Kouxian is the Chinese generic term for the jaw harp, and as such is used to refer to all such instruments originating in China. In the Chinese language, however, the term is used to refer to all jaw harps, whether from China or elsewhere.
The kouxian, which likely originated in Asia, is used throughout China, and is particularly popular among non-Han ethnic groups living in China's southwest (including Yunnan, Guangxi, and Guizhou). Each of these ethnic groups has its own name for the instrument in that ethnic group's own language. Such names include ho-hos. Kouxian may be made from bamboo or metal, and are often used as a courting instrument.
One variety of kouxian consists of between one and five brass leaves which are plucked in front of the opened mouth, using the mouth as a resonance chamber. Each leaf produces a different pitched sound when plucked, and notes' pitches are further refined by changing the volume and shape of the oral cavity. Leaves may be plucked one at a time or many at once to produce synthesizer-like melody.
I really like double instruments. They have smaller scale but their sounds becomes much better. Well it doesn't work if second pipe just give one constant sound like in bagpipes.
An aulos was an ancient Greek wind instrument, depicted often in art and also attested by archaeology.
There were several kinds of aulos. A single pipe without a reed was called the monaulos. A single pipe held horizontally, as the modern flute, was the plagiaulos. The most common variety must have been a reed instrument. Archeological finds, surviving iconography and other evidence indicate that it was usually double-reeded, like an oboe, although simple variants with a single clarinet-type reed cannot be ruled out.
Though aulos is often and erroneously translated as "flute", its sound — described as "penetrating, insisting and exciting" — was more akin to that of the bagpipes, with a chanter and (modulated) drone. Like the Great Highland Bagpipe, the aulos might be used for martial music, but it is more frequently depicted in other social settings. It accompanied physical activities such as wrestling matches, the broad jump, the discus throw and to mark the rowing cadence on triremes, as well as sacrifices and dramas.
It appears that some variants of the instrument were loud, shrill, and therefore very hard to blow. A leather strap, called a phorbeiá in Greek or capistrum in Latin, was worn by the auletai to avoid excessive strain on the lips and cheeks due to continuous blowing. Aulus players are sometimes depicted with puffed cheeks. The playing technique almost certainly made use of circular breathing, very much like the Sardinian launeddas which would give the aulos a continuous sound.
The berimbau is a single-string percussion instrument, a musical bow, from Brazil. The berimbau's origins are not entirely clear, but there is not much doubt on its African origin, as no Indigenous Brazilian or European people use musical bows, and very similar instruments are played in the southern parts of Africa. The berimbau was eventually incorporated into the practice of the Afro-Brazilian martial art capoeira, where it commands how the capoeiristas move in the roda.
The berimbau consists of a wooden bow (verga), about 1.2 to 1.5 m, with a steel string (arame) tightly strung and secured from one end of the verga to the other. A gourd (cabaça), dried, opened and hollowed-out, attached to the lower portion of the Verga by a loop of tough string, acts as a resonator.
To play the berimbau, one holds it in one hand, wrapping the two middle fingers around the verga, and placing the little finger under the cabaça's string loop (the "anel"), and balancing the weight there. A small stone or coin (pedra or dobrão) is held between the index and thumb of the same hand that holds the berimbau. The cabaça is rested against the abdomen. In the other hand, one holds a stick (baqueta or "vaqueta" – usually wooden, very rarely made of metal) and a shaker (caxixi). One strikes the arame with the vaqueta to produce the sound. The caxixi accompanies the vaqueta. The dobrão is moved back and forth from the arame to change the pitch produced by the berimbau. The sound can also be altered by moving the cabaça back and forth from the abdomen, producing a wah-like sound.
The kora is a 21-string bridge-harp used extensively by people in West Africa.
A kora is built from a large calabash cut in half and covered with cow skin to make a resonator, and has a notched bridge like a lute or guitar. The sound of a kora resembles that of a harp, though when played in the traditional style, it bears a closer resemblance to flamenco and delta blues guitar techniques. The player uses only the thumb and index finger of both hands to pluck the strings in polyrhythmic patterns (using the remaining fingers to secure the instrument by holding the hand posts on either side of the strings).
Traditional koras feature 21 strings, eleven played by the left hand and ten by the right. Modern koras made in the Casamance region of southern Senegal sometimes feature additional bass strings, adding up to four strings to the traditional 21. Strings were traditionally made from thin strips of hide, for example antelope skin - now most strings are made from harp strings or nylon fishing line, sometimes plaited together to create thicker strings.
