morin khuur

• Name — Морин хуур Möring qughur • Names — Шоор (Shoor), Икил (Ikil) • Background — string • Classification — Bowed string instrument • Related — Byzaanchy, Igil, Kobyz, Gusle • Articles — Music of Mongolia

• Ich — Traditional music of the Morin Khuur • State Party — Mongolia • Id — 00068 • Region — APA • Year — 2008 • Session — 3rd • List — Representative The morin khuur (；Mandarin Chinese: 马头琴 Mǎ tóu qín), also known as the horsehead fiddle, is a traditional Mongolian bowed string instrument. It is one of the most important musical instruments of the Mongol people, and is considered a symbol of the nation of Mongolia. The morin khuur is one of the Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity identified by UNESCO.

In Mongolian, the instrument is usually called morin khuur or "horse fiddle". The full Classical Mongolian name for the morin khuur is morin toloğay’ta quğur, (which in modern Khalkh cyrillic is Морин толгойтой хуур) meaning fiddle with a horse's head. Usually it is abbreviated as "Морин хуур", Latin transcription "Morin huur". In western Mongolia it is known as ikil (—not to be confused with the similar Tuvan igil)—while in eastern Mongolia it is known as shoor.

The instrument consists of a trapeziform wooden-framed sound box to which two strings are attached. It is held nearly upright with the sound box in the musician's lap or between the musician's legs. The strings are made from hairs from nylon or horses' tails, strung parallel, and run over a wooden bridge on the body up a long neck, past a second smaller bridge, to the two tuning pegs in the scroll, which is usually carved into the form of a horse's head. The bow is loosely strung with horse hair coated with larch or cedar wood resin, and is held from underneath with the right hand. The underhand grip enables the hand to tighten the loose hair of the bow, allowing very fine control of the instrument's timbre. Originally, the larger of the two strings (the "male" string) was made up of 130 hairs from a stallion's tail, while the "female" string has 105 hairs from a mare's tail, although modern strings are often made of nylon. Traditionally, the strings were tuned a fifth apart, though in modern music they are more often tuned a fourth apart, usually to B-flat and F. The strings are stopped either by pinching them in the joints of the index and middle fingers, or by pinching them between the nail of the little finger and the pad of the ring finger. Traditionally, the frame is covered with camel, goat, or sheep skin, in which case a small opening would be left in the back. However, since the 1970s, new completely wooden sound box instruments have appeared, with carved f-holes similar to European string instruments. A beginner-grade morin khuur typically features a pine top with birch or laminated back and sides. In contrast, player-grade morin khuur is crafted from higher quality tonewoods, such as spruce for the top and birch for the back and sides. Some instruments, particularly those intended for classical music, use maple for the back and sides to produce a brighter sound. The modern standard height is 1.15 m; the distance between the upper bridge and the lower bridge is about 60 cm, but the upper bridge especially can be adapted to match smaller player's fingers. The sound box usually has a depth of 8 –; the width of the soundbox is about 20 cm at the top and 25 cm at the bottom. Good quality instruments can achieve a strength of 85 dBA, which allows it to be played (if desired) even in mezzoforte or crescendo. When horsehair is used, the luthiers prefer to use the hair of white stallions. In general the quality of a horse hair string depends several factors, including its preparation, the climate conditions and the nutrition of the animals, resulting in a wide range of quality. Quality nylon strings (Khalkh Mongolian: сатуркан хялгас) last for up to 2 years, but only if prepared and placed properly on the instrument. Most beginners don't comb the strings, resulting in quick deterioration of sound quality. Good strings nearly sound like steel strings, and in spectrograms they show about 7-8 harmonics. Morin khuur vary in form depending on region. Instruments from central Mongolia tend to have larger bodies and thus develop higher amplitude (i.e. they sound louder) than the smaller-bodied instruments of Inner Mongolia. In addition, the Inner Mongolian instruments have mostly mechanics for tightening the strings, where Mongolian luthiers mostly use traditional ebony or rosewood pegs in a slightly conic shape.

• Illustration — Morin khuur, Inner Mongolian style in China One legend about the origin of the morin khuur is that a shepherd named Namjil the Cuckoo (or Khuhuu Namjil) received the gift of a flying horse; he would mount it at night and fly to meet his beloved. A jealous woman had the horse's wings cut off so that the horse fell from the air and died. The grieving shepherd made a horsehead fiddle from the now-wingless horse's skin and tail hair and used it to play poignant songs about his horse. Another legend credits the invention of the morin khuur to a boy named Sükhe (or Suho). After a wicked lord slew the boy's prized white horse, the horse's spirit came to Sükhe in a dream and instructed him to make an instrument from the horse's body, so the two could still be together and neither would be lonely. So the first morin khuur was assembled, with horse bones as its neck, horsehair strings, horse skin covering its wooden soundbox, and its scroll carved into the shape of a horse head. The fact that most of the eastern Turkic neighbors of the Mongols possess similar horse hair instruments (such as the Tuvan igil, the Kazakh kobyz, or the Kyrgyz Kyl kyyak), though not western Turkic, is a testament to the shared musical heritage across the various Khanates that mutually ruled these people. The gusle/lahuta from Southeastern Europe (Serbia, Croatia & Albania) is a very similar instrument, and may have been brought along trade routes that both Mongolia and the Balkans shared. Often these instruments are depicted with a goat head instead of a horse in Europe.

• Illustration — Students playing the morin khuur at the Zaisan Memorial, Ulaanbaatar. In Mongolia, the morin khuur can be learned at three schools: • The SUIS (соёлын урлагын их сургууль), Engl. "University of Arts and Culture". Here, students enter in adult age for obtaining a bachelor's degree after 2 years and a master's degree after 5 years of musical education. After the master's degree, the students are considered to be professional musicians, and can play at one of the state ensembles or later become a teacher at the SUIS. • Mongolian State Conservatory (Монгол Улсын Консерватори). Accepting students who are not older than 10 years old for the morin khuur class at the conservatory and since September 2017, the conservatory has been offering a Bachelor of Music and a Master of Music in Morin Khuur Performance degree. • The culture school of the SUIS (СУИСы, соёлын сургууль). Here several qualification courses are available. Graduates from this school mostly become teachers or enter the SUIS. Also many amateur players acquired reasonable skills by taking lessons from private teachers, or being taught by their parents or other relatives.

In the Mongolian Gobi herder's daily life, the Morin Khuur has another important use. When a mother camel gives birth to a calf, sometimes she rejects her calf due to various natural stress situations. Mongolian camel herders use Morin Khuur-based melodies alongside special low-harmonic types of songs called "Khoosloh" to heal the mother camel's stress and encourage her to re-adopt her calf. While re-adoption in animal husbandry practice is widely used in various nomadic civilizations worldwide, uniquely for Mongolian Gobi herders, only this instrument is used with camels. If a mother camel dies after giving birth to a calf, the herder would use this Khoosloh technique alongside Morin Khuur melodies to encourage another mother camel who has her own calf to adopt the new one. The practice is well documented in the documentary called Ingen Egshig directed by Badraa J. in 1986 and was also remade in 2003 by director Byambasuren Davaa with a different title of The Story of the Weeping Camel which was nominated in 2005 Academy Award for Best Documentary.