Erhu is one of the most representative national stringed instruments in my country. It has both practical and appreciative functions, and has accumulated a profound historical and cultural heritage. The erhu plays a very important role in our cultural life as the violin plays in the western musical instruments.

Due to the influence of regional historical and cultural factors, erhu is divided into north and south.

The traditional southern erhu has a pure sound quality, a sweet and uniform tone, and a sensitive response; the northern erhu has a rough sound quality and a large volume.

With the continuous development of erhu playing methods and expressions, new requirements have also been put forward for traditional erhu:

It must not only have the advantages of the southern erhu, but also combine the strengths of the northern erhu. In other words, it is necessary to pursue the purity of sound quality, the sweet and unified sound, and the sensitive response, but also the pursuit of loud volume.

However, although the sound of the erhu is beautiful, its production skills are extremely complicated, and the most difficult thing is that the differences between the north and the south cannot be integrated: if you want to carry forward the advantages of the southern erhu, the volume will be too low, if you increase the volume, the charm of the erhu will be lost. . How to achieve the unity of the two and meet the needs of the development of erhu art is a major problem in the performance of Chinese national music. Therefore, in order to further improve the quality of erhu, and to effectively control the processing process of ethnic musical instruments, based on my more than 20 years of experience in the production of ethnic musical instruments, I try to put forward the following specifications for the selection of erhu materials and the production of ethnic musical instruments.

1. Requirements for the selection of erhu materials

The wood used for erhu is mainly mahogany.

According to the tree species name, wood characteristics, main producing areas and the individual appearance characteristics of the species of mahogany, we can divide mahogany into: rosewood, rosewood, fragrant wood, black rosewood, red rosewood Wood, ebony, striped ebony, wenge, etc. These names are collective names for the major wood species of mahogany.

They all have one fundamentally similar feature:

The color of the heartwood has the characteristics of color as the base color (light red, red, purple red, rose red, golden red, brown red, black red), the material density basically belongs to the largest type of wood, and the cell wall is thick and the cell cavity is small. , tracheids are basically scattered pores or semi-scattered. Due to the penetration of pigments, tanning materials, resins and other oxides in wood cells, the color of mahogany will change from outside to inside with the action of air weathering and oxidation after felling, and the main feature is that the color becomes darker (to brown). red or black and red), for example:

The red sandalwood is golden-yellow-red in color when it is new, and it gradually evolves to deep purple-red as time changes.

My years of experience in erhu production show that the sound of erhu made of mahogany is round and pure, the sound of the upper and lower positions is even, and the frequency response is wider. Erhu made of red sandalwood has a beautiful and clear voice. However, the vibration is insufficient and the frequency response is narrow. The sound of high-quality erhu should be able to achieve high and low balance, the sound is pure but not cluttered, bright but not noisy, thick but not stuffy. Due to the material structure of mahogany and the uniformity of the material, on the basis of ensuring low frequency, the reflection and transmission ability of high and medium frequency harmonics is good, and the characteristics of uniform coordination, so mahogany is relatively the best material for making erhu. .

2. The production process of erhu

The production process of erhu is mainly done by hand.

The whole process can be roughly divided into nine parts: piano rod production, piano barrel production, piano support production, piano production, piano rod and piano rod installation, piano rod and piano barrel installation, skin, sound window production and whole piano combination. big program. The various programs are closely linked and cannot be separated from each other. First of all, the most critical point is that the erhu craftsman must be professionally trained, have a certain basic knowledge of ethnic musical instruments and the ability to make ethnic musical instruments, and be able to meet the various requirements put forward by the erhu production of ethnic musical instruments. Before starting processing, it is necessary to check whether the product drawings, process regulations and relevant technical data required for production are complete. When cutting materials, different woods should be selected according to the requirements of different musical instrument parts, and the materials should be cut according to the standard size of the parts.

In order to solve the problem of the difference between the north and the south erhu, I have obtained the following experience after years of painstaking research:

In the process of erhu vibration and pronunciation, the resonance effect generated by the membrane and the air column in the drum is the main one. To find the best point, only the membrane and the drum can work hard:

The front mouth of the erhu drum is made thinner, and the contact surface between the film and the front mouth is reduced to increase the vibration range.

The thickness of the barrel material is reasonably thinned, the inner cavity is increased in width, and even the double-dimpled cavity is used to increase the inner cavity volume of the erhu drum to enhance its ability to gather, reflect, and transmit sound.

The stem part is more streamlined to reduce the resistance of the body to vibrate and sound.

The selection of erhu skin (python skin) also raises the requirements. Choose a skin that is strong, bright in color and good elasticity, and strictly control the tightness and balance of the erhu skin (this is directly related to the timbre of the erhu).

The assembly is tight and the angle is suitable.

During production, it should be noted that if it is an erhu used for band accompaniment, the volume is required to be high, and if the high position is not commonly used, the barrel plate can be made thinner. If it is a solo erhu, not only the volume is required to be large, but also the timbre should be good, and the sound of the high position should be able to come out, so the thickness of the barrel plate must be well controlled.

The traditional erhu bars are all round bars, which are easily bent and deformed by the tension of the strings after the strings are installed. Therefore, it is now made of rib bars, one is more comfortable to handle, and the other is to increase the bending strength.

The sound window can beautify the appearance of the erhu piano, which has always been recognized by people. A sound window with a good pattern will add a lot of brilliance to the erhu, but because the opening area of the sound window is closely related to the sound effect, it is hoped that when designing the sound window, in addition to considering the aesthetic appearance, it is also necessary to pay attention to considering the sound and sound. tone effect. Therefore, since the sound window affects the timbre, we can according to the preliminary experiment, the opening area of the sound window should preferably account for about 30% of the total area of the sound window. When designing the sound window, in addition to considering the aesthetic appearance, it is also necessary to pay attention to the sound and timbre effects.

In 2008, the craftsmanship of Suzhou folk musical instruments was included in the National Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage. As the representative of Suzhou national musical instrument production skills, the erhu production skills should be popularized and publicized at the social level. The artisans engaged in erhu production have the responsibility to carry forward the Suzhou national musical instrument production skills and pass them on, so that the artisans at their fingertips The legend continues brilliantly.