冰条子琴

[Lu]

A story about a man who makes fantastical ice sculptures. The girl next door, who loves his work, asks: 明天又是些什么呢？  And he replies: 是飞鱼哩，是海马，是一座可以敲打出许多声音的冰条子琴. The story doesn't return to these specific sculptures, so that's all the information I get.

Am I correct to read that last bit as 'a piano with keys made of ice, on which you can play all sorts of notes'?

[Publius]

I picture it more like xylophone, or song bells.

 

[TheBigZaboon]

There is an instrument that Chinese street musicians in Japan often play in front of train stations that I think in English is often called a dulcimer (or maybe a zither). I don't remember offhand the Chinese name of this thing. It is a stringed instrument like a miniature piano, and is played by tapping (qiao1da5) on it with a couple of long slender hammers. This might be more relevent than piano, as the word for piano usually, at least in my experience, includes the steel character for gang1qin2. In Japanese, that character used by itself refers to the Japanese 'koto', but it's 'plucked' rather than  qiao1da5-ed.

 

Hope this helps (Even though my ramblings often wind up being totally irrelevant (see qingdao vs qingniao)).

 

TBZ

[Lu]

I searched for dulcimer and that is a very pretty instrument! I don't think it's the thing I'm looking for here though. As I read it, it can't be a string instrument on which you pluck (or tap) the strings themselves, as that wouldn't really be possible to make out of ice. The story is a bit fantastical, but still firmly in the realm of the possible. I'm going with 'xylophone' for now. I have a good editor for this one, will see what she says. Thanks both!