Rawap

Rawap, also rewapu, is a fretless plucked lute that is played in the folk music of the Uyghur in the Chinese autonomous region of Xinjiang, as well as Tajiks and Uzbeks from.

The history of the instrument goes back to the 14th century in southern Xinjiang. The circular, bowl-shaped sound box is covered instead of a fixed ceiling with the dried skin of a snake, a donkey or a sheep. Three to a maximum of nine strings run over a flat, drawn up in the lower part of the membrane skin bridge and over the long fingerboard to that in a 180 - degree bend backward curved peg box with lateral vortices.

Only the outer strings with a plectrum, chipped, while the others serve as a sounding strings. Characteristic are above the wooden body side mounted spacers in the form of cow horns. The neck is decorated with marquetry.

The rawap the Uyghur bears names additives according to the particular region, such as Kashgar - rawap after the city of Kashgar. Shape, size and style of play soft regionally from each other. The kaschgarische instrument is 90 inches long and has five metal strings, which are tuned in fourths and fifths distance. Two of them are doppelchörig. His tonal range is an octave above that of the two-stringed fretless Dutar the Uyghur. The rawap the Dolan - population in the province of Turpan has but five melody strings still on twelve double resonance strings.

In the Tajiks, the instrument is called rebub and is made from the wood of the apricot tree. The Tajik model is about 70 inches long. In the 1930s, the Uzbeks took a slightly different long-necked lute ( rubob ). The different forms are related to the Rubab, whose distribution area in Afghanistan is.

The rawap is used to accompany songs, in a larger ensemble is rather rare to hear.