The 'xiangjiao' or elephant leg drum is a long, figure-of-eight
shaped drum slung over the shoulder and played with the hand.
One end of this drum is larger than the other and it is ___1___
made from the manying tree. The inside of the tree is ___2___
out and ox leather or chamois is fixed on the larger end. Two
iron hoops are used to ___3___
the tympans, and leather belts stretched along the sides can be
___4___ to get the required
volume. There is an interesting legend woven around how this
drum was created. An ancient legend has it that a woodman ___5___
on the idea for the drum as he was chopping firewood on a
mountain. The woodman saw a withered tree whose inside had been
eaten away by ants. Woodpeckers had ___6___
a hole through the tee trunk, and when the wind blew into the
hole, the trunk made a musical ___7___.
The woodman covered the hole with a dry bamboo leaf to stop the
sound. Then he ___8___ the
leaf and heard the sound again.
He thought the tree would make a nice musical instrument, so
he took a section home and ___9___
it to look like an elephant's leg. He covered the upper end with
green bark and when he drummed, it made a rich 'bong bong'
sound. that was the ___10___
elephant leg drum. |