Chinese fiddle

Return to Homepage. One of the most beautiful and haunting sounds in Chinese music comes from a type of fiddle called the erhu pronounced are-who, chinese fiddle. The ancient ancestor of both violin and erhu is thought to have appeared in Persia some 3.

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.

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.

After a classical music education in the early part of the 20th Century he started to learn the erhu from monks and folk musicians; this was at a time when anyone seen playing an erhu in the Chinese fiddle conservatoire would probably have been ejected forthwith! Article Talk.

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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. 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.

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The front rows of his audiences are often filled with baffled violinists trying to work out how he can play the Pagganini variations with only two strings. It is a two-stringed instrument, played sitting down and held vertically, with the body resting on the knee. Pingback: Fujian, and onwards Stephen Jones: a blog. The fingers of the right hand are used to push the hairs away from the stick in order to create tension in the hairs. Musical groups for wedding celebrations in Cambodia often use the Tro , a similar instrument to the erhu. Pingback: New tag: south China Stephen Jones: a blog. A contemporary of Liu Tian Hua was the blind fiddler Abing. Huqin instrument family. For illustrated introductions, see e. After a classical music education in the early part of the 20th Century he started to learn the erhu from monks and folk musicians; this was at a time when anyone seen playing an erhu in the Beijing conservatoire would probably have been ejected forthwith! The erhu features regularly in silk and bamboo ensembles; an elaborate but quite accessible form of Chinese folk music, alongside various bamboo wind instruments, and plucked strings such as the Pipa lute and Yang Qin dulcimer. Dancing by candlelight Much of the credit for the erhu's recent popularity must go to Liu Tian Hua. One guide, mainly useful for historical sources on early fiddles huqin , xiqin , and so on , is the book.

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Huqin instrument family. New post on stephenjones. The bow hair is adjusted so it is slightly loose. In addition to the solo repertoire, the erhu is one of the main instruments in regional music ensembles such as Jiangnan sizhu , Chinese opera ensembles, and the modern large 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. Log in now. A slow migration west lead to the first violins in Europe; the route east along the Silk Road gave rise to a family of instruments collectively called the Hu-Qin. For introductions to expressive cultures around Fujian, click here and here. The reflective and descriptive nature of these titles is typical of much of Chinese music, which has deep and ancient bonds with poetry, art, and the timeless landscape of China. The parts of the erhu are:. Xu Ke was forced to learn when his parents decided that, to keep him safe from the revolutionary violence outside he was virtually locked up at home; they gave him an erhu to keep him busy. 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. The two strings are designated as the male made from hairs from a stallion's tail and the female made from hairs from a mare's tail ; the strings were traditionally tuned a fifth apart, but are now more often a fourth apart.