The Jinghu Tradition

A bamboo tube faced with snakeskin, the jinghu is the highest fiddle of the Peking opera band, supporting every turn of the voice

Related

JinghuXipiErhuang

Time and place

The jinghu appeared with Peking opera itself. In 1790 the Anhui troupes entered Beijing, Anhui and Hubei styles merged, the xipi-erhuang idiom took shape, and the lead fiddle changed from the Anhui huqin to a bamboo-tube, snakeskin jinghu. Theatres around Qianmen and Dazhalan in Beijing, and the port theatres of Tianjin and Shanghai, were where it first took hold.

What happened

Peking opera prizes clear words and round tone, and the accompaniment must support the voice without covering it; the jinghu, high, bright and slightly hoarse, can shadow every turn. The wind band is led by jinghu with yueqin and sanxian, and in the 1920s Wang Shaoqing added the jing'erhu for Mei Lanfang, thickening the texture into the combination still used. The instrument also grew a solo life, with the labelled tune Night Deepening arranged as a concert piece.

Musical features

The body is a bamboo tube covered with snakeskin, the neck also bamboo, two strings, a stiff bow. Tuning follows the mode: la-mi for xipi, sol-re for erhuang, an octave or so above the erhu, with a hard, slightly hoarse tone. The small tube and tight skin make the sound start and stop quickly, suiting short strokes and fast shifts. Techniques include fast bowing, shaking bow, slides, vibrato, strikes and harmonics; accompanying means knowing when to yield and when to press.

What to listen for

Hear the dry, piercing bamboo-and-skin edge, then the breathing between fiddle and voice. Xipi phrases leap, erhuang phrases sink, and a change of tuning changes the colour. The library's Dui Hua from Anhui, Guang Huadeng and Hua Mulan from Beijing are an Anhui tune and two Beijing tunes, not jinghu recordings, but they point to the opera's Anhui roots and the speech of its home city.

Common misunderstandings

The jinghu is often described as a shrunk erhu. It has a bamboo tube and snakeskin, a bamboo neck and a stiff bow, a higher register and a drier sound; the erhu has a wooden body, python skin and no fingerboard, and sounds softer. Another mistake is to think the jinghu only accompanies: in pieces such as Night Deepening it is the soloist, though its solo repertory is smaller than the erhu's.

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.