We know many musical instruments well, such as pianos, violins, drums and so on. What about the erhu? The erhu is a traditional Chinese instrument. It is different from Western string instruments because it has no board to hold the strings down.
我们对许多乐器都很熟悉，如钢琴、小提琴、鼓等。那么二胡呢？二胡是中国的传统乐器。它不同于西方的弦乐器，因为它没有固定琴弦的指板。
The player puts it on the knee while moving the bow to create sound. If you learn to play erhu, you have to know where the notes are on the strings, which is similar to English learning, where one has to spell and pronounce the words right in the first place.
演奏者将其放在膝盖上，同时拉动琴弓来发声。如果你想学习二胡，你必须知道音符在琴弦上的位置，这与学习英语类似，你得先把单词拼对、读准。
The modern erhu developed from the xiqin, played by many ethnic minorities during the Tang Dynasty. In the Song Dynasty, musicians used the erhu to perform different kinds of music. With the rise of some forms of folk art, the art of the erhu developed quickly during the Ming and Qing Dynasties. At present, it is used in both traditional and modern music, such as in pop, rock and jazz. One of the most famous musical pieces played on the erhu is Erquan Yingyue, first played by a blind musician. You can now hear the erhu in some popular historical dramas.
现代二胡是从唐代许多少数民族演奏的奚琴演变而来的。在宋代，乐师们用二胡演奏不同类型的乐曲。随着一些民间艺术形式的兴起，二胡艺术在明清时期迅速发展。目前，二胡不仅用于传统音乐，而且也用于现代音乐，如流行乐、摇滚乐和爵士乐。最著名的二胡曲目之一是《二泉映月》，这首曲子最初是由一位盲人音乐家演奏的。现在，你可以在一些热门历史剧中听到二胡的声音。
As the erhu was mainly played by common people and the playing skills were passed down orally from father to son, there are few written records about the erhu that can be found. To study the history and the development of the erhu, historians usually turn to ancient paintings. In Yulin Caves and Eastern Thousand Buddha Caves in Gansu Province, five erhu pictures were discovered on murals.
由于二胡的演奏者主要是普通百姓，演奏技巧也是从父到子世代口头相传，因此有关二胡的文字记载很少。为了研究二胡的历史和发展，历史学家通常会参考古代绘画作品。在甘肃省的榆林窟和东千佛洞中的壁画上，就发现了五幅二胡的图像。