." ⚠️ It has no finger holes: one note per tube, melody by moving lips and hands from tube to tube.
• "Paixiao and xiao are unrelated names." ⚠️ Deeply related: the pre-Qin "xiao" was the paixiao; the single tube later took over the name.
• "Ancient panpipes were symmetrical double wings." ⚠️ The reverse: single wings nearly everywhere; the double wing is a Qing change — and the Qing scholars' 26-tube double-wing restoration was corrected by the object itself.
• "Length alone tunes it." ⚠️ Length gives the note; wax at the foot trims it — "stop the foot with honey-wax, adding or removing until it agrees"; in equal-tube sets the wax depth *is* the graduation.
• "Just an ordinary instrument." ⚠️ In the ancient band it also checked the tuning: "the panpipes did serve to check the tuning of the ancient band," the coordinator of stone-and-metal music.

Timbre, and how to hear it

Three cues:

1. A melody that "walks." Listen for the small leap between notes — it is not a glide; the player changed tubes. 2. Even colour. One tube per note keeps every note in its own home: remarkably uniform timbre — its most "engineered" quality. 3. Listen beside the sheng. The sheng is also multi-tubed (17 reeds) — but one reed one note, and several can sound at once; the paixiao blows one tube at a time. Both "multi-tube": one laid sideways, one set upright; one gives chords, one only melody.

The family

⭐ Read the last column together: the fork between "many tubes" and "one tube" is a fork about where pitch lives — the paixiao keeps pitch in the tubes (make thirteen); the flute keeps pitch in the fingers (make six holes). The paixiao chose the tubes, and so it is born even — and born unable to glide.

Next

The second wind in this stretch is an instrument that could seat three hundred players —

the famous scene in Han Feizi: King Xuan of Qi had men play the yu, always three hundred at once. Next: the yu — far larger than the sheng, once far more prominent. Why could a band hold hundreds of yu at once — and why did it almost vanish?

Yu. :::

