Organologic and acoustic similarities of the European violin and the Chinese erhu

Abstract

The Chinese erhu is a bowed spike lute with a recorded history dating back to the Song dynasty (960-1279). It is played in different sociocultural as well as musical settings and in different styles of Chinese music. In modern Chinese orchestras it fills the part of the lead voice in the bowed instruments section, comparable to the role of the European violin in classical orchestras. Even though the design of both instruments differs in several central aspects, they exhibit structural and acoustical similarities. In this work, organologic as well as acoustical similarities of both instruments are highlighted with a special focus on the excitation mechanisms of both instruments. To this end, a set of measurements using high-speed camera recordings of the bowing and the string motion are evaluated and compared. Differences in the resulting “Helmholtz” motion are explained and attributed to the specific string attachment and the structure of the bow respectively. Timbre similarities are shown for several dif...