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The yunluo is a "gong", but it is built the opposite way round from every other gong.

An ordinary gong is one instrument for one note, and has to be made big to be heard; the yunluo instead packs ten pitches onto one frame. It is not a louder gong — it is an instrument you can play melodies on with a pair of beaters.

⚠️ It forces the last question in this site's percussion group: once a percussion instrument has been laid out as a scale, is it still a percussion instrument? We have seen this move before, in the bianzhong and the bianqing: write the pitch into the material in advance, and let each instrument own a single note. The yunluo uses the same trick — but what it buys is different. It did not invent a new instrument. It copied the same instrument ten times. | | Gong | Bianzhong | Yunluo | |---|---|---|---| | Notes per instrument | one | one (hung as a set) | ⭐ ten | | What separates the pitches | size | size + wall thickness | ⭐ almost only thickness | | Why do it | volume · colour | a ritual instrument | ⭐ to play melody | All ten gongs are about 8 cm across — the yunluo freezes the dimension of size entirely.

Structure: ten notes on one frame

Three points:

1. The frame has three leaves — three cells on each outer leaf, four in the middle: ten cells. One gong hangs in each. That is the whole secret of its being melodic: ten pitches, fixed in advance, laid out within reach. 2. ⭐ The topmost gong is called the *gaogong luo* — and it is rarely used. So of ten gongs only nine are in daily use, and the instrument is also known as the "nine-note gong" (there, "nine" means *many*, not exactly nine). Its name does not come from how many gongs it has; it comes from the notes actually used. 3. It has to hang free. Each gong is suspended in its cell by three silk cords and touches nothing; the face is flat with no boss, and the rim extends outward as a flat ring into which the cord holes are drilled. This is the exact opposite of the great gong (which has a raised boss at the centre). Any contact with a hard body drains vibration away and muddies the pitch — to get a melody you first remove the blur: the shape loses its boss, and the mounting loses its contacts.

From a dot to a line

This figure is the heart of the page.

An ordinary percussion instrument can only handle time: it tells you *a sound happened now*. Lay ten pitches out in a row, though, and pitch joins the list of dimensions it can control — and a rhythm tool becomes a melody tool.

What is really worth noting is how it was done: not by inventing a new instrument, but by copying the same instrument ten times.

That separates it from the other way of tying instruments together:

⭐ Two combination instruments, two opposite goals: one spreads out across timbre, the other up through pitch. (And a third route entirely is the marimba: one instrument carrying a whole scale on its own. Same result; the yunluo gets there by joining ten instruments together.)

One knob left: thickness

All ten gongs of a traditional yunluo are about 8 cm across — not because nobody could make gongs of different sizes, but because the dimension of size was deliberately switched off.

Two things worth carrying away:

• "Thick, and the note is clear; thin, and the note is muddy." Those eight words come from Jia Gongyan's Tang-dynasty commentary on the *Kao Gong Ji*, and they state exactly what plate vibration does: frequency is proportional to thickness. The ten gongs of a yunluo are that sentence practised in its purest form: with size frozen, only one variable is left. (The same rule appears on the bianqing page as "if too high, grind the faces; if too low, grind the ends.")
• ⭐ The reformed yunluo unfroze size. The 29-gong version of 1963 was built on the model of the bells in the Confucius Temple at Qufu, with gongs of different sizes as well as thicknesses; by the 38-gong version the largest bass gong is 22 cm across and the smallest treble gong only 7 cm — it went all the way round and came back to the bianzhong's logic. Which dimension you freeze is a choice; change it and you have changed the instrument.

⚠️ One point of disagreement in the sources: most say the ten gongs are all 8 cm across, while others record them as 7–8.5 cm, slightly differing in size and thickness (practice varies by genre). Both are given here; what they agree on is that thickness is the main means.