Sources

• ⭐⭐ 曾侯乙墓：「1978 年 8 月湖北随县曾侯乙墓，首次出土了两支排箫……由 13 根长短不同的细竹管依次排列，用三道剖开的细竹管缠缚而成，表面饰有色彩绚丽的漆绘」；「形状独特，好像凤凰的一翼」；「形制相同，但相应的管长有别的，是一对『雌雄箫』，雄的稍长，雌的略短。古时雌雄排箫常作合奏，互相衬托，有如男女声二重唱」依曾侯乙墓研究资料
• ⭐ 黄蜡与校音：「（曾侯乙排箫）由 13 根长短不同的苦竹竹竿制成，竹管依次排列，上口平齐，下沿参差不齐，用三道剖开的细竹板缠缚而成，表面饰有黑底红色三角回纹的漆绘」；「出土后，专家用光学仪器探测，发现管底残存黄蜡，证实了我国古代确有用黄蜡调节音高的做法。排箫在上古乐队中确实担任了调校音准的工作」；「如将竹排箫与曾侯乙编钟音列进行对照，可发现其音阶音列结构的切合度……排箫通过超吹可上移一到两个八度，作为金石之乐的协调乐器」依河南博物院资料
• ⭐⭐ 蔡邕 · 《通典》：「箫，编竹有底，大者 23 管，小者 16 管。长则浊，短则清。以蜜蜡实其底而增减之，则和」（唐 · 杜佑《通典 · 乐四》引蔡邕）；「汉代以后，出现一种等管形制的排箫，各管的长度相似，但管内以蜡封底、蜡底的高低形成管身的长短，从而吹出不同的音高」；「日本奈良正仓院收藏有唐代等管形制排箫残件，原 18 根一组，尚存 9 根，长 23.7–28.8 厘米；管内以填塞纸粒以调整音高」依《通典》与文物资料
• ⭐⭐ 单翼 → 双翼：「排箫形似凤翼……历代管数和长度不同，但均为单凤翼，清朝方改为双凤翼」；「直到清代才由依次渐短的单凤翼，改为对称的双凤翼形制，并且按律进行编管，箫管的箍子也由绳拴竹捆改成木制套架」；「清代学者曾根据古文献记载的排箫形如蝶翅的说法，复原出 26 管 · 左右对称的排箫。事实上，曾侯乙排箫形如蝶之单翅，这与世界各地的古排箫并无二致」依乐器史资料与文物资料
• ⭐ 清代实物：「清乾隆八年制」木红漆描金云龙纹椟竹管排箫：通高 34.5 · 肩宽 37 厘米；单排十六根竹管，「上标十二律律名及四倍律律名，阴阳各八」；中国艺术研究院音乐研究所藏清乾隆排箫「16 管，每管都刻有音名，含十二律及四倍律，木制套架上绘有两条腾云而起的金龙」；《清会典 · 乐器》「排箫，比竹为管十六，阴阳各八……以协阴均」依博物馆资料与《清会典》
• ⭐ 演奏法：「排箫没有多余的技巧，每根音管只能发出一个单音，演奏时需要嘴唇能够快速准确地移动到应该要吹的音管上……需要运用双手左右移动排箫来完成，而头部的移动只是辅助配合」；「上端平齐下端参差，呈筏排状固定……吹奏时双手左右执持，长管（低音）在左，短管（高音）在右，像吹口琴那样左右移动选取要吹的管吹响」依通行乐器资料
• ⭐ 骨排箫与石排箫：「1997 年鹿邑县太清宫镇长子口墓出土（商末周初），禽类腿骨所制，由 13 根长短递减的骨管组成，最长管 32.7 · 最短 11.8 厘米，出土时管身有带子束管的痕迹 ——是迄今发现的中国最早的骨质排箫」；「河南淅川下寺春秋楚墓出土的石排箫，以整块石料制成 13 根长短不等的编管，管壁的厚度只有一毫米」依考古资料
• ⭐ 名字：「『排箫』之称，始于唐代赵璘的《因话录》」；元代正式称古箫为排箫（《元史 · 礼乐志》「次排箫四」）；历代异名有「底箫 · 雅箫 · 颂箫 · 舜箫 · 比竹 · 参差 · 凤翼 · 短箫 · 云箫」；《尔雅 · 释乐》「大箫谓之言，小者谓之筊」；《朱子语类》「云箫者排箫也」；「参差不齐」一词即出自其管身参差的形态依《因话录》· 《元史》· 《尔雅》与通行文献资料
• ⭐ 韶乐与凤：「『箫韶九成，凤凰来仪』，以排箫演奏的远古韶乐，不仅可以招来凤鸟，相传也使圣人孔子闻后，陶醉得三月不知肉味，叹为尽善尽美」；《诗经 · 周颂 · 有瞽》「箫管齐举，喤喤厥声，箫雍和鸣，先祖是听」依《尚书》· 《诗经》与通行资料
• ⭐ 失传与复兴：「宋代以后，排箫在民间失传，多用于宫廷音乐。清代宫廷朝会 · 祭祀 · 宴飨中和韶乐均用之」；「到近代以后……渐渐失传，几成绝响。直到 80 年代初，吉林省歌剧院石家环在原箫造型基础上，研制成功双排管加键排箫」；「双排管加键排箫为宽音域十二平均律排箫，音域五个八度，增加了半音管」依乐器史 · 博物馆与改革资料
• ⭐ 世界对照：「同类乐器在世界多地独立出现：古希腊的潘笛 · 罗马尼亚的 nai · 中国的排箫 · 安第斯山的 siku 与 zampoña 等」（详见站内排箫（西洋木管）条目）依乐器史与民族音乐学
• 「排箫音域约 G3–G6（视管数与形制而定）」依通行乐器资料
• 「排箫属于八音中的竹」依通行资料

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