Still preserved today are actual clappers from ancient . Their use seems nev.... chime china

On the subcontinent circular wooden clappers are played by beggars and fakirs in some regions and are used as rhythm instruments in others. Cymbals are indigenous to Asia; ancient Assyria had a unique form, funnel-shaped with long necks serving as handles. In China they play a prominent part in the theatre. They vary in form from the most primitive log type to the highly developed orchestral instruments found in Indonesia. Trough xylophones were depicted in Java in the 14th century but are not restricted to Southeast Asia; those of Japan, for instance, are rhythm rather than melody instruments, and in Myanmar (Burma) they are associated with royalty. In China their generic name is ch'ing ; there, single sculpted musical stones and also 16-stone chimes are suspended from ornate frames. Stones forming a chime, carved in a typical L-form and struck with a mallet on their larger portion, are very ancient; a chime of this form dating from the late era ( c. Both in China and in Ko! rea, where the oldest chime goes back to the 14th century, the lithophone is a ritual instrument. Introduced to China by a Turkic people in the 7th century, the horizontal type of metallophone reached Korea in the 12th century and is still occasionally played there. Western Asia is believed to be the home of the , which reached China in the 6th century and Java by the 8th. The horizontal gong chimes of Indonesia (called bonang in Java) are outstanding components of Southeast Asian orchestras and have been known from the 10th or 11th century on. Ancient , products of Bronze Age culture, are found only in China, Indochina, and Indonesia. Temple bells usually assume the form of chimes in China; one from the 6th century has 13 bells, but more modern chimes consist of 16 bells hung in two rows of a frame. Jew's harps have idioglott tongues (cut from the same material as the frame) in Indonesia, while both idioglott and heteroglott (the tongue made separately and attached to the ! frame) forms occur in China and on the Indian subcontinent. chime china