Ma Touqin's introduction:
Ma Touqin is a two-string stringed instrument with a trapezoidal body and a carved horse-head handle, which is a favorite instrument of Mongolian people. Ma Touqin is a Mongolian folk stringed instrument. Mongolian is called "Chaoer". The piano is made of wood, about one meter long and has two strings. * * * The speaker is trapezoidal, with mellow sound and low volume.
The origin of Ma Touqin:
According to legend, in order to commemorate the pony, a shepherd made a two-stringed piano with his leg bone as a column, skull as a barrel and tail hair as a bowstring, and carved a horse's head on the top of the handle according to the pony's appearance, hence the name. Guo Xiaochuan's poem "The King of Open-hearth Steelmaking" says: "People in pastoral areas smell steel flowers, and yurts pull up Ma Touqin."
Ma Touqin, named after the carved horse's head. "Draft of the Qing Dynasty" contains: "Huqin, smooth in texture, with two strings and a square handle. The groove is oval, pointed and skinned, and there is a wooden hairpin outside the groove. The tap is a mountain pass and the string is hollowed out. Tie it with two axes, one on the left and one on the right, and tie it with the tail of 8 1 stem Trojan horse. " Therefore, Ma Touqin originally had a dragon head.
This point was recorded as early as 7 1 Records of Rites and Music in Yuan Dynasty: "Huqin is made like a fire without thinking, with its neck curled up and two strings leading, pressed by a bow, and the strings of the bow are ponytails." According to rock paintings and some historical materials, the ancient Mongols began to process yogurt spoons, wrapped them in cowhide, and pulled up two ponytail strings as musical instruments, which were called "spoon-shaped huqin".
At present, many experts believe that this is the predecessor of Ma Touqin. At that time, the longest spoon-shaped huqin was about two feet, and the speaker was smaller, so the sound was much smaller.
Up to now, some people in western Mongolia still call Ma Touqin "spoon-shaped huqin". At that time, the piano head was not necessarily a horse's head, but a human head, skull, crocodile head, turtle shell or faucet. In addition, it is said that the head of this kind of piano is in the shape of a monkey head or a martel head.
Martel is shaped like a dragon and a monkey, symbolizing a sacred object that suppresses evil spirits. According to relevant scholars' research, Ma Touqin was born at the end of 19 and the beginning of the 20th century, and the head of the piano was changed from a dragon head or a martel head to a horse head. In addition, there are many kinds of pianos, such as Pihu, Shovel Hu, Xiqin and Xiqin, which were all popular instruments at that time.
In the Yuan Dynasty, with the gradual prosperity of court life, there were specialized performers and dancers in the court, and Ma Touqin gradually became one of the main contents of court music.