Electric guqin made from a fretless electric guitar

Someone made a really good sounding electric qin. Sounds similar to a qin with metal-nylon strings amplified , which may be considered a good thing! in my humble opinion, because it may mean that off-the-shelf electric guitar pickups can be used in a guqin shaped wooden body.

Here's another qin tune by the same player, played on his homemade electric qin. Inspirational!

finally memorized until section 9 of Liu Shui 流水

Finally, I have memorized until the end of section 9 of the tune Liu Shui 流水. My playing is still very unsmooth and too slow. Hahaha

[Autoethnographic research note to self: I started learning this tune on July 22nd 2013 while watching tv. hahaha!]

So it took me about 6 weeks to memorize all 9 sections of this tune, which is about more than 10 minutes long if it was played at a leisurely unhurried pace. It's not too bad actually, as many of the sections have somewhat similar parts. There was lots of 'ropeburn' on my left hand's middle finger, left ring finger and the side of my left hand's palm from sliding up and down the silk strings. haha *smile*

I started learning guqin in March 2012 from Mr. John Thompson (who was a very patient teacher who could explain things to me in English, which was my prefered language of learning because I was not very adept in Mandarin) . In November 2012, I took a hiatus from attending guqin lessons because I needed more time to work on my dissertation (which is not related to guqin at all. haha) Now I am in 'recluse' and leisurely self-learning tunes that I have always wanted to learn. *smile*

Qing dynasty guqin with carved wooden case

Qing dynasty guqin with carved wooden case. RMB7000 from this taobao store. Not sure whether it'd play at all, or play itself at night. hahaha Or drip blood at night, ala House of the Lute (guqin music played by Mr. John Thompson).

Sturdy hard case for guqin

RMB1500 from this taobao store. If you are in Singapore, maybe you can consider using SgShop.com.sg to ship it from PRC to you.

How to play these parts in 流水 Liu Shui?

Ladies and gentlemen, may I ask, how does a person practically play these parts (besides using The Force)? haha LOL 

This is from the tune 流水 (pinyin: liu2 shui3) from page 43, line 2 of Volume 2 of the book 古琴考級曲集 (pinyin: gu3 qin2 kao3 ji2 qv3 ji2). 

Please kindly take a look at the symbols inside the red box and the blue box (please see attached picture). Thank you very much for helping me. I am just a beginner using this score to learn more about guqin score tablature. No, I am not preparing to take any guqin exams. haha. I am just a hobbyist. Thank you very much! *smile* Yes, I did try to watch some videos. However, it was not easy to see what guqin players were doing with their left hands. haha

Any comments would be greatly appreciated! Thank you!


UPDATE: [Very special thanks to Juni Yeung who explained how to play this, "What an ugly way to write an otherwise elegant movement. In the past, we have one symbol to take care of it all: 索鈴(pinyin: suo ling)。I'd ignore the pressing on the right-hand downward stroke, but sliding up as you press lower and lower strings is how you'd do it. Plenty of vids online showing this."]
 

This was Juni Yeung's rendition of the tune Liu Shui, which I think is one of the nicest, leisurely, unhurried versions out there, as there was no 'grandstanding;' it's as if she was only playing for herself. I shall try to emulate her style; if I even can at all. *smile*

My rendition of PingShaLuoYan & YiGuRen on SoundCloud.com

Thanks for visiting this blog and contributing to the 10,000 hits! ^_^

Just for pure fun, I uploaded 2 of my guqin audio recordings to SoundCloud. hahaha I luv the Interwebs. Even a joker like me can 'publish' music. haha (laughing at my silly self) https://soundcloud.com/silkstringsguqin







Happy learning and playing guqin! *smile*

guqin tune 流水 Flowing Waters played on silk strings

The best sounding rendition I have ever heard of guqin tune 流水 Flowing Waters played on silk strings. Played by a Taiwanese guqin maestro. It's very mellow and subtle, as if she was only playing for herself. No grandstanding at all for the audience. Impressive. Enjoy! *smile*





There's another guqin maestro who played Flowing Waters using silk strings on YouKu. (sorry, Youku videos cannot be embedded in Blogger.)


[Journaling note to self: at this point, I have memorized sections 1 to 5 of this tune. Started to memorize the first 2 lines of section 6 which is a very long section. There are a total of 8 sections in this very long tune.]

Even if I cannot play this tune well yet, memorizing the score tablature for this tune enhances my enjoyment when I watch others perform this tune, as I could observe the subtle nuances and differences between the way maestros play this tune, and the version poorly played by me. hahaha (laughing at my silly self) LOL

Contrary to poplular belief, Flowing Waters is not just a tune played by old guqin masters. Even some kids know how to play this tune. Here's a screen capture of a (probably) pre-teenage girl who performed this piece in the DVD that was bundled with the book 'Kids learning Guqin.'

Software for typing guqin score tablature notation

[Thanks to Mr. Wong Chun Fung for providing this very valuable information!]

Most guqin scores I have seen published in books were hand written.

Here's a software which can be used to neatly type tablature score notation for guqin. A video demo can be seen at http://www.demohour.com/projects/321694#ui_favorite_tips

The software itself can be downloaded from http://www.ppfeng.com/thread-35877-1-1.html

Enjoy!