Chinese fiddle

Return to Homepage. One of the chinese fiddle beautiful and haunting sounds in Chinese music comes from a type of fiddle called the erhu pronounced are-who.

The great majority of instruments are played not solo but as part of ensembles, not on the concert platform but as part of social life. Bowed strings mainly accompany vocal music—the ritual genres that I study in north China are dominated by wind and percussion ensembles the playlist in the sidebar, with commentary here , making a useful introduction. One guide, mainly useful for historical sources on early fiddles huqin , xiqin , and so on , is the book. For illustrated introductions, see e. For folk practice in modern times one should look to field reports on local traditions, setting forth from the Anthology of folk music of the Chinese peoples for leads, see my book Folk music of China. On a journey south, passing the tiqin of Kunqu and Daoist groups of south Jiangsu, regional traditions along the southeast coast have several types. Nanyin ensemble, Wang Axin on erxian.

Chinese fiddle

It is used as a solo instrument as well as in small ensembles and large orchestras. It is the most popular of the huqin family of traditional bowed string instruments used by various ethnic groups of China. As a very versatile instrument, the erhu is used in both traditional and contemporary music arrangements, such as pop, rock and jazz. The erhu can be traced back to proto-Mongolic instruments which first appeared in China during the Tang dynasty. An alternate explanation states that it comes from the fact that it is the second-highest huqin in pitch to the gaohu in the modern Chinese orchestra. The name huqin literally means 'instrument of the Hu peoples ', suggesting that the instrument may have originated from regions to the north or west of China generally inhabited by nomadic people on the extremities of past Chinese kingdoms. For most of history, the erhu was mostly a folk instrument used in southern China, whereas the sihu was preferred among northern musicians. However, in the s, Liu Tianhua introduced the erhu to Beijing , and since, it has become the most popular of the huqin. Historic bowed zithers of China, including the xiqin , yazheng , and wenzhenqin , and also the Korean ajaeng , were originally played by bowing with a rosined stick, which created friction against the strings. As soon as the horsehair bow was invented, it spread very widely. The erhu consists of a long vertical stick-like neck , at the top of which are two big tuning pegs , and at the bottom is a small resonator body sound box which is covered with python skin on the front playing end. The erhu has some unusual features:. Various dense and heavy hardwoods are used in making the erhu.

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Erhu is a medium-high ranged Chinese two-stringed fiddle. The structure of the modern erhu was regularized in the s by Liu Tianhua , the pioneering musician and composer in modern Chinese erhu and pipa music. Erhu consists of a body qin tong , a shaft qin gan , two tuning pegs xuan zhou , a tight loop of string qian jin , and a tiny bridge xuan ma. Its shape is usually hexagonal, with round or octagonal regional variations. Its front 8. The shaft 78 cm long is made of the same wood as the body. Two tuning pegs are set in the upper section of the shaft, while the lower end of the shaft is fixed onto the body. Qian jin is made of a tight loop of soft silk string which encircles the shaft and strings.

Chinese fiddle

It is used as a solo instrument as well as in small ensembles and large orchestras. It is the most popular of the huqin family of traditional bowed string instruments used by various ethnic groups of China. As a very versatile instrument, the erhu is used in both traditional and contemporary music arrangements, such as pop, rock and jazz. The erhu can be traced back to proto-Mongolic instruments which first appeared in China during the Tang dynasty. An alternate explanation states that it comes from the fact that it is the second-highest huqin in pitch to the gaohu in the modern Chinese orchestra.

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Archived from the original on 4 July It is a double irony that several prominent erhu players found themselves starting the erhu as an indirect result of the surrounding chaos. Toggle limited content width. The bow hair is placed in between the two strings and both sides of the bow hair are used to produce sound, the player pushes the bow away from the body when bowing the A string the outside string , and pulls it inwards when bowing the "inside" D string. Musical groups for wedding celebrations in Cambodia often use the Tro , a similar instrument to the erhu. Dodgy screenshot from my film Doing Things , with book Ritual and music of north China : shawm bands in Shanxi. Email Required Name Required Website. Pingback: New tag: south China Stephen Jones: a blog. Not to mention all the diverse fiddles among the ethnic minorities— Mongolian morin khuur , Uyghur satar and ghijak , and so on. Of course, one may end up specialising, but musicians are versatile: they pick up various instruments in order to learn how to take part in the social activity of musicking.

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Chinese fiddle The Erhu One of the most beautiful and haunting sounds in Chinese music comes from a type of fiddle called the erhu pronounced are-who. But northern fiddles are also varied, such as the banhu , huhu some played with metal rings on the left finger, as in the photos below and sihu , the Beijing-opera fiddle jinghu , and zhuihu and ruyigou in Henan and Shandong. The erhu can be heard in the character songs of China, a character in Axis Powers Hetalia. Toggle limited content width. It is a double irony that several prominent erhu players found themselves starting the erhu as an indirect result of the surrounding chaos. Pingback: Different values Stephen Jones: a blog. Pingback: The corpse walker Stephen Jones: a blog. Comment Reblog Subscribe Subscribed. Retrieved 14 September In the collectivist period after the establishment of the People's Republic of China, these factories were formed by merging what had been previously private workshops. Bowed strings mainly accompany vocal music—the ritual genres that I study in north China are dominated by wind and percussion ensembles the playlist in the sidebar, with commentary here , making a useful introduction. Pingback: South Jiangsu: beyond silk-and-bamboo Stephen Jones: a blog.