Describe an instrument that you enjoy listening to.

You should say:

What instrument it is

How long you have listened to it.

What the general features of the instrument are (i.e. appearance and sound)

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Well, I like listening to a lot of different instruments; it's really hard to choose one. The instrument I want to choose are bells. You might not normally think of bells as an instrument, but they are a traditional form of music for us. I first became interested in bell music after I visited the Great Bell temple in Beijing and I visited a gift shop there. I learned about an incredible excavation of ancient bells. In fact they unearthed a whole scale of bells form the ground and rediscovered the ways to play them. It's really an ancient form of music. So I listened to the sounds the bells created and it was incredible. The music had such a powerful effect over me that I bought the cassette. I have been listening to this bell music now for about 3 years. I may not play it as much as say pop music, but I would say it's my favourite music just to relax or to listen to as background music as I'm doing something else.

The music is a bit slower, since each note has to have some time for the sound to come out, and the notes are played in small combinations of two or three notes at a time. You cannot of course play it as quickly as a piano or flute, but you can get a few bell sounds going at the same time, so long as the notes don't clash. The key issue with playing these bells is harmony.

I like listening to them because the music often sounds so sad. The sound is so penetrating that each note seems to go through your ears, and as you are listening you can just imagine the incredible effort that goes into playing these great instruments. I think such music is a true representation of beauty that we achieve through struggle.