Khuuchir

[maaltan]

I found an interesting site that goes through several mongolian instruments. the Khuuchir is what they call the erhu. I do not recognize or understand the romanization they are using. Does this information carry any credibility?

www.face-music.ch/instrum/mongolia_instrum.html

[davidmdahl]

I am not quite sure I understand the question, but the information on the website you mention is consistent with what I have read elsewhere. The erhu has indeed been adapted from the Mongols. That the Mongolians have a different term for their instrument than the Chinese is not surprising.

Best wishes,

David

[sanmenxia]

That's an excellent page, my guess is that "Khuuchir" is a romanisation based on Mongolian rather than Chinese.

[davidmdahl]

sanmenxia said:

That's an excellent page, my guess is that "Khuuchir" is a romanisation based on Mongolian rather than Chinese.

Of course. Chinese might be a second or third languange to some Mongolians (after Russian), but certainly the Mongolian language would be the source of native cultural items such as musical instruments.

Best wishes,

David

[maaltan]

I was just watching a special on discovery channel about modern china and they mentioned several things i wasn't aware of. Although I think i detected a bit of propaganda and bias, it was pretty good and interesting. The narrator seemed to get a condescending tone whenever some of the more foregn concepts came about.

The mongolian throat singers are mind boggling. The whole harmonic/overtone thing still facinates me. I had no idea it could be done with the human voice. They just briefly mentioned them and thier instruments (which brought this question about).

I found this site and wanted to verify its accuracy before i believe it. Its something i always do when researching new subjects. I treat the internet like a series of opinions where majority rules.

Thanks for the feedback

[calden]

Throat singing...

If this idea interests you, go rent "Genghis Blues." It's an amazing true documentary story about a black blind blues musician living in San Francisco who taught himself to do Tuvan throat singing by listening to records. A documentary film maker, who was headed to Mongolia to film a throat singing competition, heard about this guy and invited him along. The blues guy became part of the competition and won everybody's hearts. Simply amazing true story, better and weirder than any fiction.

Carlos

[davidmdahl]

There is a Tuvan throat singer on the Bela Fleck DVD "Live at the Quick". There is a very eclectic mix of music on this DVD, but no Chinese. Cool stuff though.

Best wishes,

David

[csseu]

Whoa. Somewhat by coincidence, I was looking into erhu bows this morning and happened upon this site:

www.khoomei.com/

Throat-singing lessons! Online or in Minnesota!
I see some "morin khuur" and "igil" posts in their forum...no khuuchir....yet.