Traditional Chinese music instruments - guqin,guzheng,pipa,erhu,yangqin,Konghou,sanxian,liuqin...all about strings. Erhu ()- or Er-Hu, a two-stringed fiddle, is one of the most popular Chinese instruments in the Hu-qin () family, where Hu stands for "foreign" or "the northern folk" in Chinese, and "qin" is a general name for all kinds of string instruments.
(more information about Erhu ...). Zhong-Hu (): If we call the "Erhu" Chinese violin, the Zhong-Hu is then the Chinese viola, where "Zhong" stands for "middle", thus the abbreviated name for the mid-pitched Erhu. It was developed on the basis of Erhu in the 1940s. Both the structure and performing skill of these two kinds of Hu-Qin are quite the same, yet Zhong-Hu has a deeper-sounding timbre but not as agile. Being more suitable for singing melodies (particularly some Mongolian melodies), Zhong-Hu is thus often used as tutti or accompanying instruments, sometimes for solo too. Tanbur. Also spelled: Tanbour / Tanboor / Tambour: The Tanbur, in the East refers to a category of popular lutes of various sizes, proportions, and sounds, with the common characteristic that their necks are longer than their bodies.
The sober tones of the instrument have something immaterial, abstract, and almost ascetic about them, predisposing the tanbur to a serious and celestial kind of music. The tanbur was among the instruments played at the Court of the Sassanides in the 5th and 6th centuries, and would later be used by some Kurdish groups to accompany the chants and dances of their spiritual gatherings. For more information on the tanbur, including its repertoire, history, typology, and playing technique, please see “The Spirit of Sounds: The Unique Art of Ostad Elahi,”
ATLAS of Plucked Instruments. Instrument Building. Banjo.