The tuhu is a Chinese bowed

Bow (music)

In music, a bow is moved across some part of a musical instrument, causing vibration which the instrument emits as sound. The vast majority of bows are used with string instruments, although some bows are used with musical saws and other bowed idiophones....

 string instrument

String instrument

A string instrument is a musical instrument that produces sound by means of vibrating strings. In the Hornbostel-Sachs scheme of musical instrument classification, used in organology, they are called chordophones...

 in the huqin

Huqin

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...

family of instruments. It is used primarily by non-Han

Han Chinese

Han Chinese are an ethnic group native to China and are the largest single ethnic group in the world.Han Chinese constitute about 92% of the population of the People's Republic of China , 98% of the population of the Republic of China , 78% of the population of Singapore, and about 20% of the...

 ethnic groups of southern China, particularly the Zhuang, who live in the Guangxi

Guangxi

Guangxi, formerly romanized Kwangsi, is a province of southern China along its border with Vietnam. In 1958, it became the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China, a region with special privileges created specifically for the Zhuang people.Guangxi's location, in...

 province and use it in their bayin (八音, lit. "eight sounds") ensemble. It is also used in Yunnan

Yunnan

Yunnan is a province of the People's Republic of China, located in the far southwest of the country spanning approximately and with a population of 45.7 million . The capital of the province is Kunming. The province borders Burma, Laos, and Vietnam.Yunnan is situated in a mountainous area, with...

, most prominently in Funing County, Wenshan Zhuang and Miao Autonomous Prefecture

Wenshan Zhuang and Miao Autonomous Prefecture

Wenshan Zhuang and Miao Autonomous Prefecture is an autonomous prefecture in Yunnan Province, China.-Subdivisions:-Ethnic groups:Wenshan is highly diverse...

.

The instrument's sound box is made from a bottle gourd

Calabash

Lagenaria siceraria , bottle gourd, opo squash or long melon is a vine grown for its fruit, which can either be harvested young and used as a vegetable, or harvested mature, dried, and used as a bottle, utensil, or pipe. For this reason, the calabash is widely known as the bottle gourd...

, which is covered on the playing end with snake skin. The instrument has two strings that are tuned to the interval of a fifth. It is held vertically and produces a lower pitched sound than the maguhu

Maguhu

The maguhu is a Chinese bowed string instrument in the huqin family of musical instruments. It has two strings and its sound box is made from the femur bone of a horse...

, another southern Chinese fiddle with which it is sometimes played.

External links

• Tuhu page (Chinese)

See also

• Huqin
  Huqin
  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...
  
  
• Traditional Chinese musical instruments
  Traditional Chinese musical instruments
  -The Eight Sounds or Eight Tones :The eight categories are: silk, bamboo, wood, stone, metal, clay, gourd and hide. There are other instruments which may not fit these classifications. This is one of the first musical classifications ever.-Silk :...