Huqin
family of bowed string instruments, more specifically, a spike fiddle popularly used in Chinese music
Huqin (Chinese: 胡琴; pinyin: húqin) is a family of bowed string instruments, more specifically, a spike fiddle popularly used in Chinese music. The instruments consist of a round, hexagonal, or octagonal sound box at the bottom with a neck attached that protrudes upwards. They also usually have two strings, and their soundboxes are typically covered with either snakeskin (most often python) or thin wood. Huqin instruments usually have two tuning pegs, one peg for each string. The pegs are attached horizontally through holes drilled in the instrument's neck. Most huqin have the bow hair pass in between the strings. Exceptions to having two strings and pegs include variations of huqin with three, four, and sometimes even more than five. These include the zhuihu, a three stringed huqin, the sihu, a huqin of Mongolian origin, and the sanhu, a lesser-known three-stringed variation.
The most common huqin are the erhu, which is tuned to a middle range; zhonghu, which is tuned to a lower register, and gaohu, which is tuned to a higher pitch. The lowest pitched huqins include the dahu and gehu.
The public source identifies “Huqin” as family of bowed string instruments, more specifically, a spike fiddle popularly used in Chinese music. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Huqin, family and bowed.
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This entry incorporates text from “Huqin” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.