Mongolian half-tube zither with movable bridges. Traditionally, the instrument varies in size and tuning even within one ethnic group, as evidenced by two Chahar Mongol instruments collected by Haslund-Christensen this century: one, now in the National Museum, Copenhagen, measures 114·5 cm long by 21·6 cm wide; a second, in the Swedish Ethnographical Museum, Stockholm, measures 153·4 cm long by 22 cm wide. The tuning of the instrument used by Sünit Mongols was pentatonic in the sequence of the Chinese zhi mode, using the harmonic series 45·123. Similarly, the ten-string Ordos Mongol zither described by van Oost (1915–16) lacked the mi and ti of the Western solmization series.
The earliest documentation of the classical Mongolian term yatuga (or yatugan) occurs in a Mongolian-Chinese dictionary of 1389, where it is paired with the Chinese zheng, an instrument described in the Yüan shih (1370), a history of the Yüan (Mongol) dynasty, as having 13 strings. It was also used in the Mughal courts of Central Asia. Persian sources use the Mongolian word ‘yatugan’ for a zither with movable bridges, and a 15th-century poem written in old Uzbek (Chagatay) also mentions the yatugan. An 18-century source refers to a Kalmyk yattagan with gut strings. Mongolian sources of the 19th and early 20th centuries describe a yatga with 14 strings. During the Qing dynasty (1644–1911), the 12-string yatga was a court instrument, the number of strings symbolizing the 12 ranks within the palace. It was used to entertain the aristocracy and also was played by the aristocracy. The ten-string yatga was played by Living Buddhas and consequently surrounded by ritual. Three recently discovered 18th- and 19th-century song manuscripts for performance in Nomyn Khan monasteries contain notations for the yatga. The ten-string yatga was also used during worship at ritual cairns or oboo and during sports, such as horse racing, held on such occasions.
The yatga appears in epics and legends in relation to both court and religious contexts. The Kalmyk heroic epic-cycle Janggar tells how a 16-year-old princess played on the seven lower bridges of a yatga which had 82 bridges and 8000 strings. It was used for interludes during recitations of Buryat epics and, as with other Mongolian instruments, was played to animals to persuade a mother to accept her rejected young.
Traditionally, the musician knelt on the ground to perform, laying the narrower end of the yatga on his thigh and supporting the wider end on the ground. Some Mongol groups made strings from a goat's small intestines, after a process of stretching, boiling and drying. Others used horsehair, as on the Tuvan chadagan and Kazakh zshetïgan. In Inner Mongolia, horsehair was replaced by silk and, more recently, metal wound around gut or metal. The Inner Mongolian yatga has two rows of bridges (fig.1). Strings may be plucked by the nails. In addition, a variety of plectra have been used including leather caps (for thumb and finger) to which is attached a small piece of horn.
The yatga was used in ensembles in Urga (now Ulaanbaatar) in 1923. During the early years after the communist revolution of 1924, the yatga fell into disuse, probably because of its traditional aristocratic and religious connections. According to Berlinsky (1933) the instrument almost completely disappeared. It was revived as a ‘national’ instrument of the Mongolian People's Republic during the 1950s, with Korean-style instruments (see Kayagum). The 13-string yatga now used to accompany singing and played in instrumental ensembles has a single row of bridges (fig.2). Seated on a chair rather than on the floor, the player rests the instrument on the knees with it sloping downwards to the floor on his or her left, or plays an instrument supported by legs or a stand. The right-hand fingernails are used to pluck the open strings. The left-hand fingers apply pressure to the strings which pass over small bridges, each wedged between a string and the soundboard, to produce vibrato, pitch alterations (accidentals), and other embellishments as well as special plucking effects.
GroveI (A. Nixon)
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CAROLE PEGG