Rubab or robab is a lute-like musical instrument originally from Afghanistan but is also played in the neighbouring countries, especially Pakistan. It derives its name from the Arab rebab which means "played with a bow" but the Central Asian instrument is plucked, and is distinctly different in construction. The rubab is mainly used by Tajik, Pashtun, Kashmiri and Iranian Kurdish classical musicians.
The rubab is a short-necked lute whose body is carved out of a single piece of wood, with a membrane, covering the hollow bowl of the sound-chamber, upon which the bridge is positioned. It has three melody strings tuned in fourths, three drone strings and 11 or 12 sympathetic strings. The instrument is made from the trunk of a mulberry tree, the head from an animal skin such as a goat skin, and the strings either gut (from the intestines of young goats, brought to the size of thread) or nylon.
The rubab is attested from the 7th century CE. It is mentioned in old Persian books, and many Sufi poets mention it in their poems. It is the traditional instrument of Khorasan.
In Tajikistan a similar but somewhat distinct rubab-i-pamir (Pamiri rubab) is played, having a shallower body and neck. The rubab of the Pamir area has six gut strings, one of which, rather than running from the head to the bridge, is attached partway down the neck, similar to the fifth string of the American banjo.
The guzheng, is a Chinese plucked zither. The guzheng is a similar instrument to many Asian instruments such as the Japanese koto, the Mongolian yatga, the Korean gayageum, and the Vietnamese đàn tranh.
The guzheng should not to be confused with the guqin (another ancient Chinese zither but a fewer number of strings and without bridges).
The origin of the guzheng can be traced back to two other Chinese plucked zithers, the se. The guzheng has existed since the Warring States Period and became especially popular during the Qin dynasty. The number of strings on the guzheng has always fluctuated, as we have as few as 6 to as many as 23 strings during the Tang dynasty. The earliest record of the guzheng or gu-jirn in Shi Ji is attributed to the historian Sima Qian in 91 BC.
Until 1961, the common guzheng had 16 strings, although by the mid-20th century 18-string guzhengs were also in use. In 1961 Xu Zhengao together with Wang Xunzhi introduced the first 21-string guzheng after two years of research and development. In 1961, they also invented the "S-shaped" left string rest, which was quickly adopted by all guzheng makers and is still used today, whether in the shape of the letter "S", "C", etc. This curve allows for greater ease in tuning the strings and, combined with strings of varied thickness, allows for greater resonance in both the deeper and higher pitch ranges. The 21-string zheng is the most commonly used, but some traditional musicians still use the 16-string, especially along the southeastern coastal provinces of China and in Taiwan.
The guzheng is tuned to a pentatonic scale, the 16-string zheng is tuned to give three complete octaves, while the 21-string zheng has four complete octaves.
The shakuhachi is a Japanese end-blown flute. It is traditionally made of bamboo, but versions now exist in ABS and hardwoods. It was used by the monks of the Fuke school of Zen Buddhism in the practice of suizen (吹禅?, blowing meditation). Its soulful sound made it popular in 1980s pop music in the English-speaking world.
Shakuhachi are usually made from the root end of a bamboo culm and are extremely versatile instruments. Professional players can produce virtually any pitch they wish from the instrument, and play a wide repertoire of original Zen music, ensemble music with koto, biwa, and shamisen, folk music, jazz, and other modern pieces.
Much of the shakuhachi's subtlety (and player's skill) lies in its rich tone colouring, and the ability for its variation. Different fingerings, embouchures and amounts of meri can produce notes of the same pitch, but with subtle or dramatic differences in the tone colouring. Holes can be covered partially (1/3 covered, 1/2, 2/3, etc.) and pitch varied subtly or substantially by changing the blowing angle. The honkyoku pieces rely heavily on this aspect of the instrument to enhance their subtlety and depth.
Unlike a recorder, where the player blows into a duct—a narrow airway over a block which is called a "fipple"—and thus has limited pitch control, the shakuhachi player blows as one would blow across the top of an empty bottle (though the shakuhachi has a sharp edge to blow against) and therefore has substantial pitch control. The five finger holes are tuned to a pentatonic scale with no half-tones, but using techniques called meri and kari, in which the blowing angle is adjusted to bend the pitch downward and upward, respectively, the player can bend each pitch as much as a whole tone or more. Pitches may also be lowered by shading or partially covering finger holes. Since most pitches can be achieved via several different fingering or blowing techniques on the shakuhachi, the timbre of each possibility is taken into account when composing or playing. The shakuhachi has a range of two full octaves and a partial third octave. The various octaves are produced using subtle variations of breath and embouchure.
