The Zhuihu, also known as the Zhuiqin is an instrument that is descended from a Chinese lute known as the Sanxian, and the strings of this instrument are stopped by pressing them down on a flat fingerboard on its neck. The Kokyu is a four stringed version from Japan that is a bowed version of the lute from that country, which is known as the shamisen and is a rounded rectangular sound box featured lute with a long neck, a fretless finger board and an unusually long bow for playing it.

Variations by Region

There are other countries in Southeast and East Asia as well as Indonesia that have spike fiddles which are related closely to the Huqin family. Korea, for example, has an instrument known as the haegum. Japan has an instrument that is known as the kokin. Tibet has an instrument that is known as the piwang. Tuva has an instrument that is known as the Byzaanchy. Vietnam has several instruments that are similar in nature including the dan nhi, the dan co and the dan gao or the dan ho. Cambodia has an instrument that is known as the tro sau or tro u. Thailand has an instrument that is known as the saw duang, which is quite similar in nature to the erhu. Indonedia also has spike fiddles, which include the Rabab and the gesso gesso, one of which is chunky and possesses two strings and the other of which is a more elegant, long spiked spike-fiddle.

Rabab

The rabab or Rababah is a single string instrument that has a rectangular type of sound box that is covered in skin and often has wooden side pieces that create something of an H shape, and the sound box serves as a crossbar. The square sound box in the manseqo of Ethiopia is set diamond-wise, but most other similar fiddles make use instead of gourd sound boxes. In other countries, such as Tunisia and Morocco for example, the rabab name signifies a completely different type of fiddle that does not have an evident spike, but instead it has a combination sound board and neck that is wedge shaped and has skin stretched over the lower half with is wider, and then has a metal or wood covering that usually possesses decoration that covers the neck part as well as the back-angled part of the peg box.

The construction and the name both have obvious connections in relation to the Rubab from Afghanistan, which is a lute that is plucked rather than being bowed. Here, the rapid decay of the notes is converted into a long ring as a result of the addiction of a number of sympathetic strings which are made of a thin steel material.

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Originally posted 2009-08-21 03:52:02. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

• Fiddling Instruments: A Primer pt 5 ... Continued from pt. 4 The Pontic Lira The Pontic lira is a lira that is slim and bottle shaped and that has a finger board upon which three steel strings can be stopped. All three of the steel strings are tuned into fourths. This instrument features a nut like......
• Brief History of the Sitar The sitar is a plucked string instrument that uses sympathetic strings and a long hollow neck along with a gourd resonating chamber in order to produce a very rich musical sound along with a complex harmonic resonance. The Sitar is predominantly used in Hindustani classical music, but has been used......
• Introduction to Stringed Instruments, pt 1 Stringed instruments are musical instruments that produce sound when strings on the instrument are excited or vibrated. Stringed instruments are also regarded as chordophones when following the Hornbostel-Sachs scheme of musical instrument classification. Some of the most well known and most common stringed instruments in this family as the cello,......
• Fiddling Instruments: A Primer pt 4 ... Continued from pt. 3 The Tarhu One of the most significant new developments in the technology behind spike fiddle instruments can be found in the form of the circular bodied instruments known as Tarhu, as they are made by an Australian luthier known as Peter Biffin. With these instruments......
• Introduction to Stringed Instruments, pt 2 In the last post in this series we started talking about stringed instruments and the different varieties. We listed plucked stringed instruments, and will now talk about instruments that are played by bowing, striking and other methods. Bowing is a method that is used with some string instruments, including the......

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The Tarhu

One of the most significant new developments in the technology behind spike fiddle instruments can be found in the form of the circular bodied instruments known as Tarhu, as they are made by an Australian luthier known as Peter Biffin. With these instruments there is no sound board, at least in the usual sense, but rather one foot of the bridge is resting very lightly n a rear facing wooden cone's apex inside of the body while the other one is resting on the body's front, taking the string pressure and then behaving much in the same way that a pivot might. The result here is an extremely efficient type of string vibration transfer, and as a result there is an excellent level of volume and a tone that is extraordinarily rich.

The Gusle

In the area where Yugoslavia used to be, you will find an instrument known as the Gusle, which is the instrument of the Guslars, bardic singers of ballads from the region. This is a single striked type of spike fiddle that features a skin sound board with a tear drop shaped body. The neck is cylindrical and is lacking a finger board. The instrument is typically ornamented at the top using a carved goat head or some other animal head. There is a similar instrument that hails from Albania, known as the lahuta.

