Broken Taigu 7th silk string (thinnest)

String breakage: this is a wonderfully unique experience that someone who plays with metal-nylon guqin strings may never experience. The ancients who played guqin with silk strings would probably also have had this similar lived experience of recovering after string breakages.

Pictures of Taigu silk string (7th and thinnest string) before breakage, and its subsequent re-tie and re-string. And then it's back to the business of playing!

The re-strung 7th string (thinnest) was left untuned to let it "rest". The rest of the strings were tuned up relative to the 7th string.

Amazingly, after tuning the 1st (thickest) to the 6th string, the pitch of the 1st string was close to C (very close to what metal-nylon guqin strings are nornally tuned to).

Only silk strings can be re-tied and re-strung after breaking. If they are metal-nylon guqin strings, they would have to be thrown away.

Lesson learned: After the 7th string (thinnest silk string) has stabilized after a few days, it would better to just tune the thickest 1st string to B-flat (which is the norm for guqin silk strings), and then tune the rest of the strings relative to B-flat, so that the thinnest 7th silk string would not be over-stretched.