What is this instrument?

[Zhukov]

There's a certain sound that shows up frequently in Asian or Oriental themed songs and soundtracks, to the point of cliche. I wish to know what instrument makes this sound.

Here's an example [https://soundcloud.com/deankinersounds/eh-admiral-yi?in=deankinersounds/sets/extra-history-byzantine-music].

The specific sound I mean is the second note to play in that track and continues throughout. It sounds, at least to my musically challenged ears, like a bow-and-strings instrument, something like a violin or cello.

Can anyone enlighten me?

 

[Dizchu]

It sounds like an Erhu to me, though I know there are a variety of Asian stringed instruments that have similar timbres.


Judge for yourself. Bowed instruments aren't my speciality though, I'll probably be corrected.

 

[renegade7]

It's one of the Asian stringed instruments, though from the sound byte alone it's impossible to tell exactly which. But Erhu ("Chinese Violin") is probably a good guess given its popularity.

It could also be interchanged with a bamboo flute (literally a transverse flute carved from a reed of bamboo), they sound similar and if the audio quality isn't excellent or it's played in background music in a scene with other things going on then you probably wouldn't be able to tell the difference anyway.

 

[Zhukov]

It sounds like an Erhu to me...

Yeah, that certainly sounds right.

Thanks. Not knowing what it was was driving me nuts every time I heard it.

 

[lechat]

pretty easy to identify it as a bowed instrument from the attacks and slides but judging from the string tension I'd also say you have one of the chinese zither type instruments in there as well, maybe one of these:


although I'm not familiar enough with the tuning to tell you.