Name: Xun
Maker: Yougang Zhang
Price: Starting at $25
Buy: Call for detail (909) 581-9377

The xun is a windpipe instrument. It is the oldest Chinese musical instrument with about 7000 years of history. And interestingly the xun was originally made o stone or bone.
This was originally a hunting tool known as the stone meteor. However when people noticed that it made sounds when hollow, they began to create ways to below air into them. The forms also began to vary with time; the instrument could be shaped like a ball, a flat circle, a pear, or even a fish.
The xun instrument was usually used in making royal music in Chinese history. Here are two kinds of xun. One is shaped like an egg (small but louder) and the other is often played along with another kind of pipe instrument called a chi, and ancient Chinese musical instrument that is made of bamboo. Some descriptions about the xun can be found in shijing, the earliest form of poetry in China.