Instrument Gallery

 

banhu without backgroundBanhu 板胡

A bowed Chinese two-string spike fiddle.  The banhu belongs to the huqin family (two-stringed bowed instruments) that descended from bowed lutes from Central and Northern Asia that arrived in China prior to the eleventh century.  The banhu shares many traits with other members of the huqin family, including a wooden resonating chamber, a wooden stick that pierces the chamber, two vertically-strung strings, and a horsehair and bamboo bow that passes between the strings.  However, the banhu is distinct from the rest of the family in that it is spherical, not cylindrical, hexagonal, or octagonal, and its resonating surface is wood, not snakeskin (hence the name: banhu means “board fiddle”).  The banhu’s alternate name of banghu refers to the bangzi (梆子) folk opera of northern China, which frequently employs the banhu.

diziDizi 笛子

A Chinese transverse flute. Also known as the di () or hengdi (橫笛), the dizi