Circassian Instruments: Shichepshin, Kamyl, Pkhachich and Pshine

Updated October 16, 2026 · 4 min read

Shichepshin: a fiddle from a single piece of wood

The shichepshin (шыкIэпшынэ in Kabardian, шыкIэпщын in Adyghe) is the Circassian bowed fiddle. Its name joins the words шы "horse", кIэ "tail" and пщын(э) "instrument", and the strings really are twisted from horsetail hair.

The spindle-shaped dugout body, 80-170 mm wide, the 140-250 mm neck and the round head are carved from one piece of pear, lime or maple; the whole instrument is 650-770 mm long. The thin top soundboard gets resonator holes shaped like brackets, dots, even a little heart. The two or three strings run over a wooden bridge, tied to leather tailpieces below and to vertical pegs in the head above. On the neck the strings pass through a leather loop: sliding it changes the pitch. The tuning is usually a fifth, more rarely a fourth, the range up to two octaves, and the sound is soft and muted. The bow is a slightly curved wooden shaft with a bundle of horsetail hair whose tension the player adjusts with the fingers while playing.

It was held upright, resting on the knee, and played mostly by men; the player was usually a singer and storyteller too, so the shichepshin carried both songs and the Nart epic. Popular until the end of the 19th century and rare in the 20th, it is now being revived: the first students of the Adyghe artist and music teacher Zamudin Guchev founded the ensemble Жъыу in 2005, and it plays the shichepshin today.

Kamyl: a flute from a gun barrel

The kamyl is the Circassian end-blown open flute. Its name means "reed", so the first kamyls were most likely cut from reed; later it was usually made from a gun barrel. It is about 70 cm long with three finger holes in the lower part; the scale is diatonic, spanning a fourth, and reaches an octave and more with overblowing. Shepherds played it, often together with the shichepshin and the pkhachich, and it accompanied young people’s round dances. In Kabardian such a flute is also called bzhami (бжьамий).

Pkhachich: the rattle that keeps the beat

The pkhachich (пхъэцIыч in Kabardian, пхъэкIыч in Adyghe) is a percussion instrument, a kind of rattle: three, five or seven plates of dried hardwood, boxwood, ash, chestnut, hornbeam or plane, are tied loosely by one end to a matching plate with a handle. The usual size is modest, 150-165 mm by 45-50 mm. The player holds it by the handle with a loop over the wrist, which sets how tightly the plates swing, and a shake produces a sharp clicking sound. It marks the rhythm together with the kamyl, the shichepshin or the accordion, and with the accordion two pkhachichs are often used at once. Today it is also one of the most popular souvenirs offered to visitors in Adygea and Kabardino-Balkaria.

Pshine: the Circassian accordion

The pshine (пшынэ in Kabardian, пщынэ in Adyghe) is the accordion. It spread widely among Circassians from the second half of the 19th century, and some of today’s best-known Circassian folk musicians, such as Aslan Tlebzu, are accordionists. Sources also mention a plucked instrument, the apepshin. How the instruments live inside the songs, the epic and the dances is on our Circassian music page, and the artists to hear today are on the Circassian songs page.

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