The Lijerica

Along the Dalmation coast you will find an instrument that features three strings and is known either as the lijerica or the lirica. This instrument is shaped as a flask in its outline and has three gut strings that run from the pegs on the head, shaped like a disk, to the flat bridge, and then to an anchor point that is on the bottom head of the instrument. There are two different sound holes, shaped like D's, that sit on each side of the instrument's bridge. The bridge rests part way on the sound board, but one of its ends presses on a sound post that is removable and that goes through a D hole so that it can rest on the sound box on the back.

This instrument is held in a vertical fashion, and all three of its strings are bowed at the same time together. Two of the strings behave as drone strings, while the melody string is stopped from its side using the finger tips. There is no finger board to speak of on this instrument. The lira, which comes from Calabria, which is located at the southern tip of the mainland portion of Italy, is quite similar in nature however has its own uniqueness as well.

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Photo Credits: dalbera

Originally posted 2009-08-27 03:11:27. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

• Introduction to the Cittern Instrument There are a lot of really interesting instruments out there, in addition to the common ones that you hear about regularly. One example of a not so well known instrument is the cittern. The cittern is a musical instrument possessing strings, and it originally came from Europe. It is said......
• Fiddling Instruments: A Primer Generically, fiddles are bowed lutes. The fiddle term denotes the existence of a stringed instrument that has a neck that bears strings sounded through the use of friction rather than the use of striking or plucking as with other musical instruments. Playing the Fiddle In nearly all fiddle instruments around......
• A Little Background on Harps The harp is a simple stringed instrument that is comprised of a plane of strings that is positioned perpendicular in relation to the instrument's sound board. All harps have similar elements, like the neck, the strings and the resonator. Some harps, frame harps as they are referred to, also have......
• Brief History of the Sitar The sitar is a plucked string instrument that uses sympathetic strings and a long hollow neck along with a gourd resonating chamber in order to produce a very rich musical sound along with a complex harmonic resonance. The Sitar is predominantly used in Hindustani classical music, but has been used......
• Fiddling Instruments: A Primer pt 2 ... Continued from pt. 1 The Zhuihu, also known as the Zhuiqin is an instrument that is descended from a Chinese lute known as the Sanxian, and the strings of this instrument are stopped by pressing them down on a flat fingerboard on its neck. The Kokyu is a four......

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Playing the Fiddle

In nearly all fiddle instruments around the world, the friction that creates the sound is provided by the use of a bow that is strung using rosined horsehair. The hair tension is created by the springiness of the instrument's bow, or it is held in tension using the player's fingers, or even sometimes by tightening a mechanism involving a screw.

The most common playing position for a fiddle instrument is to hold them vertically rather than under the chin such as with a violin. When held vertically, the sound box is made to rest either on the ground or on the knee, and then the instrument is bowed in a fashion that is not unlike how a cello would be bowed. In other words, the bow hand would be palm faced variously upward and then downward. A few of the smaller fiddles are held in a horizontal fashion on the arm, and there are a very small number that are played with the sound box of the instrument resting on the shoulder with the neck facing downward and then the strings being stopped using the joints of the left hand's fingers with the palm of the hand facing inward toward the instrument.

The Erhu

The Erhu is a member of a family of instruments known as huquin, which is found en masse in China. The Erhu is an example of a spike fiddle, which is essentially like a spike lute, except that it is bowed rather than being plucked as a spike lute would be. These instruments are found all over china. The Erhu comes with a small sound box that is either cylindrical in shape, hexagonal in shape or octagonal in shape, and it is open in the back and has a sound board made of snakeskin that supports a small bridge made of wood. It has a thin stick like neck that is also cylindrical in nature that has no fingerboard present.

This instrument also has two large friction pegs made out of wood at the top. Below this, there are two strings that are run through a loop of either nylon or silk that forms an adjustable type of nut, and then onward over the bridge to the spike's stub. The strings are stopping using the fingers rather than pressed against the neck. The hair of the bow runs between both strings which are tined to be a fifth apart perfectly, which is a feature that makes this instrument dramatically different from the fiddles from western countries.

