Mongolian Horse-head Fiddle Music
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Horse-head Fiddle of the Mongolians
Horse-head fiddle is a bow shaped musical instrument usually used by the Mongolian people, one of the ethnic minorities of China. The musical instrument is named like this because its head is usually carved like the shape of a horse head. It is also called "Chaoer", "Molinhuer", "huqin (Huqin is a general term for certain two-stringed bowed instruments, such as erhu, jinghu, etc.)", "horse tail huqin" and so on. It is popular among the Mongolian people in Inner Mongolia, Gansu, Xinjiang and the northeastern part of China. The horse head fiddle of Mongolian has a long history. It is evolved from Xiqin, a kind of string instrument of the Tang and Song Dynasties. During the reign of Genghis Khan, the musical instrument was popularized among the people. The horse-head fiddle is made by hardwood and its sound box can be shaped into inversed trapezium, rectangular, so on and so forth. The larger horse-head fiddle can be as long as 120cm and the smaller one is about 70cm. Horse-head fiddle has two horse tail strings and the two sides of its sound box are covered by horse skin or goat skin, mostly with pictures decorated on the skin. When playing, the player sits on the ground, holds the lower left quarter of the sound box between his two legs, and uses his right hand to hold the horse tail bow to play. The function of the left hand can be used to apply the techniques such as "Dingzhi" except for pressing the strings. There are also a lot of techniques for the right hand to use the bow. Horse-head fiddle is not only used in some formal and grand places but also appears in the daily activities, for example, the folk wedding and ceremonies and gatherings of friends and relatives. It can be used to accompany songs, played independently or tutti with sihu and other musical instruments. The traditional pieces of music of horse-head fiddle are mostly evolved from folk songs and can be divided into original folk songs, tune names of heroic epics, horse-step cadence, Qin melody of folk songs and tune of the ancient Han people. The famous pieces of music include Red Love, Dashing Horse Melody, Heyinhua, Liuqingniang and so on. When accompanying for songs, the music played usually uses trill to mimic song. The music played can also mimic the neighing sound of horse. Horse-head fiddle is the folk musical instrument of the Mongolian that is of the most distinctive characters of the grassland. From the modeling, making materials to the tone quality, music expression style and playing methods, every part of horse-head fiddle is the reflection of the personality connotation of the Mongolian minority. It fully reflects the historical form and folk tradition of the nomadic life of the Mongolians. It accompanies the Mongolians to come all the way from the remote grassland and history.
Morin Khuur | Horse Head Fiddle
Bukhu has been playing the Morin Khuur (Horse-Head Fiddle) for over 14 years. The instrument has a distinctive carved horse-head pegbox. The tuning pegs on either side are known as the "horse's ears"-- with two strings and a bow traditionally made of horsehair or synthetic materials,considered a central symbol of the Mongolian nation. The Morin Khuur produces sounds described as expansive and unrestrained, both soulful and haunting, like a wildhorse neighing, or a breeze across the grasslands. It has played a central role in expanding on the roots of nomadic herding practices and narratives as well as serving the translation of Mongolian mythologies and Secret histories into song for many centuries. It was officially inscribed by UNESCO as a masterpiece of oral and intangible heritage in 2008.
Prepare to listen to the hand drum and horse-head fiddle
In a spacious room of a five-star hotel in downtown Beijing, people are walking around, watching the streams of cars on Chang'an Avenue flow beneath a warm afternoon sun, and waiting. Suddenly, the sound of a hand drum erupts and the five members of the band Haya appear in the room. As Zhang Quansheng pulls the strings of a matouqin, a horse-head fiddle, lead vocalist Daiqing Tana, dressed in a long red gown with her hair braided, slowly steps forward. Other members, including drummer and khommei (throat-singing) singer Bao Yin, guitarist and matouqin player Chen Xibo and bassist Eric Lattanzio, speed up the music and Tana's voice soars, reminding her audiences of Mongolian women riding horses on the grasslands. "That's what we have been doing during the past 10 years, translating our traditional Mongolian music to the contemporary era," says Zhang, who founded Haya in Beijing in 2006. "Our music also expresses our love for the grasslands and nomadic people." Haya is launching a national tour in Beijing on Dec 24. "I hope our music will appeal to not just Mongolians, but also people of other ethnic groups," he says. During the past 10 years, the band has released five studio albums, including songs adapted from traditional Mongolian folk songs and their original compositions. Almost all songs are sung in the Mongolian language. The band has won the established Golden Melody Awards of Taiwan three times: with its first album Wolf Totem in 2009; its CD Migration in 2012; and its album Crazy Horse last year. Haya has also performed throughout the country and abroad - in Sweden, Germany and Canada. In the Mongolian language, haya means "the edge", which is a metaphor for a nomadic lifestyle that has become so edgy today. "In our home, people used to live in harmony with nature. But this has been compromised by the industrialization of society," Zhang says. "Our traditional songs and instruments have also become edgy. When I started the band, I hoped to bring them back," he adds. Zhang grew up with his grandparents and moved to Hohhot, the capital of the Inner Mongolia autonomous region, with his parents at age 8, when he started to learn the violin and matouqin. The versatile singer-songwriter graduated from the music department of Minzu University of China in Beijing in 1991, and is now regarded as one of the best matouqin players in the country. Tana was born in Delingha, Qinghai province, and studied vocal performance at Minzu University of China. She says that joining Haya has meant returning to the kind of singing she was born for. "Whenever I sing onstage, the music of Haya takes me back to my childhood. It reminds me of the first time my father took me to ride horses," says Tana. When Zhang envisioned his band, he knew that he wanted a foreign member who could bring an international angle to its music. Prepare to listen to the hand drum and horse-head fiddle He met Lattanzio, a French bassist who was teaching at Beijing Contemporary Music Academy, in 2011. Besides playing bass, Lattanzio also works as the band's engineer and producer. "When I came to Beijing, the plan for teaching here was only one year. But things changed after I joined Haya," says Lattanzio. When he met Zhang, Lattanzio listened to him playing the matouqin, and the sound seemed deep to him. "I think Haya's music is understandable to people from different cultures," Lattanzio says. After he founded Haya, Zhang has spent a long time searching for his ideal musical language by combining Mongolian music with symphony orchestra, pop, rock and jazz. Zhang says that he doesn't want to repeat traditional music. Instead, he wants to keep it alive in the modern age. "I have done many experiments, such as adding musical elements from the Middle East and India into our music, adjusting the sound of the matouqin and making it much more harmonic with other contemporary instruments," he says. "When I first came to Beijing, there were no more than five people playing matouqin in the city, but now there are hundreds. "It's true that our music is still relatively unknown but we hope more people will get to know us." chennan@chinadaily.com.cn
Knowledge Graph
Examples
1 Horse-head fiddle has two horse tail strings and the two sides of its sound box are covered by horse skin or goat skin, mostly with pictures decorated on the skin.
2 The horse-head fiddle is made by hardwood(wood such as oak, teak, and mahogany, which is very strong and hard) and its sound box can be shaped into inversed trapezium, rectangular, so on and so forth.
3 The Horse-head fiddle(马头琴mǎtóuqín) is a bow shaped musical instrument usually used by the Mongolian people(蒙古族Ménggǔzú), one of the ethnic minorities of Chine.