When you play a style of music alien to your culture, there are mountains to climb in order to gain recognition and acceptance. You also face the dilemma of making that music your own and not simply imitating what's already been done. Taiwan's extreme metal outfit, Chthonic, have found a way to blend and translate extreme metal into their culture as well as inject their culture into the music--but not without some fits and starts.

"In the first three years we started writing our own songs an concepts about the tragic stories and myths of old Taiwan," says Cthonic singer Freddy, "We needed an instrument to express that sad feeling. We tried the western violin and many instruments. The western violin was just not sad enough."

The sad instrument they chose is the two-string violin called the Erhu; an instrument used n a number of East Asian countries. There were problems using this traditional instrument in extreme metal. One was that the Erhu is a fragile instrument; Freddy notes the band has three of four for each show. Another issue was finding a traditional player who was willing to perform with a metal band.

Many accomplished players look on rock music--to say nothing of extreme metal-- as noise. It would be like trying to get a bluegrass mandolin player to sit in with Cannibal Corpse. Early on Freddy played the instrument but finding a full time player was difficult.

"It was a tough time. I hate to play then get up and bang my head." says Freddy.

Chthonic found a full-time Erhu player in Su-Nung. The band worked with Su-Nung's traditional orchestra after finding their website. That site said the band was up for any musical challenge. Chthonic took them up on the claim.

"I don't think they had a good time with us" says Freddy.

But Su-Nung, head of the orchestra, apparently did. Su-Nung's "day job" is as a funeral musician, where the erhu is commonly used to accent the solemnity of the occasion.

"Erhu is played to let families at funeral cry out," says Freddy "Su-Nung is the hotshot. He plays music for the dead men."

Freddy describes working with traditional musicians as almost like translating a language. Chthonic had to translate metal for the classically trained musician. On stage, in contrast to the frenetic movements of the rest of the band, Su-Nung sits stationary like a corpse. By 2005 Sunung was regularly playing with the band and was almost an official member of the band.

"But he never paid for the rehearsal room, he got paid but wasn't an 'official' member,"says Freddy. "We said 'shit! you are an official member now. He wanted to be and was happy but then he had to pay for the rehearsal room too."

The technical issues with using an erhu in an extreme metal band and how Chthonic solved them are instructive to any band using out of the ordinary instruments. First of all how do you amplify such an instrument?

"We tried many ways but always failed. Used a Shure 57 but it fed back," says Freddy. "The Erhu isn't loud so the 57 catches the sound of other instruments. Then we tried a guitar pick up but the pick up only gets the sound. You need the vibration of the snake skin."

Erhus are made with snake skin and the vibration of the skin and the sound of the strings is what makes the instrument's full sound.

They have used a Shure wireless microphone to amplify since 2005.

"It is really tiny. it is like a short small paper with a contact. You can put it into the Erhu. It is quite easy to do.

Freddy didn't give Gearwire a model number. To find out which microphone they were using we called Shure in Niles, Illinois. Where spokesman Cory Lorentz said that it was most likely a WL93 or possibly a WL50 or 51. These are lavalier microphones often clipped to people to amplify speech.

"It (WL93) has been used in more ways than one." says Lorentz. "The WL50 or 51 are even smaller, but are not flat mics."

All of these mics have been used in a variety of ways outside the manufacturers intent.

Another microphone that could be employed (but isn't the one Chthonic used for certain) is the Shure 98, which is often used with drums or brass instruments. But there is no hard rule as to where you must use a microphone. You experiment and see what works best.

There is also the issue of how to tune the Erhu. Traditional tunings will not fit well with the band's music.

"We tune it based on guitar. You can't use the normal Erhu tuning with our kind of music. So we set the Erhu up differently." says Freddy.

Chthonic tune their guitar in C major (two notes lower) and the normally tuned erhu cannot play that kind of pitch. Additionally the Erhu won't stay in tune. Usually you need 30 seconds before each song to tune. Chthonic set it up so that you can tune it in 5 seconds. It took a great deal of experimentation to include the Erhu in Chthonic's music--literally years of experimentation--but in the end it adds something special to the band's musical palette.

You can hear more from Chthonic this summer when they will be touring the USA as part of Ozzfest. Their current CD, Seedig Bale, is available in stores now. A "best of" record is due out on PSV in the fall of 2007.