The ''huluqin'' ( 葫芦琴) is a plucked

string instrument String instruments, stringed instruments, or chordophones are musical instruments that produce sound from vibrating strings when a performer plays or sounds the strings in some manner. Musicians play some string instruments by plucking the ...

. It is a four-stringed lute with a

gourd Gourds include the fruits of some flowering plant species in the family Cucurbitaceae, particularly ''Cucurbita'' and ''Lagenaria''. The term refers to a number of species and subspecies, many with hard shells, and some without. One of the earli ...

body and is used by the

Naxi people Naxi may refer to: * Naxi people (), an ethnic group mainly living in southwest provinces of China * Naxi language, the language of the Naxi people * Naxi District Naxi District (Tibetan: Jang; ) is a county-level district of the city of Luzho ...

and

Zhuang people The Zhuang (; ; za, Bouxcuengh, italic=yes; ) are a Tai-speaking ethnic group who mostly live in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region in Southern China. Some also live in the Yunnan, Guangdong, Guizhou, and Hunan provinces. They form one of ...

Yunnan Yunnan , () is a landlocked Provinces of China, province in Southwest China, the southwest of the People's Republic of China. The province spans approximately and has a population of 48.3 million (as of 2018). The capital of the province is ...

. Sometimes, huluqin play with instruments of

Tibetan Tibetan may mean: * of, from, or related to Tibet * Tibetan people, an ethnic group * Tibetan language: ** Classical Tibetan, the classical language used also as a contemporary written standard ** Standard Tibetan, the most widely used spoken dial ...

dodar music from Labrang Monastery,

Gansu Gansu (, ; alternately romanized as Kansu) is a province in Northwest China. Its capital and largest city is Lanzhou, in the southeast part of the province. The seventh-largest administrative district by area at , Gansu lies between the Tibet ...

In history, huluqin is a plucked string instrument from unique frescoes to

Mogao caves The Mogao Caves, also known as the Thousand Buddha Grottoes or Caves of the Thousand Buddhas, form a system of 500 temples southeast of the center of Dunhuang, an oasis located at a religious and cultural crossroads on the Silk Road, in Gansu p ...

Dunhuang Dunhuang () is a county-level city in Northwestern Gansu Province, Western China. According to the 2010 Chinese census, the city has a population of 186,027, though 2019 estimates put the city's population at about 191,800. Dunhuang was a major ...

, which is not recorded in history books. The huluqin painted in the mural has two forms-four-string and five-string. The prototype of the giant huluqin comes from Cave 262 (Sui) five-string huluqin. Under the creative transformation of the designers and producers of Shanghai No. 1 National Musical Instrument Factory, the huluqin is decorated with African red sandalwood and boxwood outlines the phoenix platform. It makes the huluqin not only noble and domineering, but also simple and simple. On the huluqin panel are painted two flying heavens flying above the Dunhuang frescoes, smiling with flowers, and colorful falling stars. This state of mind is quite contagious, as if "fluttering like a legacy of independence, evolving and ascending to immortality". The structure of the huluqin is the same as that of the

pipa The pipa, pípá, or p'i-p'a () is a traditional 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 rang ...

and can be played with the pipa technique. The giant huluqin is 4.36 meters high, 1.6 meters wide, and 0.5 meters thick, making it the 13th member of the giant family of Shanghai No.1 National Musical Instrument Factory.

References

Chinese musical instruments Culture in Yunnan Gourd musical instruments Huqin family instruments {{huqin-stub

See also

References