In Mongolian, the instrument is usually called morin khuur[mɔrin xʊːr] or "horse fiddle".
The full Classical Mongolian name for the morin khuur is morin toloğay’ta quğur, (which in modern Khalkhcyrillic is Морин толгойтой хуур) meaning fiddle with a horse's head. Usually it is abbreviated as "Морин хуур", Latin transcription "Morin huur". In western Mongolia it is known as ikil (Mongolian: икил—not to be confused with the similar Tuvan igil)—while in eastern Mongolia it is known as shoor (Mongolian: Шоор).[1]
Construction
The instrument consists of a trapeziform wooden-framed sound box to which two strings are attached. It is held nearly upright with the sound box in the musician's lap or between the musician's legs. The strings are made from hairs from nylon or horses' tails,[2] strung parallel, and run over a wooden bridge on the body up a long neck, past a second smaller bridge, to the two tuning pegs in the scroll, which is usually carved into the form of a horse's head.
The bow is loosely strung with horse hair coated with larch or cedar wood resin, and is held from underneath with the right hand. The underhand grip enables the hand to tighten the loose hair of the bow, allowing very fine control of the instrument's timbre.
The larger of the two strings (the "male" string) has 130 hairs from a stallion's tail, while the "female" string has 105 hairs from a mare's tail. Nowadays the strings are made of nylon. Traditionally, the strings were tuned a fifth apart, though in modern music they are more often tuned a fourth apart, usually to B-flat and F. The strings are stopped either by pinching them in the joints of the index and middle fingers, or by pinching them between the nail of the little finger and the pad of the ring finger.
Traditionally, the frame is covered with camel, goat, or sheep skin, in which case a small opening would be left in the back. However, since the 1970s, new completely wooden sound box instruments have appeared, with carved f-holes similar to European stringed instruments.[3]
The modern standard height is 1.15m (3ft 9in); the distance between the upper bridge and the lower bridge is about 60cm (24in), but the upper bridge especially can be adapted to match smaller player's fingers. The sound box usually has a depth of 8–9cm (3.1–3.5in); the width of the soundbox is about 20cm (7.9in) at the top and 25cm (9.8in) at the bottom. Good quality instruments can achieve a strength of 85dBA, which allows it to be played (if desired) even in mezzoforte or crescendo. When horsehair is used, the luthiers prefer to use the hair of white stallions. In general the quality of a horse hair string depends on its preparation, the climate conditions and the nutrition of the animals. That gives a wide area of quality differences.
Quality nylon strings (Khalkh Mongolian: сатуркан хялгас) last for up to 2 years, but only if prepared and placed properly on the instrument. Most beginners don't comb the strings, then the sound quality worsens quickly. Good strings nearly sound like steel strings, and in spectrograms they show about 7-8 harmonics.
Morin khuur vary in form depending on region. Instruments from central Mongolia tend to have larger bodies and thus possess more volume than the smaller-bodied instruments of Inner Mongolia. In addition, the Inner Mongolian instruments have mostly mechanics for tightening the strings, where Mongolian luthiers mostly use wooden pegs in a slightly conic shape. In Tuva, the morin khuur is sometimes used in place of the igil.
One legend about the origin of the morin khuur is that a shepherd named Namjil the Cuckoo (or Khuhuu Namjil) received the gift of a flying horse; he would mount it at night and fly to meet his beloved. A jealous woman had the horse's wings cut off so that the horse fell from the air and died. The grieving shepherd made a horsehead fiddle from the now-wingless horse's skin and tail hair and used it to play poignant songs about his horse.
Another legend credits the invention of the morin khuur to a boy named Sükhe (or Suho). After a wicked lord slew the boy's prized white horse, the horse's spirit came to Sükhe in a dream and instructed him to make an instrument from the horse's body, so the two could still be together and neither would be lonely. So the first morin khuur was assembled, with horse bones as its neck, horsehair strings, horse skin covering its wooden soundbox, and its scroll carved into the shape of a horse head.
