The Gaohu Tradition

Retuned by Lü Wencheng in 1920s Shanghai, the gaohu became the lead fiddle of Cantonese music and opera

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Gaohu

Time and place

The gaohu appeared in Shanghai in the 1920s. Lü Wencheng, a Cantonese from Zhongshan, and a circle of Cantonese musicians recording and playing in Shanghai replaced the erhu's outer string with steel and raised the tuning by a fourth, getting a brighter, more penetrating sound. The instrument then travelled back to Guangzhou and Hong Kong and became the lead of Cantonese music and opera.

What happened

Shanghai's record industry and dance halls gave Cantonese music a new stage, and the quiet erhu lost out before amplification. Lü's change solved the problem, and the higher register and flexible slides suited Cantonese tones and the ornamented style. After the 1950s the gaohu entered the modern orchestra as its top string voice, while Cantonese opera and Cantonese music societies kept it as the leading instrument.

Musical features

The gaohu is built like the erhu with a smaller body and two strings tuned a fourth above, usually g1-d2. The player holds the body between the legs, using knee pressure to shape volume and colour, which is its most distinctive feature. The tone is bright with a slight nasal edge, and slides and ornaments are its language; Cantonese music uses major-second and minor-third slides to decorate. Techniques include fast bowing, slides, vibrato, flowered fingering and stopped bowing.

What to listen for

Hear the nasal edge inside the brightness, then how slides imitate Cantonese tones. Gaohu phrases love ornament, often sliding up at the end; knee pressure keeps loud notes from bursting and soft ones from vanishing. The library's Luo Yu Da from Guangzhou, Haidi Zhenzhu from Zhongshan and Longzhou Song from Guangdong are a Cantonese children's rhyme, a Zhongshan water song and a Cantonese narrative song, not gaohu recordings.

Common misunderstandings

The gaohu is often assumed to be ancient and Cantonese. It is a 1920s Shanghai invention by Cantonese musicians, and Lü Wencheng's name belongs to the story; before that Cantonese music used the erxian and erhu. Another mistake is to think it is only an erhu under a new name: tuning, the leg-held body and the repertory all differ.

Sources

• 《中国音乐词典》编辑部编，中国音乐词典（人民音乐出版社）— 条目与年代核对，未引用
• The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd ed., entry "China" — framework and dates checked, not quoted

Used for fact-checking only; all prose is original.