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Originally posted 2009-08-18 19:02:19. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

• Harp Introduction The Harp is an acoustic musical instrument which is made up stings that are held stretched under tension, which will produce harmonics when plucked with the fingers, a pick or a similar device. There are two primary kinds of harps, bow and angle. Bow harps are so named after the......
• Fiddling Instruments: A Primer pt 4 ... Continued from pt. 3 The Tarhu One of the most significant new developments in the technology behind spike fiddle instruments can be found in the form of the circular bodied instruments known as Tarhu, as they are made by an Australian luthier known as Peter Biffin. With these instruments......
• A Little About Dulcimers A dulcimer is a fretted instrument that most commonly includes three or four strings. The fretting is usually diatonic and spreads along a fingerboard attached to the instrument's body. It became popular in old-time American music in the 1800s. It is believed to have been brought over from Scotland or......
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Chances are, if you're looking for a buying guide for fiddles, it's because you want to learn to play the violin. Those who are accomplished players already know what to look for in a good instrument, after all. So on the assumption that you're looking for an instrument to start learning with, there are some things you'll want to keep in mind as you shop for your first fiddle.

First, it's not necessary to spend hundreds of dollars. You might find fiddle buying guides that try to help you distinguish between that $600 fiddle and the $800 model, but it's just necessary to spend that kind of money up front to get a quality learning instrument. Once you're sure that you love playing the violin and you want to continue your education, or you quickly become quite skilled at it and want a better instrument for better sound, then you can look at the high-end violins available today.

For right now, you'll want to spend as little money as possible while still getting an instrument that's decent. But unfortunately, inexpensive fiddles often give you exactly what you pay for. If you find a great fiddle auction on eBay for example, and this supposedly high quality new musical instrument will only cost you $49.95, you're probably going to end up with a fiddle that sounds terrible, doesn't feel right in your hands and is difficult to play. While you might not think sound quality matters in the beginning, it does. If you practice and the sound is poor, the strings are hard to tune or constantly loosen, the bow isn't tight enough or the fiddle feels awkward to you, chances are that your study of the fiddle will come to a quick end.

No one wants to play something that constantly frustrates you or sounds shaky no matter how well you play that beginning piece of music. So even though you're just learning, buying a cheap, poorly made instrument is not the best way to start. If you're going browsing for a fiddle, try to get someone who knows about acoustic musical instruments to go with you to help you out. Stores that carry only musical instruments will have knowledgeable staff who can also help you choose the right instrument.

One inexpensive violin that music teachers seem to be able to agree on is the Palatino violin. For only about $150 you can get a decent, well-made student violin, and you may even be able to find a used one for less than that on eBay or in other online auctions. While the instrument won't suit you after you're really progressing, it's the perfect good quality instrument for learning to play the fiddle.

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Originally posted 2009-01-14 05:41:39. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

• Fiddle or Violin? The violin is traditionally associated with western style Classical music. Musicians who learn the violin do so by reading printed music, playing exactly what is written from one note to the next. The music associated with playing the violin is often regarded as being complex and challenging. One example of......
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The Pontic Lira

The Pontic lira is a lira that is slim and bottle shaped and that has a finger board upon which three steel strings can be stopped. All three of the steel strings are tuned into fourths. This instrument features a nut like the violin does, and its bridge is responsible for resting right on the face of the sound board, over a sound post that is internal within the instrument.

Fiddles From Scandanavia

Norway has a fiddle known as the hardingfele or the hardanger which is shaped similarly to a violin, however it has a neck that is slightly shorter and also decorated using acanthus patterns drawn with pen, inlays crafted from mother of pearl and a figuratively carved head as well. What make this instrument different are two different features:

• The fingerboard and the bridge are both much flatter than in a violin, which makes the bowing of more than one string the normal way to go, which produces a drone effect as a result.
• The sound is enhanced to a silvery type of ringing as a result of the presence of an additional four or five different sympathetic strings that are responsible for running underneath the bridge, running to extra pegs that can be found in the peg box.

Among the Swedish folk fiddlers of today, there is an increasing use of a much larger instrument featuring sympathetic strings which is usually known as a drone fiddle based on the instrument known as the viola d'amore. There are also other European regional relatives of the violin as well, including the viola which has three strings and is nearly flat, and the three stringed bass which is played in fiddle music from Eastern European countries including Romania and Hungary. Another instrument is the Zlobcoki, which is a slim pocket-style violin that is used by highlanders in Poland, especially in the Tatra mountains of Poland. Transylvania also has a similar instrument known as the utogardon, which is shaped as a cello would be but it has strings that are alternately plucked and hit with a stick to produce varying sounds.

