Jiangnan sizhu

Jiangnan sizhu (Shanghainese: [koŋ nø sɨ d̥zoʔ]) is a style of traditional Chinese instrumental music from the Jiangnan region of China.

The name Jiangnan sizhu (江南丝竹 pinyin: Jiāngnán sīzhú) is made up of two parts. Jiangnan is the traditional name for the area south of the lower reaches of the Yangtze river in southern Jiangsu, Shanghai, and northern Zhejiang. Sizhu, literally "silk and bamboo," refers to string and wind musical instruments, silk being the traditional material from which strings have historically been made in China, and bamboo being the material from which the Chinese flutes such as the dizi and xiao are made. The term sizhu by extension also came to refer to instrumental music in general, especially that played indoors. Other sizhu traditions also exist, particularly along China's southeastern coastal regions of Fujian and Guangdong.

Instruments typically used in Jiangnan sizhu include plucked, bowed,strummed and struck string instruments; flutes and sometimes also mouth organs; and small percussion instruments. The most commonly used instruments are:

Several other instruments sometimes are also used:

As in an Irish traditional music session, the instrumentation is not fixed, and so may vary according to the musicians who are available for a particular performance. Usually only one of each instrument is used, and an ensemble can range from as few as two to as many as ten or more musicians, with the erhu, dizi or xiao, pipa, and yangqin being the core instruments. Players may sometimes switch instruments between pieces.

At the centre of the repertory are the Eight Great Pieces (Ba Da Qu, 八大曲) or Eight Great Famous Pieces (Ba Da Mingqu, 八大名曲):

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