The gusle/lahuta from Southeastern Europe (Serbia, Croatia & Albania) is a very similar instrument, and may indicate this is an extremely ancient instrument perhaps even dating back to the outward migration of people out of the Middle East and Central Asia some 40,000 years ago. Often these instruments are depicted with a goat head instead of a horse in Europe.
Playing technique
Morin khuur in one of the Buryat villages in the Zakamensky district of Buryatia
The modern style Morin Khuur is played with nearly natural finger positions. That means, the distance between two fingers usually make the distance of a half tone on the lower section of the instrument. On the tune F / B♭ the index finger hits on the low (F) string the G, the middle finger hits the G♯, the ring finger hits the A, the little finger the B flat. Identical positions are on the high strings - C, C♯, D, D♯. The little finger tips the B strings under the F string, while all other fingers touch the strings from the top.
Melodies are usually played from F to F' on the F string, then the player switches to the B♭ string and continues with G, A, B♭. There are 3 hand positions on the F string, and 2 positions on the B♭ strings a musician must memorize. The idea is that without moving the string hand too much the sound quality improves. The 2nd hand position on the B string is used to play C, D, E♭, then moves a little bit for hitting the F' with the little finger, then without moving the G position can be reached with the 1st finger.
It is also possible to touch the B♭ string with the thumb to get a C, and use the ring finger under the F string to achieve the D♯.
On the F strings only the first harmonic is used, so the scale ranges from F to F'. On the B♭ strings several harmonics are available: B♭', F", B", also often players accompanying the F' on the F string with an F" overtone at the F' position on the B♭ string.
Some parts of the bowing technique is unique - the little and the ring finger of the right hand usually touch the bow hair, which is used for setting accents. The other two fingers maintain a slight pressure on the strings. A common technique with other string instruments is the "Kist". When the bow direction changes, the right hand moves a little bit in advance to the opposite direction to avoid scratchy sounds and for achieving a better voice. When pushing the bow the hand closes a little bit in direction of a fist, when pulling it the hand opens - nearly to a right angle between the arm and the fingers.
The instrument can be used for playing western style classical music, or Mongolian style pieces. The primary education is to learn the scales, to train the ear for achieving the "muscle memory", the ability to automatically adapt the finger position when a note wasn't hit properly. The main goal is to achieve a "clear" sound, that means no change in volume or frequency is desired. That depends on three main facts:
- finger force used for touching the strings - pressure of the bow - constant sound after bow direction changes
As variation are usually used the "accent" and the "vibrato". Other techniques like the "Col legno", the "Pizzicato" or the "Martellato" are generally not used on the Morin Huur.
Because of its standard tune to Bb and F mostly western music is transposed for being played in one of the four most common scales: F major, F minor, B♭ Major, E♭ major. When used as a solo instrument the Morin Huur is often tuned a half tone higher or lower.
Nearly all of the Mongolian style pieces are in F minor, and often the instrument is tuned 1-2 notes lower for coming closer to the tunes used in the deep past. The instruments in the pre-socialist era of Mongolia were usually covered with skin, which mostly doesn't allow the Bb and F tune - usually tuned 2-4 notes deeper.
On the contemporary Morin Khuur the deep string is placed at the right side and the high string is placed at the left side, seen from the front of the instrument. The Igil has the opposite placement of strings, so a player has to adapt in order to play pieces made for the other one. For contemporary teaching the modern style is in use.
Education
In Mongolia, the morin khuur can be learned at three schools:
The SUIS (соёлын урлагын их сургууль), Engl. "University of Arts and Culture". Here, students enter in adult age for obtaining a bachelor's degree after 2 years and a master's degree after 5 years of musical education. After the master's degree, the students are considered to be professional musicians, and can play at one of the state ensembles or later become a teacher at the SUIS.
Mongolian State Conservatory (Монгол Улсын Консерватори). Accepting students who are not older than 10 years old for the morin khuur class at the conservatory and since September 2017, the conservatory has been offering a Bachelor of Music and a Master of Music in Morin Khuur Performance degree.