Another instrument is the phonofiddle, also known as the Stroh violin, which is similar to a violin, at least as far as the player is concerned. However, there is no sound box with this instrument, but rather the strings make a vibration that is passed to resonating metal by way of the bridge before reaching an amplifying horn that is pointed directly at the audience, with a second horn directing sound back to the ear of the player. These instruments continue to be created and played for various purposes including by fiddlers in some of the Roma bands located in Eastern Europe.

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Originally posted 2009-08-31 03:19:46. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

• Hammered and Lap Dulcimer Instruments The Hammered Dulcimer What the dulcimer is, is a stringed instrument that has perceived to be an ancestor to the modern piano. It possesses a number of courses of between two and five strings for each note, and they are stretched across a shallow trapezoid shaped box that is made......
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The violin is also commonly associated with Indian classical music. There is also a written tradition here, but it involves more improvisation than western Classical music offers. On the other hand, fiddle styles of music have preserved aspects of music that Classical violin music lost during the 16th century and 17th century. Many musical selections played with a fiddle are written in scales that the classical violin no longer makes use of. Also, there is a lot more improvisation involved in playing the fiddle, which was especially popular during the 1700s. Classical violinists also play instruments using different tunings, but the most popular tuning is GDAE, which was settled on in the 1700s. Occasional fiddle styles and tunes require changing the way that the instrument is tuned. There are a wide variety of different fiddle traditions ranging from Cajun to Scottish, from Irish to Canadian and from Cape Breton to Old Time.

There are multiple styles of fiddling within different regions, like Irish fiddling styles which vary significantly from one country to the next. Fiddling is not passed down through written music, but rather through oral tradition, as younger fiddlers tend to do their learning directly through older fiddlers. Currently most fiddlers are still learning through one another, either through in-person training or through music recordings.

Oral tradition has a completely different affect on music in interesting ways. Fiddlers may not exactly remember directly what someone else played, and therefore may adapt the music to themselves, playing some notes differently. Fiddlers often play for dances, so they vary the tunes so that they are not simply repeating themselves over and over again while people complete an entire dance set. Some traditions are related historically when it comes to fiddling, which sets it apart from the traditions set forth by violin playing. For example, a song called Devil's Dream was originally a tune from Ireland, but it became an Appalachian Mountain tune throughout history. The Irish version and the Appalachian version differ significantly, and yet there is still something between them that is common to both versions.

Originally posted 2009-01-07 05:47:55. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

• Book Review: The Encyclopedia of the Violin The Encyclopedia of the Violin was first published in 1925 as a comprehensive reference of the history and evolution of the violin. It is still the number one source for all types of violin information, even after all these years. The book is written by Swiss-born Alberto Bachmann, himself a......
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Fiddles commonly have steel strings, which are not generally found on classical violins. The steel string gives a distinctive style to certain types of fiddling and can be easier to tune than the traditional nylon strings. This lets the fiddle player easily change their tuning to play a variety of different styles. Fiddles may have tuning adjustment hardware on each string, which is rarely found on classical musical instruments.

Most folk musicians prefer a flatter bridge to their fiddle, with classical violinists using a more rounded feel. The difference in bridge type does not appear significant, with only a millimeter or less creating the variation. However, this is enough to raise the height of the strings and changes the way the bow is handled. It is thought to be easier to perform bariolage and double stops on a flat-bridged fiddle. Fiddles made for bluegrass music often have the flattest bridges of all, with some musicians cutting the bridge to make it completely flush. On the other hand, classical violinists generally prefer a rounded bridge, which lets them hit each note cleanly and clearly. The bridge can usually be switched out, allowing musicians to change between fast-paced fiddling and the cleaner sounds that go along with violin music.

A regular violin bow is used for most fiddle playing styles, but there are a few that use something different. A "folk bow" made from a thick, short stick and horsehair hand-tied around the ends. This gives a fatter, fuller sound than a traditional violin bow. These bows are often used in Hungarian and Transylvanian folk music. Most bows are still made from wood, but there are new synthetics and fiberglass being used more frequently these days.

Solo performance is the most popular type of fiddling, but duets have also been seen in Irish, Scandinavian, and North American playing styles. This is in direct contrast to the traditional grouping of violins in symphony sections. This could possibly be a remnant of old American views toward fiddling and violinists. Fiddle music has always been thought to be informal, more like dance or street music. Violins are generally only thought of in the context of a full orchestra, with a conductor leading the way up front. Violin music is also considered to be smoother and more refined, where fiddle playing is frenetic and can often be much louder.