Range

云锣属体鸣乐器（金属小锣受击）。传统一套十面、常用九面；音位排列因地区与乐种而异，音域一般 g1–b2 或 a1–d3（一个多八度）。此处画的是苏南十番鼓所用的一套九个音：A4 · B4 · D5 · E5 · F♯5 · G5 · A5 · C♯6 · D6。⚠️ 它的音域不是「连续的一段」——十面锣就是十个音，图上点出的就是全部可用音，虚线框只表示边界。改革后的 29/36/38 音云锣按十二平均律定音，音域扩到三个八度（c1–c4），已可旋宫转调。记谱即实音。

• Ten gongs are ten notes. Its "range" is not a continuous band but the points plotted above — hence the discrete-note figure here (the same drawing used for the hunting horn).
• About an octave and a fourth — far narrower than the zheng or ruan — but it does not need to be wide: its job is to pick out the skeletal notes of a melody inside an ensemble.
• The reformed yunluo changed targets: 29/36/38 gongs tuned to equal temperament, three octaves, fully modulating — from "a fixed set of notes" to a complete melodic instrument.

Timbre, and how to hear it

Four cues:

1. Clear, round, long-ringing — and not loud. It is the variable-pitch percussion of the metal idiophones: it wins not by volume but by clarity of pitch. 2. Its ring is longer than a chime's and shorter than a bell's. In an ensemble it often marks neither the beat nor the pulse but draws the outline of the melody. 3. Hard and soft beaters are two different instruments. Hard (horn, hard rubber) is firm and bright, at home in the treble and in fast melodies; soft (soft rubber) is gentle and singing, close to a lightly struck bell. 4. The reformed yunluo has three registers with three characters: the bass dark and thick, slow to speak, long-ringing; the middle pure and transparent — the most expressive melodic register; the treble quick, very short-ringing, crisp and sharp.

Playing techniques

• Two ways of holding it, for two situations: ① handle in the left hand (or braced against a table), right hand striking with a single beater — fewer ornaments, suited to processional playing (walking while striking); ② handle removed, the three leaves propped up at an angle, one beater in each hand — more ornaments, suited to seated playing. ⭐ Whether you have to walk decides how complex the part can be — the same family of facts as this site's "volume is social radius": the size of an instrument is set not only by sound but by whether it has to be carried (which is why processional sets usually stop at ten gongs).
• Single strokes, double strokes, rolls, light and heavy strokes, plus double stops and arpeggios; two beaters in each hand, struck simultaneously, give a four-note chord — close to how the marimba is played.
• Xi'an drum music uses paired yunluo: two frames joined in the middle with no handle, standing like a pair of folding screens, struck by one player — when one frame is not enough, join two.
• Its double stops can be combined with a sheng to imitate a bell.

The family

This table puts the two goals of "tying instruments together" side by side: the drum kit spreads out across timbre; the yunluo climbs through pitch. And the marimba takes a third route — it carries a scale on a single instrument.

History

The name *gaogong luo* deserves a line of its own: it is named after a note — it uses *gong* (工) straight out of the gongche notation. Which gives this site's "history of names" a sixth source:

(⚠️ The first five are instrument names; the sixth is the name of a part of an instrument — but the rule is the same: a name records a social relationship.)

Common misconceptions

• "A yunluo is just a scaled-down gong." The opposite: it is many gongs plus a frame, and it is flat-faced with no boss, hung on three cords, and tuned almost purely by thickness — apart from "bronze, struck with a beater" it differs from a great gong in nearly every respect.
• "Ten gongs means ten usable notes." It is ten gongs, yes — but the top one, the *gaogong luo*, is rarely used, which is why it is also called the nine-note gong; and the layout differs by region and genre, so there is no single national set.
• "It is an unpitched colour percussion instrument." It has definite pitch, and in wind-and-percussion bands it carries the skeletal notes of the melody; after the reform it is a full melodic instrument that can modulate. ("Has pitch" and "is percussion" do not conflict — the class asks what vibrates, not what the instrument plays.)
• "Bigger gongs are lower, so a ten-gong set must be ten sizes." A traditional yunluo freezes size: all ten are about 8 cm across, and the pitch differences come mainly from thickness — the central point of this page.
• "The bayin call it metal, so a yunluo is a 'metal instrument'." As with the guqin: the bayin records the material, while in Hornbostel–Sachs it is also an idiophone (answering *what vibrates*) — the two systems ask two different questions.

Next

The percussion family now has five entries here: the bianzhong, the bianqing, the tanggu, the muyu and the yunluo.

Next comes the same material with the opposite answer: the great gong. It is a single gong, it has a boss at the centre, and it has no definite pitch — its aim is not pitch but volume.

