Jiahu gudi: China musical instrument

The Jiahu gudi is the oldest known musical instrument fabricated in china, dating back to about 6000 BC. Literally, the word gudi means ‘bone flute’. The bone flute was excavated from an early Neolithic tomb in Jiahu, Wuyan County, Henan region, in central china.

source: characters.cultural-ch..

These bone flutes have average dimension of around 20 cm times 1.1 cm and are produced from the wings of the red-crowned crane. They are open-ended and differ in the number of their finger holes, from 1 to 8; the 24 holed version of the instrument has about 22 or 23 holes in front of it and 1 thumb hole in the back of the instrument. Jiahu bone whistle are much shorter than the flutes, the lengths about 5.7 cm to 10.5 cm and having only a couple of finger holes. The number of holes and the spacing between the holes of the musical instrument determined the musical range and scale or mode that the flute was intended to function. Blowing across the open end of the end-blown musical instrument to manufacture a musical sound is achieved in the same exact way, and produces an analogous effect as blowing across the open top of a bottle. The 8-holed version of the musical instrument can perform all the harmonic intervals and two registers. These harmonic intervals are opined to be a function of culture and were larger set when compared to that now familiar in the West. Bone flutes were perhaps also performed as part of the sacrificial rites and employed in the hunting of birds. Gudi are not so common in the modern days, but are still used by some musicians today.