The Chinese oboe, the traditional suona is a woodwind instrument with many faces and a long history. The double-reed, cone-shaped instrument is carved from wood and features seven finger holes on the front and one on the back side. The wooden body is covered by a copper tube and a brass bell is fixed at the lower end.
The suona can produce a wide variety of tonal qualities. It can make an enormously loud and penetrative tone and so is perfectly suitable to illustrate huge emotions like joy or grief and therefore very popular for weddings, funeral processions, and military purposes. But it can be also very soft and sentimental, depending on the blowing technique. It often serves as an accompanying instrument for regional Chinese operas.
The three parts of the suona, its pipe, whistle, and horn can be taken apart and played separately, which creates even more possibilities for the player. Chirpy, joyful, and shrill (as only the suona can sound) make it predestined to imitate birds singing. The most popular solo piece for the suona is the Homage to the Phoenix (Bai Niao Chao Feng) where hundreds of different birds raise their voices to praise the mystical bird king.
The suona’s tone ranges two octaves within the Chinese pentatonic system, which does not comply with western tuning concepts. Suona players, when performing together with a Western orchestra, therefore, bring along more than one instrument in order to cover all the Western notes of the scale.
In the 20th century the suona’s tone range was widened and a lower and a higher suona was created. The bass suonas can be longer than a yard, and the smallest ones are only several inches long.
The History of the Suona
Like many other traditional Chinese instruments, the suona dates back hundreds of years. It’s said to have been originated in the Middle East or India where several very similar types of instruments were known, and from there reached China in the third century. Suona-playing beings are depicted among Buddhist deities in the 38th cave of the Kizil Grottos in Baicheng of Xinjiang. The cave was dug in the fourth century.
After the 16th century, the suona became an instrument of the imperial Ming court and has since been one of the most popular wind instruments of the Han people. Over 20 ethnic Chinese minorities play the suona today. But it is also found in more than 30 other countries in Asia, Africa, and Europe.
As the suona can be blown using every technique appropriate for wind instruments and produce so many different sounds, it also has been adapted by jazz and rock musicians.
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