Khur

a Mongolian and Buriat folk instrument, common among nomadic stock raisers, that has two strings and is played with a bow. The khur has a wooden, trapezoidal body painted with folk designs; the soundboards are leather. The instrument has a long, fretless neck that tapers upward to a pegbox carved in the shape of a horse’s head. The horsehair strings, tuned to a fourth, are bowed so as to produce harmonics, or flageolet tones (seeFLAGEOLET). The khur is used as a signaling instrument, as a means of imitating sounds, and as an instrument for the solo performance of lyric melodies; tempered khurs are used in folk orchestras.