...

rein Golden Hall The erhu (二胡) The erhu belongs to the familiy of the huqin, the so called "barbarian stringed instruments", indicating its Northern association. It can be traced back to instruments introduced into China more than a thousand years ago. An erhu has two steel strings between which a bow of horsehair is permanently fixed. There is a small resonator body at the bottom that in the front is covered with snake skin (commonly python), and a long, round and fretless thin neck with two tuning pegs. Sound is produced by pushing and pulling the bow against the inner or the outer string. The two strings are generally tuned one fifth or one forth apart (es. D -- A, C -- A or A -- D). The erhu's mellow but plaintive tone is frequently said to be the closest sound to human voice. The erhu players make up the core of a Chinese orchestra just as the violinists do in the symphony orchestra. Ed.: SINGO 声谷音乐