heard a sheng this morning during a traditional chinese concert here in Changsha China.
Sounds really like a button accordion. (one reed), I guess. I showed my blues harp to the performer and he agreed it has the same system of free reeds.
Also another instrument (kinda harp but lying on a table. Played with finger picks. They really bend some notes like the guitar and banjo players do. tone ladder is more like the doric, I guess)
Musical instrument shops don't have cajun accordions, like also no banjo's are to ge found, although Chinese produce lots of both of them]
did ya bring your accordion with ya? if so what do they think of it? i've been to hong kong before..would love to go explore the mainland for about a month.
Didn't bring my accordions. I already was overloaded. And for only a month with a lot of work to do (guest lecturer) I decided to leave my precious instruments at home. Funny thing is that in the trad music you can find some very interesting things. Chinese trad banjolike) players have a frettless instrument (like the old minstrel's) and use techniques which could easily mix with american styles.
The other instrument I wrote about had this "bending the notes. Flute and 'traverso' had some Irish 'air' and a beasutiful sound (but I missed the jig and reel part in their set .)Hope to go travelling next two weekends. There is a Unesco nature reserve which has AAAA status, whatever this may be (like grand canyon or LA swamps? )Cities are like everywhere I think. Very Big, noisy and dirty, Wall Mart, MacD, PizzaH, with lots of smog, especially in autumn. But a lot of very small enterprises, too.