Inspired by those clever guqin folks in China who used a stethoscope to listen to soft sounds of guqin in noisy environment, I also bought a cheap stethoscope (about S$28 or about US$22) from a pharmacy near my home in Singapore.
Yes, I tried it and it is very loud. Warning: please do not let anyone sneak up on you and yell into your stethoscope. You may go deaf!
It seems that suddenly I had bionic ears and could hear many ambient sounds that were normally quite soft.
The stethoscope was placed under the guqin and I listened through it in my very noisy home environment with windows fully opened, subway mrt trains noisily plying tracks outside, my kids running around yelling fighting, tv blarring loudly. Amazingly, I could hear the guqin clearly and hear lots of bassy 'gravitas' in my usually trebly Tobaya silk strings. ^_^ *smile* If your guqin is too a little inaudible to you, maybe you can consider trying this fun cheap trick too! Hahaha
The echoing notes sounded like I was in a cave. I love the stethoscope. Hahaha
The stethoscope is really a *Game Changer* for people with guqins that are quite inaudible in noisy environments. Tonight, I found that I could concentrate better (because for once I could actually clearly hear the notes I was playing amidst the noisy ambient noise, even the low bassy notes on the thickest 1st silk string) and could memorize more lines of a new piece I am self-learning 忆故人 (pinyin: Yi Gu Ren). I'd be using the stethoscope for my guqin practice sessions from now on. I love it. Guqin shops should stock up on stethoscopes or start bundling them with guqins. hahaha *smile*
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