Fine-tuning chime bells: A road less travelled

A worker plays bianzhong in a workshop of Wuhan Mechanical Technology Institute Co Ltd in Wuhan, capital of Central China's Hubei province, on December 1, 2016. [Photo by Zhu Lingqing/chinadaily.com.cn]

"It is now housed as a collection of cultural relics in the Imperial Ancestral Temple in Beijing. I once bought a ticket to view it," Liu said with pride and sadness.

To make copies of ancient bianzhong, Liu has to do a lot of work. As some ancient bianzhong manufacturing techniques have died out, he has to do extensive research and experiments without anyone's guidance to recover the lost skills.

"It needs savviness, tenacity and patience," he said.

Several mechanical steps are needed to complete a single chime bell, of which tuning is recognized as the hardest part. Liu said in the tuning process, as the style, size and thickness of the chime bell's body could all influence its sound, a simple deviation would hurt its pitch, timbre, intensity and delay.