The shamisen (三味線?, literally "three flavor strings"), also called sangen (三絃?, literally "three strings") is a three-stringed musical instrument played with a plectrum called a bachi.
The shamisen is similar in length to a guitar, but its neck is much much slimmer and has no frets. Its drum-like rounded rectangular body, known as the dō, is taut front and back with skin in the manner of a banjo, and amplifies the sound of the strings. The skin is usually from a dog or cat, but in the past a special type of paper was used and recently various types of plastics are being tried. On the skin of some of the best shamisen, the position of the cat's nipples can still be seen.
The neck of the shamisen is usually constructed such that it is divided into three or four pieces that fit and lock together. Indeed, some shamisens are made so that they can be easily disassembled and stowed to save space. The pegs used to wind the strings were traditionally fashioned out of ivory, but as it has become a rare resource, they have been recently fashioned out of other materials, such as various kinds of wood and plastic.
The three strings are traditionally made of silk, or, more recently, nylon. The lowest passes over a small hump at the "nut" end so that it buzzes, creating a characteristic sound known as sawari (somewhat reminiscent of the "buzzing" of a sitar, which is called jivari). The upper part of the dō is almost always protected by a cover known as a dō kake, and players often wear a little band of cloth on their left hand to facilitate sliding up and down the neck. This band is known as a yubikake. There may also be a cover on the head of the instrument, known as a tenjin.
Bandura refers to a Ukrainian plucked string folk instrument. It combines elements of a box zither and lute, as well as its lute-like predecessor, the kobza.
The term is also occasionally used by when referring to a number of other Eastern European string instruments such as the hurdy gurdy and the 5 string guitar (commonly referred to by the diminutive bandurka).
The use of lute-like instruments by the inhabitants of the lands than now constitute Ukraine dates back to 591. In that year Byzantine Greek chronicles mention Bulgar warriors who travelled with lute-like instruments.
There are iconographic depictions of lute-like instruments in the 11th century frescoes of St. Sophia Cathedral in Kiev, once the capital of a vast medieval kingdom of the Kievan Rus'. It is not known by what specific term these instruments were referred to in these early times, although it has been surmised that the lute-like instrument was referred to by the generic medieval slavic term for a string instrument - Gusli.
The instrument became popular in the courts of the nobility in Eastern Europe. There are numerous citations mentioning the existence of Ukrainian bandurists in both Russia and Poland.
A nyckelharpa is a traditional Swedish musical instrument. It is a string instrument or chordophone. Its keys are attached to tangents which, when a key is depressed, serve as frets to change the pitch of the string.
The nyckelharpa is similar in appearance to a fiddle or the bowed Byzantine lira. Structurally, it is more closely related to the hurdy gurdy, both employing key-actuated tangents to change the pitch.
A depiction of two instruments, possibly but not confirmed nyckelharpas, can be found on a relief dating from c1350 in one of the gates to Källunge church on Gotland. Early church paintings are found in Siena, Italy, 1408 and in different churches in Denmark and Sweden, i.e. Tolfta church, Sweden, c 1460-1525.
Traditionally, and presently, the nyckelharpa is played with a strap around the neck, stabilized by the right arm. Didier François, violinist and nyckelharpist from Belgium, is noted for using a unique playing posture. Holding the nyckelharpa vertically in front of the chest, one is able to move both arms in a more natural and relaxed fashion. The overall tone and sound of the instrument is affected by this non-traditional position. Using a violin bracket to keep the nyckelharpa away from the body so it can swing freely also causes it to sound more "open".
The pipa is a four-stringed Chinese musical instrument, belonging to the plucked category of instruments. Sometimes called the Chinese lute, the instrument has a pear-shaped wooden body with a varying number of frets ranging from 12–26. Another Chinese 4 string plucked lute is the liuqin, which looks like a smaller version of the pipa.
The pipa appeared in the Qin Dynasty (221 - 206 BCE) and was developed during the Han Dynasty. It is one of the most popular Chinese instruments and has been played for nearly two thousand years in China. Several related instruments in East and Southeast Asia are derived from the pipa; these include the Japanese biwa, the Vietnamese đàn tỳ bà, and the Korean bipa. The Korean instrument is the only one of the three that is no longer used. Attempts to revive the instrument have failed, although examples survive in museums.
