Tofu Xiur is a Mongolian and Manchu plucked stringed musical instrument. The Mongolian Oirat dialect "Tofshur" means something to knock. It is also believed that the name comes from the special wood used to make the violin. The shape is similar to that of Arcan Dombra. For solo, folk song and folk dance accompaniment.


The traditional Tofu Xiuer is made of a whole section of pine wood. The folks mostly use the "Tofu Xiula" pine that grows in the top of the mountain, with a slightly hard material and special texture. The total length is 70 cm to 80 cm. centimeter.

The resonance box is flat, mostly round on the top and square on the bottom. The box is 34 cm long, 22 cm at the widest part of the upper circle, and 14 cm wide at the bottom. There are also a few flat trapezoids (the upper two corners are rounded), and the tails are all flat bottoms. It is to excavate the abdominal cavity at one end of the half log, which used to be covered with sheepskin. Now it is made of willow or pine veneer, and there are 1 to 3 circular sound holes in the middle of the panel. The headstock is in the shape of a square column, 9 cm long, with a flat top and no decoration.

There is a red willow wood T-shaped peg on each side of the headstock. The piano bar is a semi-cylindrical body, 37 cm long, flat in the front and round in the back, with equal width up and down. The front is a fretboard with no grade. There is a bridge-shaped bridge under the sound hole of the panel, which is mostly made of wood called "Yashile" in Mongolian. Zhang has two strings. In the past, goat casing strings were mostly used, but now silk strings or nylon strings are mostly used. In the center and four corners of the panel of the piano box, painted Mongolian patterns are decorated.

In the 1970s, musicians from the Art Troupe of Bortala Mongolian Autonomous Prefecture in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region and musical instrument makers from Hohhot National Musical Instrument Factory in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region worked together to successfully develop and reform Tuofu Xiu on the basis of maintaining the original appearance and characteristics of musical instruments. you.

The total length of the reformed Tofushuer is 89 cm, and it is composed of a resonance box, a headstock, a piano rod, a peg, a bridge and a string.

The resonance box is flat, the upper half is round, the lower half is narrow at the top and wide at the bottom, and the tail is flat. The guitar case is made of glued side panels, top panels and back panels. The side board is made of five colored wood veneers according to the outline of the piano. After soaking, it is bent into the required arc. In the wooden mold, the inner side of the side board is glued with pine lining strips, piano corner wood, head wood block and piano tail wood. After the block is made into the frame.

The back board is mostly made of two (paired) or several pieces of color wood, maple and other hard materials, and the front board is made of softer boards such as white pine, spruce or paulownia. The two sides are respectively glued to the surface and the back to form the piano box.

At the top of the piano box, there is a groove for horizontally inserting the piano rod at the head wood block, and a circular tail hole is opened at the tail wood block for installing the tail post. The headstock and stem are made of a single piece of stained wood, walnut or catalpa. The headstock is flat on the top and bottom, 11 cm long, the upper part is wider and slightly curved back, the front is painted with ethnic patterns, the lower part has a bottom string groove in the middle, and two pegs (one on each side) are provided on both sides. Made of mahogany or rosewood in the shape of a violin tuner.


The piano bar is thin and long, and it is a semi-cylindrical body, 40 cm long, 2.2 cm wide at the top, and 3 cm wide at the bottom, flat at the front and round at the back, thin at the top and thick at the bottom. The fretboard is made of mahogany, the surface is not graded, and the lower end of the piano bar is inserted into the groove at the upper end of the piano box.


There is a circular sound hole in the center of the upper part of the panel, and a wooden bridge is placed below, with two steel nylon strings. The center and four corners of the piano case panel are painted with Mongolian-style patterns, and black and white trims are embedded around the edges.