also performed in private homes and cultural centers, though Witzleben (1987) visited performances in auditoriums and a committee office. Jiangnan Sizhu is often traced in genre to other instrumental or vocal music genres like kunqu, shifan, qingke chuan and others that Witzleben (1997) explain are based on shared "historical origins, performance contexts, repertory, instrumentation and styles" (p. 129). Jiangnan Sizhu has also evolved as one of various "regional instrumental traditions" that evolved throughout China which J. Lawrence Witzleben () categorizes as: 1) percussion ensembles; 2) string ensembles; and, 3) heterogeneous instrument types (p. 240). Sizhu ensembles are usually categorized as though has primarily string and wood instruments.
Musical instruments are important to Jiangnan Sizhu, not only in the type of instruments used but also their form and the manner in which they are held and played. The most common instruments used in Jiangnan Sizhu include plucked, bowed, and struck string instruments; flutes; and small percussion instruments with the following names:
Other instruments like the qinqin and ruan can also be used in Jiangnan Sizhu. The dizi and xiao are bamboo flutes, the erhu is a bowed lute, the pipa, sanxian and qinqin are all plucked lutes, the ban is a hand-held wooden clapper, and the sheng is a mouth organ (Witzleben, 1987, p. 241). While there are typically two erhus in each Jiangnan Sizhu ensemble, there is usually only one each of th
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