Bowed Strings | In-depth
In-depth
Construction and acoustics
The soundbox of the huqin family is made of wood, with a membrane stretched over it. It can come in a variety of shapes, the most common being hexagonal or cylindrical. The membrane is usually made from the skin of a python. In recent years, there has been development of synthetic membranes although the use of synthetic membranes is not yet very widespread. The bridge sits on top of the membrane, and vibrations from the strings are sent through the membrane and resonated within the sound box. A piece of fabric is inserted below the bridge to absorb noise and prevent wolf tones. It has a long thin neck but no fingerboard. Near the top of the neck, a piece of string called the qianjin is used to tie the instrument strings, pulling them closer towards the neck. The position and tightness of this qianjin affects the tension and tuning of the instrument. Above the neck are two tuning pegs, sometimes also fitted with fine-tuners, used to tune the two strings of the instrument. Because the two strings are tied together at the qianjin, a huqin performer will always press both strings at the same time. Since they are tuned a fifth apart, a double stop on the huqin can only produce intervals of a fifth. Double stops are however not often used as they create a noisy quality to the sound because only the inner string is played by the bow hairs while the outer one is played col legno. This is because the bow is fitted between the two strings and attached to the instrument at all times. A huqin bow is made of bamboo strung with horse hair. It is flexible and the performer is able to control the tension of the bow in performance to a certain extent. The bow of a zhonghu is usually slightly heavier with the bamboo being thicker, and strung with more hairs while the erhu and gaohu bows are usually lighter and more flexible.