Picture of dizi

Music in Madagascar

Madagascar is an island off the east coast of Mozambique in the Indian Ocean. This blend of cultural influences is evident in the music of the Malagasy people, which can be roughly divided into three categories: traditional, contemporary, and popular music

Musicians in rural Fianarantsoa district

Instruments and vocal styles, as well as the style and purpose of music, traditionally vary widely from one region to the next. The oldest musical traditions are those of the Highland peoples, who trace their ancestry back to the original Malayo-Polynesian settlers.

Traditional instruments include the valiha, a bamboo tube zither very similar in form to those used traditionally in western Indonesia. The strings were originally raised from the fibers of the bamboo tube itself, although a contemporary form also exists that uses bicycle brake cables for strings instead to give the instrument a punchier sound. 

The Dizi, is a chinese flute. It is also sometimes known as the di or hengdi, and has varieties including the qudi.  The dizi is a major Chinese musical instrument, and is widely used in many genres of Chinese folk music, as well as Chinese opera, and the modern Chinese orchestra. Traditionally, the dizi has also been popular among the Chinese common people, and it is simple to make and easy to carry.

Banhu

The banhu (板胡, pinyin: bǎnhú) is a Chinese traditional bowed string instrument in the huqin family of instruments. It is used primarily in northern China. Ban means a piece of wood and hu is short for huqin.

Like the more familiar erhu and gaohu, the banhu has two strings, is held vertically, and the bow hair passes in between the two strings. The banhu differs in construction from the erhu in that its soundbox is generally made from a coconut shell rather than wood, and instead of a snakeskin that is commonly used to cover the faces of huqin instruments, the banhu uses a thin wooden board.

The banhu is sometimes also called "banghu," because it is often used in bangzi opera of northern China, such as Qinqiang from Shaanxi province.

The yehu, another type of Chinese fiddle with a coconut body and wooden face, is used primarily in southern China.

Picture of banhu:

Yangqin

Hammered dulcimers of various types are now very popular not only in China, but also Eastern Europe, the Middle East, India and Pakistan. The instruments are also sometimes known by the names "santur" and "cymbalom".
The yangqin was traditionally fitted with bronze strings (though older Chinese stringed instruments used silk strings, resulting in their, and the yangqin's, categorization as a silk, or "si" instrument), which gave the instrument a soft timbre. Since the 1950s, however, steel alloy strings (in conjunction with copper-wound steel strings for the bass notes) have been used, in order to give the instrument a brighter, and louder tone. 

The modern yangqin can have as many as five courses of bridges and may be arranged chromatically. Traditional instruments, with three or more courses of bridges, are also still widely in use. The instrument's strings are struck with two lightweight bamboo beaters (also known as hammers) with rubber tips. A professional musician often carries several sets of beaters, each of which draws a slightly different tone from the instrument, much like the drum sticks of Western percussionists.

Picture of the Pipa

History of Pipa

The pipa is a four-stringed Chinese instrument, belonging to the plucked category of instruments. Sometimes called the Chinese lute, this instrument have a pear-shaped wooden body.
The historical development of the Pipa begins when the earliest Chinese written texts about the pipa dated back at least to the second century. The name of the instrument pipa originally referred to two finger techniques.
The two Chinese characters p'i and p'a stood originally for the two movements, i.e. plucking the strings forwards and backwards, respectively. In the Qin Dynasty, there had been a kind of plucked-instrument, known as xiantao, with a straight neck and a round sound-body played horizontally, which is considered a predecessor of the pipa.
When the people suffered from being forced to build the Great Wall, they played the instrument to express their resentment.

Picture of Guzheng

A picture of the Guzheng.

Guzheng

The guzheng, is a traditional Chinese musical instrument. It belongs to the zither family of string instruments. The zither has a horizontal wooden box resonator. The resonator has an arched surface and is elongated-trapezoidal with 16 to 21 strings stretched over individual moveable bridges.

How it works?

The guzheng rests on two pedestals and is played using 3 to 8 artificial nails. On the right side of the bridges, both hands may pluck the strings and on the left side, the left fingers bend the strings to change pitch or to provide embellishment.
In the Chinese orchestra, the Guzheng is employed when a special effect such as the descending strains of cascading water is required. Its attraction lies on a water-rippling sound produced when its strings are plucked by fingers in a sweeping manner from the highest note to the lowest note or vice versa.