Kangling

The kangling is a member of the brass (Hornbostel–Sachs 423.121.11). Learn how it makes its sound and explore related instruments.

How the kangling makes its sound

In the Hornbostel–Sachs system, which classifies instruments by how they produce sound, the kangling belongs to the brass (lip-vibrated aerophones): the player's buzzing lips set the air column vibrating – trumpets, horns, trombones, tubas and the didgeridoo.

More broadly it is one of the aerophones (wind instruments), where sound comes from vibrating air.

Its timbre – the colour that lets you tell it apart from other instruments playing the same note – comes from the mix of overtones its body and resonator emphasise.

From Wikipedia

Kangling (Tibetan: རྐང་གླིང་།, Wylie: rkang-gling), literally translated as "leg" (kang) "flute" (ling), is the Tibetan name for a trumpet or horn made out of a human tibia or femur, used in Tibetan Buddhism for various chöd rituals as well as funerals performed by a chöpa. The leg bone of a deceased person is used. Alternatively, the leg bone of a respected teacher may be used. The kangling may also be made out of wood.

The kangling should only be used in chöd rituals performed outdoors with the chöd damaru and bell. In Tantric chöd practice, the practitioner, motivated by compassion, plays the kangling as a gesture of fearlessness, to summon hungry spirits and demons so that she or he may satisfy their hunger and thereby relieve their sufferings. It is also played as a way of "cutting off of the ego."