The ''maguhu'' ( 馬骨胡; simplified: 马骨胡;

pinyin Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally written in Chinese fo ...

: mǎgǔhú) is a Chinese

bowed 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. Despite the numerous specialist studies devoted to t ...

string instrument 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. Musicians play some string instruments by plucking the s ...

in the ''

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 u ...

'' family of

musical instruments A musical instrument is a device created or adapted to make musical sounds. In principle, any object that produces sound can be considered a musical instrument—it is through purpose that the object becomes a musical instrument. A person who pl ...

. It has two strings and its sound box is made from the

femur The femur (; ), or thigh bone, is the proximal bone of the hindlimb in tetrapod vertebrates. The head of the femur articulates with the acetabulum in the pelvic bone forming the hip joint, while the distal part of the femur articulates ...

bone of a

horse The horse (''Equus ferus caballus'') is a domesticated, one-toed, hoofed mammal. It belongs to the taxonomic family Equidae and is one of two extant subspecies of ''Equus ferus''. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million yea ...

(or alternatively a

cow Cattle (''Bos taurus'') are large, domesticated, cloven-hooved, herbivores. They are a prominent modern member of the subfamily Bovinae and the most widespread species of the genus ''Bos''. Adult females are referred to as cows and adult ma ...

mule The mule is a domestic equine hybrid between a donkey and a horse. It is the offspring of a male donkey (a jack) and a female horse (a mare). The horse and the donkey are different species, with different numbers of chromosomes; of the two po ...

). The front end of the sound box is covered with snake skin (or, alternatively, shark or frog skin), and the end of the neck is carved in the shape of a horse's head. The ''maguhu'' is used primarily by the Zhuang and

Buyei The Bouyei (also spelled ''Puyi'', ''Buyei'' and ''Buyi''; self called: Buxqyaix, or "Puzhong", "Burao", "Puman"; ; vi, người Bố Y), otherwise known as the Zhongjia, are an ethnic group living in Southern Mainland China. Numbering 2.5 mil ...

peoples of the southern Chinese province of

Guangxi Guangxi (; ; alternately romanized as Kwanghsi; ; za, Gvangjsih, italics=yes), officially the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region (GZAR), is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China, located in South China and bordering Vietnam ...

. It is used in the ensemble that accompanies ''guiju'' (桂剧; Guangxi opera) and is also used in the ''bayin'' ( 八音) ensemble of the Zhuang people (along with the ''

tuhu The ''tuhu'' ( 土胡, pinyin: tǔhú) is a Chinese bowed string instrument in the ''huqin'' family of instruments. It is used primarily by non-Han ethnic groups of southern China, particularly the Zhuang, who live in the Guangxi province and us ...

'', ''

huluhu The ''huluhu'' (traditional: 葫蘆胡; simplified: 葫芦胡; pinyin: húlúhú) is a Chinese bowed string instrument in the ''huqin'' family of instruments. It has two strings, and its sound box is made from a gourd, with a face made of thin wo ...

'', ''

sanxian The (, literally "three strings") is a three-stringed traditional Chinese lute. It has a long fretless fingerboard, and the body is traditionally made from snake skin stretched over a rounded rectangular resonator. It is made in several siz ...

'', drums, cymbals, and other instruments). The instrument's name is derived from the Chinese words ''mǎ gǔ'', meaning "horse bone," and ''hú'' (short for ''huqin'').

External links

Maguhu page
(Chinese)

(Chinese)
Maguhu page
(Chinese)
Maguhu photo
Chinese musical instruments Drumhead lutes Huqin family instruments {{huqin-stub

See also

External links