Stringed Musical Instrument

Item number 2668/1 from the MOA: University of British Columbia.

Public

Item Records

This page shows all the information we have about this item. Both the institution that physically holds this item, and RRN members have contributed the knowledge on this page. You’re looking at the item record provided by the holding institution. If you scroll further down the page, you’ll see the information from RRN members, and can share your own knowledge too.

The RRN processes the information it receives from each institution to make it more readable and easier to search. If you’re doing in-depth research on this item, be sure to take a look at the Data Source tab to see the information exactly as it was provided by the institution.

These records are easy to share because each has a unique web address. You can copy and paste the location from your browser’s address bar into an email, word document, or chat message to share this item with others.

Data
Data Source

This information was automatically generated from data provided by MOA: University of British Columbia. It has been standardized to aid in finding and grouping information within the RRN. Accuracy and meaning should be verified from the Data Source tab.

Description

Cantonese opera instrument. Two-stringed instrument (banhu) or bamboo fiddle (zhutiqin), with a bow attached. There are two gourd-like tuning pegs at one end, and two strings stretched over the wooden neck, attached to a bamboo soundbox. The bow is strung with black hair.

History Of Use

In Cantonese opera, melodic instruments include the erxian (two-stringed fiddle), and the hudieqin or yangqin (butterfly zither) serve as the lead instruments. Other melodic instruments include the zhutiqin (bamboo fiddle), yueqin (moon lute), yehu (coconut lute), or sanxian (three-stringed lute) and wind instruments, such as the dizi (transverse flute) and xiao (end-blown flute). They are played together to accompany the singing onstage.

Narrative

The neck of the banhu is called (qin gan); the round soundbox is called (qin tong). The tuning pegs are called (qin zhou). There are 2 strings--the outer and inner string. The outer string is called (wai xian) and the inner string is (nei xian).