A Chinese erhu, in playing position.
I've been listening to a lot of Chinese and Japanese classical music over the last couple of years, as I've noted previously. I've come to love the different sounds of the Asian ethnic instruments, particularly their percussion and strings. Today I was listening to a disc of erhu concertos -- this disc, actually -- and I found myself once again entranced by the different sound of the erhu, which I first heard in college when the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra came to play in our auditorium.
The erhu, as seen above, is held rather like a cello, in a sitting position. Its bow is fitted between its two strings, and the resonator at the bottom is covered by a skin, rather like the head of a drum, that gives the instrument its distinct muted sound. Its pitch is similar to a violin's, but the skin over the resonator makes its sound somehow both muted and yet more piercing than the Western violin. Here is a sound sample, and some more information on the playing of the erhu can be found here and here.
Image from here.
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