Ancient wooden musical instruments in China

Several highly idiosyncratic percussion instrumients are included within this category, all with strong symbolic associations. The idiophone known as zhu is essentially a wooden box with outward sloping sides, open at the top. It is struck on the inside with a wooden hammer. Commentary in the Shijing notes that the zhu is like 'a lacquered grain container', suggesting a possible historic function within agricultural rites. Complementary to the zhu is another idiophone known as yu, a carved wooden image of a crouching tiger. In performance, a switch of wood or bamboo is drawn across raised ridges on its back, producing a rasping sound. The symbolic implications of this act are powerful, though never explicated in the ancient texts. 

The tiger,lord of all Chinese animals, was once common throughout China and is associated with many qualities,such as courage, vigilance, and military prowess. Popular sayings of today still recognize the importance of subjugating tigers and remaining aleit to danger. In Confucian ritual performance, the beginning of each hymn is anticipated by three strokes on the zhu, and concluded by three strokes on the back of the yu-as if to make this beast purr.