Tying Dragonfly knots on Taigu silk strings and mounting new strings on guqin

Pictures of me tying dragonfly knots on my new set of Taigu brand silk strings, and mounting them on my guqin.

The first dragonfly knot tied.

Picture taken after all 7 dragonfly knots were tied.

The old silk strings (Jin Wu brand) on my guqin were removed (starting with the thinnest 7th string), and each new Taigu brand silk string was inserted into the red colored Rong Kou.

The is no sound post inside this JunTianFang guqin, so nothing would drop out. But still I follow this procedure.

Picture taken during a short break after 3 new Taigu silk strings were mounted on my Guqin.

Picture of the dragonfly knots at the bridge after all the strings were mounted and tuned. I did not attempt to tune the thickest 1st string at all. All the rest of the silk strings were tuned relative to the thickest 1st string. At this point, I still did not know what the pitch of the thickest 1st string was yet.

Picture of the old silk strings after they were removed. They can still be used as a backup set. Unlike nylon-metal guqin strings, silk strings can still be used after they are removed. Metal-nylon strings, on the other hand, have to be thrown away, just like metal guitar strings.

The biggest surprise was: the untuned thickest 1st string was actually already at C pitch, even though I did not even attempt to tune it up at all. That's the same as what nylon-metal guqin strings are normally tuned to. Behold. That's why Taigu silk strings are so awesome. The pitch was so high, yet the strings still felt super slinky to play. 

I only have one thing to say: Always. Insist. On. Taigu silk strings. Nothing else even comes close. It's that good.