In playing the kamancheh, the left hand, representing the world of God, finds the correct notes to play; and the
right hand, representing the world of man, actualises the sound.
A great number of bowed lutes between the Mediterranean Sea and India bear a name that is based on the Persian
word kaman for bow (the appendix –cheh means little, small): Kamanche(h), kamancha(h), kamança, kevançe,
kemançe, kemençe, kemenche, or qyamancha are names and spellings used by the Armenians, Azeris, Kurds, Persians,
or Turks of the region. All are sufficiently similar to justify the name yet too different to speak of the same
instrument.
Played with a variable-tension bow, the Persian kamancheh (هﻩچﭺنﻥاﺍمﻡکﮎ) consists of a hollowed round body made from
gourd or wood, which acts as a sound box, covered with a thin sheep- or fish-skin membrane. Its neck is cylindrical,
and it has three silk strings, however, modern kamanchehs have four metal ones. It is suspected that the fourth string
was added in the early twentieth century as the result of the introduction of western violin to Iran. Kamancheh and
violin are tuned in the same way and have the same range but different timbres due to their differing sound boxes.
About the length of a viola, kamanchehs are highly ornate, often with mother-of-pearl or bone inlays and beautifully
carved ivory tuning pegs. At the bottom of the instrument is a spike. The instrument is held vertically and the bow
moves horizontally, with the performer rotating the instrument when moving from one string to another.
With early written references dating to the 9
th
century, the kamancheh has been featured in courtly, folk, religious,
and secular settings for centuries. The instrument is widely played in classical Mugham music of Iran, Azerbaijan,
Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan, with slight variations in the structure of the instrument. When the Western violin was
introduced into Iran at the end of the 19
th
century, a lot of people put their kamanchehs aside in favour of violins. The
violin was Western, fashionable, and chic. In the mid-20
th
century the kiamancheh was on its way of extinction. But
thanks to a number of stubborn aficionados (from Ali Asghar Bahari to Kayhan Kalhor) it has enjoyed a revival during
the last years.
Kemençe
The armudî (or fasıl) kemençe is a small instrument, 40-41 cm in length and 14-15 cm wide. Its pear-shaped body
(armut = pear), elliptical pegbox and neck are fashioned from a single piece of wood. Formerly the head, neck and
back channel might be inlaid with ivory, mother-of-pearl or tortoise shell. The pegs form a triangle on the head. The
strings are of gut but the yegâh (low re) string is silver-wound. Today players may use synthetic racquet strings,
aluminium-wound gut, synthetic silk or chromed steel violin strings. And they may also add a fourth string giving the
instrument a range of up to two octaves. Huseyin Saad-eddin Arel was an influential musician in using the four
stringed kemençe as an alternative to the western violin and tuned it the same way.
The armudî kemençe is an ancestor of the old Byzantine lyra, a lineage that also includes the Bulgarian gadulka and
the Cretan lyra. A local Turkish variant of the armudî kemençe is the kemençe rûmî which has a very short
fingerboard.
The Pontic kemençe (karadeniz kemençesi), often called Pontic lyra by Greek emigrants, is found in the Black Sea
region of Asia Minor. It looks like a log of wood. Its strings are depressed onto the neck of the instrument by the
player’s finger pads in the way violin strings are pressed. As the instrument is mainly played by soloists it is tuned
according to the possibilities and taste of the artist. The musicians usually play two or all three strings at the same
time, utilizing the open string(s) as a drone. They tend to play with many trills and embellishments and with unusual
harmonies to emphasize their virtuosity.
Kokyû
Altough the names means the same as the Chinese huqin or the Korean haegŭm, ‘bowed instrument of the
Barbarians’, today’s kokyû has little in common with its two more westerly neighbours.
It is true that the Chinese erhu came to Japan, to be more precise: to Okinawa, and that its still played there today
(as kucho). But the kokyû is―with many reputed but few verifiable infuences―a genuine Japanese development. Its
body cosists of a rectangular wooden frame that is covered with cat skin on both sides; three or four strings run along
the neck that are usually tuned in fourth (c-f-b
♭ or c-f-b♭-b♭). The loose horsehairs of the bow are only tensed by the
musician when he is playing. All this gives the kokyû the look of a small shamisen, only with an app. ten cm long spike
that the musician who is seated places betwen his legs. As with the Iranian kamancheh the instrument is rotated; the
position of the bow remains unmoved.
Kucho and kokyû are the only fiddles in Japanese music, and in terms of popularity they are clearly second to koto,
shakuhachi and shamisen. Still the kokyû has been able to secure a niche in folk and art music. Today it is found in the
instrumental groups that accompany songs and dances in the village celebrations in West Japan; the standing or
wandering musician sustains the fiddle with a loop in a special carrying strap.
In former times the kokyû also belonged to the standard instrumentarium for chamber music. Cologned-based
ethnomusicologist Heinz-Dieter Reese explains: ‘This is the popular music of the urban bourgeoisie, the class of
merchants and craftsmen in Osaka and Tokyo who had gained a certain economic power and prosperity since the 17
th
century and now started to foster the formation of an own, urban-bourgeois art and music. Chamber music denotes
here primarily lyrial vocal styles, lied with instrumental accompaniment in various line-ups, music that was performed