The name "pípá" is made up of two Chinese syllables, "pí" (琵) and "pá" (琶). These are the two most common ways of playing this instrument. "Pí" is to push the fingers of the right hand from right to left, thus more than one finger can be used at a time striking multiple notes, and "pá" is to pull the thumb of the right hand from left to right, in the opposite direction. The strings were originally played using a large plectrum in the Tang Dynasty, then gradually replaced by the fingernails of the right hand. Since the revolutions in Chinese instrument making during the 20th century, the softer twisted silk strings of earlier times have been exchanged for nylon-wound steel strings, which are far too strong for human fingernails, so false nails are now used, constructed of plastic or tortoise-shell, and affixed to the fingertips with the player's choice of elastic tape.
The duduk is a traditional woodwind instrument of Armenian origins, that is popular in the Caucasus, the Middle East and Central Asia. The English word is often used generically for a family of ethnic instruments including the doudouk or duduk in Armenian, the düdük or mey in Turkey, the duduki in Georgia, the balaban (or düdük) in Azerbaijan, the narmeh-ney in Iran, the duduka or dudka in Russia and Ukraine. This instrument is not to be confused with the northwestern Bulgarian folk instrument of the same name - Balkan duduk.
Svirel is an old folk Russian wind instrument of the end-blown flute type. In the Old Rus’ this instrument was made either of hollow reed or cylindrical wood branches. A legend says that Lel', son of the Slavic goddess of love Lada was a svirel player. In spring he would make his svirel of birch branches.
Traditional Russian svirel has not yet been studied well enough. Specialists have long tried to relate the present day’s pipe instruments to their Old Russian names. Most often the chroniclers used three names for this type instruments: svirel, sopel (sopilka) and tsevnitsa.
The gudok is an ancient Eastern Slavic string musical instrument, played with a bow.
A gudok usually had three strings, two of them tuned in unison and played as a drone, the third tuned a fifth higher. All three strings were in the same plane at the bridge, so that a bow could make them all sound simultaneously. Sometimes the gudok also had several sympathetic strings (up to eight) under the sounding board. These made the gudok's sound warm and rich.
The player held the gudok on his lap, like a cello or viola da gamba. It was also possible to play the gudok while standing and even while dancing, which made it popular among skomorokhs. Initially in the 12th century (and probably before), the gudok did not have a neck for pressing strings. This suggests that it was played by stopping the strings from the side with fingernails (similarly to the Byzantine lyra), rather than pressing strings onto the instrument's neck. Later in the 14th century some modifications of the gudok had a real neck for pressing strings.
The domra is a long-necked Russian string instrument of the lute family with a round body and three or four metal strings.
In 1896, a student of Vassily Vassilievich Andreyev found a broken instrument in a stable in rural Russia. It was thought that this instrument may have been an example of a domra, although no illustrations or examples of the traditional domra were known to exist in Russian chronicles. A three-stringed version of this instrument was later redesigned in 1896, patented, and introduced into the orchestra of Russian folk instruments.
Gusli is the oldest Russian multi-string plucked instrument. Its exact history is unknown, but it may have derived from a Byzantine form of the Greek kythare, which in turn derived from the ancient lyre. It has its relatives throughout the world - kantele in Finland, kannel in Estonia, kankles and kokle in Lithuania and Latvia. Furthermore, we can find kanun in Arabic countries and the autoharp in the USA. It is also related to such ancient instruments as Chinese gu zheng which has a thousand year history and its Japanese relative koto.
In the times of Kievan Rus’, the term gusli is thought to simply refer to any generic stringed instrument. The root of the term comes from the word to make sound in the wind. The term was eventually associated with the trapezoidal gusli-psaltyry (which may have originated in Byzantium).
Folk Gusli have from eleven to thirty-six gut or metal strings, tuned diatonically. There were two main forms: helmet-shaped and wing-shaped.
Helmet-shaped gusli is a variety of gusli held by the musician on his knees, so that strings were horizontal, resonator body under them. He uses his left hand to mute unnecessary strings and thus forming chords, while passing all the strings with his right hand. The instrument was spread in southern and western regions of Kievan Rus’.
wing-shaped gusli is much smaller, and had more resemblance to Scandinavian folk psalteries such as the kantele. They were held much more like modern guitars (although strings were still muted by the left hand through a special opening in the instrument's body). This modification was more prevalent in northern parts of Russia, especially Novgorod and Pskov.