The culture school of the SUIS (СУИСы, соёлын сургууль). Here several qualification courses are available. Graduates from this school mostly become teachers or enter the SUIS.
Also many amateur players acquired reasonable skills by taking lessons from private teachers, or being taught by their parents or other relatives.
Cultural influence
Mongolian musicians play the morin khur
The morin khuur is the national instrument in Mongolia. Many festivals are held for celebrating the importance of this instrument on the Mongolian culture, like the biannual "International Morin Huur Festival and Competition", which is organized by the "World Morinhuur Association". First held in 2008, second in 2010 - with 8 participating countries (Mongolia, Korea, China, Russia, USA, Germany, France, Japan) - and planned for May 2012. Here, many amateurs come and play freestyle pieces, but also a professional contest is held and an instrument making competition.
During June, the "Roaring Hooves" festival is held. This is a small festival for professional skilled players - but unfortunately a closed festival. These recordings are often shown in TV reports later.
On the national festival "Naadam" praise songs are played for the most magnificent horse and for the highest ranked wrestler and archer. The songs are called "Magtaal" and accompanied by a unique style of praise and morin khuur.
Many Mongolians have the instrument in their home because it is a symbol for peace and happiness.
During the winter time, but also at the beginning of the spring time, a morin khuur player is called in for the "жавар үргээх", the "ceremony for scaring away the frost". In general, many traditional pieces are played, divided in the different styles: "уртын дуу", "urtiin duu" (long song), "магтаал", "magtaal" (praise songs) and "татлага", "tatlaga" (solo pieces, mostly imitating horses or camels).
The fourth style, the "биелгее" is rarely played in these ceremonies, but in western Mongolia it is common for accompanying "tatlaga dancing" in 3 times - like a waltz, but with dance movements imitating daily tasks of a nomad's family.
A number of folk metal and folk rock bands from Mongolia and the Chinese autonomous region of Inner Mongolia have combined heavy metal and rock music with traditional Mongolian lyrical themes and instruments, including the morin khuur; some of these bands include Altan Urag, Nine Treasures, Tengger Cavalry, Hanggai, and the Hu.
Animal psychological healing use by Gobi Desert farmers
In the Mongolian Gobi farmer's daily life, the Morin Khuur has another important use. When a mother camel gives birth to a calf, sometimes she rejects her calf due to various natural stress situations. Mongolian camel farmers use Morin Khuur-based melodies alongside special low-harmonic types of songs called "Khoosloh" to heal the mother camels' stress and encourage her to re-adopt her calf. This re-adoption of farm animal practice is widely used in various nomadic civilizations worldwide but for Mongolian Gobi farmers' cases, only this instrument is used on camels. In other cases, if a mother camel dies after giving birth to a calf, a farmer would use this Khoosloh technique alongside Morin Khuur melodies to encourage another mother camel who has her own calf to adopt the new one. The practice is well documented in the documentary called Ingen Egshig directed by Badraa J. in 1986[4] and was also remade in 2003 by director Byambasuren Davaa with a different title of The Story of the Weeping Camel which was nominated in 2005Academy Award for Best Documentary.
The cello ( CHEL-oh; plural celli or cellos) or violoncello ( VY-ə-lən-CHEL-oh; Italian pronunciation: [vjolonˈtʃɛllo]) is a bowed (sometimes plucked and occasionally hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually tuned in perfect fifths: from low to high, C2, G2, D3 and A3. The viola's four strings are each an octave higher. Music for the cello is generally written in the bass clef, with tenor clef, or alto clef, and treble clef used for higher-range passages.
The violin, sometimes known as a fiddle, is a wooden chordophone in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in the family in regular use. The violin typically has four strings, usually tuned in perfect fifths with notes G3, D4, A4, E5, and is most commonly played by drawing a bow across its strings. It can also be played by plucking the strings with the fingers (pizzicato) and, in specialized cases, by striking the strings with the wooden side of the bow.
