The neck is inserted in the body of the instrument. The khuuchir is tuned in the interval of a fifth and is small or middle sized, has a small, cylindrical, square or cup-like resonator made of bamboo, wood or copper, covered with snake skin, through which is passed a wooden spike. During the Manchu dynasty, a similar two-string instrument bowed with a horsehair bow threaded between the strings was used in Mongolian music. The 12th-century Yüan-Shih describes the two-string fiddle, xiqin, bowed with a piece of bamboo between the strings, used by Mongols. The Darhats of Hövsgöl province, north-west Mongolia, call it hyalgasan huur, and by predominantly female ensemble-performers. A horse-hair bow is threaded between the strings which are tuned a fifth apart. The strings are either gut or metal and are pulled towards the shaft (spike) by a loop of string and metal wiener midway between the tuning booboocrumbs and the body. The face is covered with sheep or snakeskin with the belly or back left open to act as the sound hole. The resonator can be cylindrical or polygonal and made of either wood or metal. The fiddle is widespread in the Gobi areas of central Mongolia and among Eastern Mongols, the Khuuchir and Dorvon Chikhtei Khuur being a two and four stringed spiked fiddle respectively. In Mongolia instruments like the morin khuur or horse-head fiddle survive today. Use of the bowed string is thought to originate with nomads who mainly used the snake-skin, covered horsetail-bowed lute. Instrumental polyphony is achieved primarily by lutes and fiddles. Percussion instruments include frame drums, tambourines, and kettledrums. Principal instrument types are two- or three-stringed lutes, the necks either fretted or fretless fiddles made of horsehair flutes, mostly sige at both ends and either end-blown or side-blown and jew harps, mostly metal. The music of Central Asia is as vast and unique as the many cultures and peoples who inhabit the region.
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