The balalaika is a stringed instrument of Russian origin, with a characteristic triangular body and three strings. The balalaika family of instruments includes, from the highest-pitched to the lowest, the prima balalaika, sekunda balalaika, alto balalaika, bass balalaika and contrabass balalaika. All have three-sided bodies, spruce or fir tops, backs made of 3-9 wooden sections, and usually three strings.
Early representations of the balalaika show it with anywhere from two to six strings, which resembles certain Central Asian instruments. Similarly, frets on earlier balalaikas were made of animal gut and tied to the neck so that they could be moved around by the player at will (as is the case with the modern saz, which allows for the microtonal playing distinctive to Turkish and Central Asian music).
In the 19th century the balalaika evolved into a triangular instrument with a neck substantially shorter than its Asian counterparts. It was popular as a village instrument for centuries, particularly with the skomorokhs, sort of free-lance musical jesters whose tunes ridiculed the Tsar, the Russian Orthodox Church, and Russian society in general.
The jaw harp is thought to be one of the oldest musical instruments in the world. A musician apparently playing it can be seen in a Chinese drawing from the 4th century BC. This instrument is native to Asia and used in all tribes of Turkish people in Asia where it is variously referred to as a temir komuz (literally, iron komuz), agiz komuzu (literally, mouth komuz) or gubuz.
The instrument is known in many different cultures by many different names. The common English name "Jew's harp" may be considered controversial or potentially misleading, and thus avoided by some speakers. Another name used to identify the instrument, especially in scholarly literature, is the older English trump, while guimbarde, derived from the French word for the instrument, can be found in unabridged dictionaries and is featured in recent revival efforts.
The instrument is a lamellophone, which is in the category of plucked idiophones: it consists of a flexible metal or bamboo tongue or reed attached to a frame. The tongue/reed is placed in the performer's mouth and plucked with the finger to produce a note. The frame is held firmly against the performer's parted front teeth, using the jaw (thus "jaw harp") and mouth as a resonator, greatly increasing the volume of the instrument. The teeth must be parted sufficiently for the reed to vibrate freely, and the fleshy parts of the mouth should not come into contact with the reed to prevent damping of the vibrations. The note thus produced is constant in pitch, though by changing the shape of his or her mouth and the amount of air contained in it (and in some traditions closing the glottis) the performer can cause different overtones to sound and thus create melodies. The volume of the note can be varied by breathing in and out.
The khene is a mouth organ of Lao origin whose pipes, which are usually made of bamboo, are connected with a small, hollowed-out hardwood reservoir into which air is blown. Today associated with the Lao of Laos and Northeast Thailand, similar instruments date back to the Bronze Age of Southeast Asia. It is also played in some parts of Cambodia. The Chinese adopted mouth organs at an early point, and the now-obsolete yu may have been similar in construction to the modern khaen.
The most interesting characteristic of the khene is its free reed, which is made of brass or silver. It is related to Western free-reed instruments such as the harmonium, concertina, accordion, harmonica, and bandoneon, which were developed beginning in the 18th century from the Chinese sheng, a related instrument, a specimen of which had been carried to St. Petersburg, Russia.
The khene uses a pentatonic scale in one of two modes (thang sun and thang yao), each mode having three possible keys. The khaen has five different lai, or modes: Lai Yai, Lai Noi, Lai Soutsanaen, Lai Po Sai, and Lai Soi. Lai Po Sai is considered to be the oldest of the Lai Khaen and Lai Soutsanaen the "Father of the Lai Khaen." Khaen can be played as a solo instrument (Dio Khaen), as part of an ensemble (Ponglang), or as an accompaniment to a Lao or Isan Folk Opera Singer mor lam.
According to Lao legend, the khene was created by a woman who was trying to reproduce the sound of the garawek bird which she heard while on a walk one day. The journey was long and difficult, so she decided to invent an instrument that would bring the sound to her. When she returned to her village, she experimented with many different instruments, including percussion, wind and plucked and bowed strings. Finally she cut a piece of bamboo and inserted a reed into it. Upon playing it, she realized that it sounded much like the garawek bird. She continued to improve the sound until she felt it was worthy for the king's ears. When she was ready, she went to the palace and began playing for the king on her newly invented instrument, which was at this point nameless. At the end of the first song, she asked the king if he liked the piece. He said it was fair, and instructed her to continue playing. After her last song, she again asked the king if he was pleased. His reply was "Tia nee kaen dae," which means "This time it was better." He then instructed her to call the instrument, according to his words, the kaen.