And this page has just said: "to get a melody, you first remove the blur." So the reverse question is: what if you do not want a melody, but one enormous crash? :::

Sources

• 形制依通行乐器资料：锣面平坦无脐（或仅略有弧度），边缘由垂直于锣面的「锣沿」固定，并可向外另伸出一圈平面锣边；锣孔钻在这圈平面上，穿丝线悬挂；每面小锣用三根绳吊在木架的方格里
• 「云锣由锣体 · 锣架 · 锣棰三部分组成；由大小相同、厚薄与音高不同的若干铜制小锣按音高次序悬于木架上」依通行资料
• 「《元史·礼乐志》宴乐之器：『云璈，制以铜，为小锣十三，同一木架，下有长柄，左手持，而右手以小槌击之』」依《元史》
• 「云璈之名唐代已见于诗文（有诗写「怡然辍云璈，告我希夷言」）；山西永乐宫的元代壁画《奏乐图》中亦有奏云锣的图像」依通行资料
• 「历代每架所用小锣数并不一致：元代史籍与壁画见有 10 · 13 · 14 面；明清以来长期普遍流行的是十面；清初曾有过二十四面；福建曾流行十四面；《清史稿》所载宫廷所用为十面」依通行资料
• 「传统云锣多由十面小锣组成，最上方一面名「高工锣」，不常用，故民间又称九音锣（「九」指多数，不必正好九个）」依通行资料
• 「传统十面小锣大小相同、面径多为 8 厘米（另有资料记作面径 7–8.5 厘米、大小厚薄略有不同 —— 各乐种做法不一），因厚薄有别而音高不同」依通行资料
• 「锣面越大越薄，音越低；越小越厚，音越高；同一面径时锣面越厚发音越高」（板振动的频率正比于厚度）依通行资料与板振动原理
• 「锣架木制，高约 76 厘米、宽约 50 厘米，分成三扇：左右两扇各分三格、中间一扇分四格，三扇都插在一个木柄上；每格约 13.4 × 12.8 厘米」依通行资料
• 「音位排列因地区 · 乐种与使用场合而异；音域分别为 g1–b2 · a1–d3，有一个多八度。苏南十番鼓所用云锣的音高为 a1 b1 d2 e2 ♯f2 g2 a2 ♯c3 d3（九音）；北京智化寺『京音乐』的正调音位则与清《律吕正义后编》（1764）所载十面云锣相符」依通行资料
• 「行乐（左手持架柄 · 右手持槌 · 边行边击）中锣数不宜增多，通常只有十个；坐乐中方可增多」依通行资料
• 「西安鼓乐用双云锣：两架中间相连 · 无柄，如两扇屏风直立桌上，一人执槌敲击」依通行资料
• 「锣棰分软硬两种：软棰（软橡胶或较小的京锣棰）发音柔和优美，近似轻击的钟声；硬棰（牛角或硬橡胶制）发音强烈明亮，常在高音区使用」依通行资料；传统锣棰亦用竹片制柄 · 牛角制头
• 「20 世纪 50–60 年代以来对云锣进行改革：1963 年济南部队前卫文工团赵行如与山东周村鲁东乐器厂合作，在民间九音锣的基础上参照山东曲阜孔庙内的编钟形式，制成 29 音云锣（大小不同 · 厚薄有别），音域 g–f3；北京民族乐器厂 36 音（♯c–c3）；1964 年沈阳军区文工团田德忠与鲁东乐器厂合作制成 38 音（缩小锣身 · 加厚锣面做出超高音锣；音域固定 c1–c4 三个八度；锣架上方另设一面双光锣）。另有 15 · 26 · 37 音，其中 37 音云锣载入《中国乐器图鉴》」依通行资料
• 「改革云锣最大的低音锣面径 22 厘米、最小的高音锣面径 7 厘米；相同面径时锣面越厚发音越高」依通行资料
• 「云锣属金属体鸣乐器中的变音打击乐器；音色清澈 · 圆润 · 悦耳 · 余音持久，但音量不大」依通行资料
• 「主要流传于鼓吹乐 · 吹打乐 · 佛教与道教音乐：苏南吹打 · 十番鼓 · 十番锣鼓 · 福州十番 · 河北吹歌 · 山东鼓吹 · 山西鼓乐等」依通行资料
• 「唐贾公彦疏《考工记》：『凡乐器，厚则声清，薄则声浊』」依文献
• 「云锣属于八音中的金」依通行资料

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