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Music of the Uyghurs
[Page 4]
- a fiddle with a soundboard of wood or stretched skin. The largest of the Uyghur ghijek is found amongst the Dolan, with one horse-hair melodic string and several metal sympathetic strings. The Qumul ghijek has two bowed strings tuned a fifth apart, and six to eight sympathetic strings. The earliest Chinese historical records relate that a bowed instrument strung with horse-hair was played in the Qumul region, but the contemporary instrument is probably a fairly recent hybrid between the Chinese erhu fiddle and the Uyghur ghijek, testament to the Chinese cultural influence in this easternmost point of Xinjiang. The ghijek now played by professional musicians was adapted in the 1950s, today its four metal strings are tuned like the violin but its playing technique is closer to the Iranian spike fiddle, held on the knee, the bow is held loosely in the hand, palm upwards, and the strings are pressed against the bow by pivoting the instrument. This ghijek is also found in soprano and tenor versions.
- now a prominent instrument in the professional troupes, the khushtar viol was developed in the 1960s, modelled in its shape on instruments depicted in Xinjiang´s early Buddhist cave murals. It is tuned and bowed like the professional ghijek, but its tone is lower and softer, since the whole instrument is made of wood. It is also found in soprano and tenor versions.
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