| Themes > Arts > Music > Musical Instruments > Musical Instruments of East Asia > Mouth-Organ | ||
| South-east
Asia, China, Korea, Japan, even Borneo from the vast domain of the polyphonic
instrument with free reeds and an air chamber known as the mouth-organ.
The lower portion of each pipe, where the free reed has been cut out or
inserted, is encased in a small container of gourd or wood. The musician
blows into the chamber through a mouth-hole or a blowing tube and the
air is released silently by all the tubes at once. All that is needed
to make one of them sound is to stop, with the finger, the small hole
pierced in the wall of the pipe. Under the pressure of the flow of air, a reaction may then be obtained between the vibrating rees and the air contained in the tube to give a note. The number of pipes may vary from one to seventeen, from one population to another, as may their arrangement, which will be either parallel, convergent or divergent, and also the shape of the air chamber. The khene, of Laotian origin, is also played in Cambodia and Thailand. |
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