Guqin, seven-stringed zither without bridges, the most classical Chinese instrument with over 3000 years of history. It is literally called qin yet commonly known as "guqin" where "gu" stands for ancient. Confucius (around 600 BC) was a master of this instrument. To learn to play qin used to be regarded as a very important element for education for the purpose of enriching the heart and elevating human spirit. In Imperial China, a scholars and ladies of the high society were expected to master the four arts, namely, the qin (guqin), qi (I-go), shu (Calligraphy), and hua (painting). The guqin has historically been regarded as the symbol of Chinese high culture.【The configuration of Qin】
The whole figure of Qin is prolate, long about 130cm , breadth about 20cm, thick about 5cm. The front-panel of Qin is a piece of long form wooden board, the surface presents an arch form, the Qin head is bored some holes to pass the string, the tail is oval, it present crescent or square at both the waist or neck. The back plate which is the bottom of Qin shape is like the front-panel except arch form. There are two audio holes at back plate, called dragon pond and phoenix natural pond, and two foots bores are about put at waist, named praise foot. The front-panel and back plate are glued together to form the body(resonating body) of Qin. The glue tongue form wooden board in the Qin’s head makes a space with Qin’s stomach is called tongue cave. The sound bar is added at back of front-panel and there are two sound posts at the stomach which are called sky post and earth post. Tuning peg most is circular or angular form and hollow of its is empty for wearing string. There is a bar on the top of Qin for underpining the string and are four feet on the back plate for keeping the Qin’s balance. Thirteen carved mother-of-pearl or the badge of jade are embeded on the front-panel in order to marking the place of sound.
【The tessitura and tone color】
The Guqin totally has three kinds of tone color. The first is open string sound, namely the sound playing the empty string, its voice is sonore and clear. The second is pressure sound, namely right hand play the string, left hang presses the string at the same time, the voice thick and con fuoco at bass area, con vigore and smooth at medium sound area, sharp at high sound area. The third is overtone, namely the sound when left hand light bit the string, right hand plays the string at the same time. The voice clear and ringing at its high sound area, like a wind-bell in wind, at medium sound area, its voice is bright and clangor.
【Music of Qin】
There are over 3000 opern of Qin in China and most of them are lyric, some famous songs are as follows,
Anchor lake bank at autumnal night-Chengwujia
Autumnal frontier fortress-Wujinglue
Dragon howl on the sea-Yueying
Eighteen Airs for the Fife-Guanpinghu
Jie shi diao youlan-Guanpinghu
Liezi stands in the wind-Yueying
Listening fountain-Zhanchengqiu
Mozi's sorrowful thought-Wujinglue
Plum-blossom in Three Movements-Zhangziqian
The leaves of phoenix tree are dancing in the autumnal wind-Wujinglue
The misty Xiao Xiang river-Wujinglue
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