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Originally posted 2008-12-09 05:26:38. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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Allen's single is called "It's Not Fair", and it does actually include a banjo solo. There is no doubt about it at this point that this is because folk music has been enjoying quite a massive renaissance within the past decade, and one of the people sitting at the forefront of this massive musical renaissance is Seth Lakeman. His most recent album is known as Poor Man's Heaven, and it recently landed at number 8 in the chats, the pop charts, not the folk charts. He has put traditional folk music up there in the same ranks as some of the hottest pop stars in the industry, which is an extremely remarkable achievement if you consider what it takes to hit the top of the charts these days.

Lakeman says that getting his album to the top of the pop charts was definitely cool, but he attributes it to the fact that folk acoustic music is becoming more excited for the younger crowd. There are plenty of open mic spots in café bars and student unions where this kind of music is being played, meaning that it is finding its way pretty much everywhere. Lakeman isn't specifically saying that it is folk music that is seeing the renaissance at this moment so much as the acoustic aspect of the music. He believes that it is acoustic instruments and acoustic music that have attracted the attention of people for the moment, and people are jumping on the back of folk because folk and acoustic music sort of go hand in hand - But they are all part of the same thing.

Lakeman has definitely had success in this industry. He plays a number of different instruments including the fiddle, the banjo, the guitar, the mandolin and the viola, and he earned a nomination for a Mercury Prize based on his second solo album, which was released as Kitty Jay in the year 2005. His latest and greatest accolade is definitely much more amusing than it is music considering that he failed his A-level as a lad. However it seems that he is going to receive an honorary doctorate degree in music by Plymouth University.

There has been an incredible demand for the unique brand of music that Lakeman is offering, which is like a combination of folk and rock. He has not been playing the regular folk circuit but instead has been playing rock venues and topping pop charts.

Photo Credits: 6tee-zeven

Originally posted 2009-05-27 08:53:02. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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Where is he now?

O'Connor recorded a special album giving a retrospect of the past 30 years of his music career. His music has had a reaching extent, collaborating on numerous albums and providing his talents four countless more. Appalachia Waltz, one of the most popular of his works, is frequently used as music for weddings, which includes two of Vice President Gore's Daughters.

These days, O'Connor is providing music instruction, allowing his gift to help others grow in the process. These include an annual fiddle and string camp in Tennessee. He frequently gives two day residencies, where he would provide lectures and or workshops. Much of his time is donated to causes promoting music education and outreach projects.

Career Highlights:

- 1974 - National Junior Fiddling Champion
- 1975 - Pickin' in the Wind
- 1978 - Markology
- 1979 - On the Rampage
- 1979 - Soppin' the Gravy
- 1982 - Industry Standard - The Dregs
- 1982 - False Dawn
- 1985 - Meanings Of
- 1986 - Stone from Which the Arch was Made
- 1988 - Elysian Forest
- 1989 - The Championship Years
- 1989 - On the Mark
- 1990 - Retrospective
- 1991 - The New Nashville Cats
- 1992 - Johnny Appleseed
- 1993 - Heroes
- 1993 - The Night Before Christmas
- 1994 - The Fiddle Concerto
- 1997 - Liberty!
- 1998 - Midnight On The Water
- 1999 - Fanfare for the Volunteer
- 2001 - The American Seasons
- 2001 - Hot Swing!
- 2003 - Thirty-Year Retrospective
- 2003 - Hot Swing Trio- In Full Swing
- 2004 - Crossing Bridges
- 2005 - Hot Swing Trio- Live In New York
- 2005 - Double Violin Concerto
- 2006 - Folk Mass
- 2007 - Fiddle Camp
- 2007 - The Essential Mark O'Connor (compilation)

Interesting and Inspirational Quotes:

"This music is really addictive. I can get into the swing and never want to leave. I think audiences will feel something similar."

"I don't recall having, in recent memory, anything remotely resembling this kind of an event where the need is to bring back a group of people dispersed by a calamity. It signifies not only a healing for their symphony and what they've worked for. It also represents the larger community of New Orleans musicians. That's exactly what people there are wanting to do. They want to put their community back together. And that community needs to heal with what the arts can give the heart and soul."

"Musicians coming together at a time of need is one of the great traditions in this country. It's like people taking charge."

Originally posted 2009-01-05 05:32:49. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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