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.
Music is an integral part of Mongolian culture. Among the unique contributions of Mongolia to the world's musical culture are the long songs, overtone singing and morin khuur, the horse-headed fiddle. The music of Mongolia is also rich with varieties related to the various ethnic groups of the country: Oirats, Hotogoid, Tuvans, Darhad, Buryats, Tsaatan, Dariganga, Uzemchins, Barga, Kazakhs and Khalha.
The erhu is a Chinese two-stringed bowed musical instrument, more specifically a spike fiddle, which may also be called a Southern Fiddle, and is sometimes known in the Western world as the Chinese violin or a Chinese two-stringed.
The igil is a two-stringed Tuvan musical instrument, played by bowing the strings. The neck and lute-shaped sound box are usually made of a solid piece of pine or larch. The top of the sound box may be covered with skin or a thin wooden plate. The strings, and those of the bow, are traditionally made of hair from a horse's tail, but may also be made of nylon. Like the morin khuur of Mongolia, the igil typically features a carved horse's head at the top of the neck above the tuning pegs, and both instruments are known as the horsehead fiddle.
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Bowed string instruments are a subcategory of string instruments that are played by a bow rubbing the strings. The bow rubbing the string causes vibration which the instrument emits as sound.
The music of Central Asia is as vast and unique as the many cultures and peoples who inhabit the region. Principal instrument types are two- or three-stringed lutes, the necks either fretted or fretless; fiddles made of horsehair; flutes, mostly open at both ends and either end-blown or side-blown; and jew harps, mostly metal. Percussion instruments include frame drums, tambourines, and kettledrums. Instrumental polyphony is achieved primarily by lutes and fiddles.
Huqin is a family of bowed string instruments, more specifically, a spike fiddle popularly used in Chinese music. The instruments consist of a round, hexagonal, or octagonal sound box at the bottom with a neck attached that protrudes upwards. They also usually have two strings, and their soundboxes are typically covered with either snakeskin or thin wood. Huqin instruments usually have two tuning pegs, one peg for each string. The pegs are attached horizontally through holes drilled in the instrument's neck. Most huqin have the bow hair pass in between the strings. Exceptions to having two strings and pegs include variations of huqin with three, four, and sometimes even more than five. These include the zhuihu, a three stringed huqin, the sihu, a huqin of Mongolian origin, and the sanhu, a lesser-known three-stringed variation.
Horse-head fiddle may refer to any of several types of bowed string instruments which often feature a carved horse's head at the peghead:
The sihu is a Chinese bowed string instrument with four strings. It is a member of the huqin family of instruments.
Playing the violin entails holding the instrument between the jaw and the collar bone. The strings are sounded either by drawing the bow across them (arco), or by plucking them (pizzicato). The left hand regulates the sounding length of the strings by stopping them against the fingerboard with the fingers, producing different pitches.
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The xiqin was a bowed string musical instrument. It is perhaps the original member of the huqin family of Chinese and Mongolian bowed string instruments; thus, the erhu and morin khuur and all similar fiddle instruments may be said to be derived from the xiqin. The xiqin had two silk strings and was held vertically.
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The Kemençe of the Black Sea is a Greek and Turkish traditional musical instrument. It belongs to the category of stringed bowed musical instruments. It has three strings, usually tuned to perfect fourths, usually tuned B-E-A. It is the pre-eminent musical folk instrument of the Greeks of Pontus. It seems to have been invented during the Byzantine years, between the 11th and 12th Centuries. The instrument is made of different types of wood.
The Apkhyarta (Ap'hyartsa) is a bowed long-neck lute from Abkhazia. Bowed instrument of 1-2 strings played in Abkhazia. Ap'hyartsa, a two-stringed instrument with a narrow spindle-shaped frame, played with a bow and usually carved from alder wood.
The chuniri is a bowed musical instrument of Georgia.
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