Welcome to Guzheng & Erhu thread.
There are many places in subang offering guzheng lessons but I am not an expert in where to find teachers. Subangman can help you but he may be busy.
Scarlet Bird and Dunhuang are the top guzheng manufacturers in the world. The twin crane is the most popular entry level guzheng. My school is full of it. Buying a twin crane is like buying lottery. Some sound a lot better than other. The worst and the best twin crane at my school are miles apart.
All entry level guzheng will not pass string bending techniques. If a person takes lesson (1 hour a week) and had a guzheng to practise everyday, this level can be attained in 6 months (max). People with music background can get there in 1 month.
RM2300 is reasonable price for twin crane today. If you want to look at secondhand instrument flip back a few pages to get some details on it.

if possible...get used Guzheng.

I was thinking of a new GZ for my long term use as do not intend to invest another which will then end up higher investment cost for me...dun mind to get a better one which can last me till higher grades.. the one i checked is from keejan...they have another one at rm2800 with poem crated on the side board..


I did checked CCMA sunway mentari for the classes, but they recommend me to go to Jln Othman to take the GZ class, and they kinda want their students to take exam..not sure how is the GZ fees like...wud love to start next month if can find a suitable teacher nearby

You think like me. But most people are afraid they can't master it and prefer to start at a lower cost. I like your stand. Invest bigger then the commitment to practise will come.
A difference of RM500 is not going to separate the entry level and mid range level. Tell us your budget and your music background. If you want to start off with a mid range guzheng, it should last you till your are done with the exams grades. Going for top range then become a question of your fussiness. Choosing a guzheng is not something you can learn by reading because music requires the sense of hearing. This ear for music is cultivated through experience.

Hi faceless,

Thank u vey mch for your kind advice, I m ready to invest in the range 2000-3000, no knowledge in GZ but completed piano G8 many years ago, not sure if that wud help. Chamber Music in Sh Wang says they do sell GZ, the lowest at RM1890, but not sure what's the brand..

G8 piano means last level right?
I think you can move very fast with guzheng. Practise for the first few months are all about timing. Since you done piano, you know how long to hold a whole notes, half note, etc ... Once you know notes on the guzheng like how you know the piano. Tell your teacher you can want to express through the basic. I had a classmate who plays the piano well, going express speed from beginner to intermediate level in one month.
You budget will still get you an entry level instrument. RM2000 guzheng will not sound any different than one that cost RM3000. This level is like buying lottery situation I explained earlier. You be lucky if you can get a mid range instrument for 4k. 5k would be a more reasonable budget to get a mid range guzheng. If you can't buy the mid range I advise go for secondhand.
KL is a bad place to find guzheng. I almost bought the set you mentioned because that seem like the only place in KL that sold guzheng. What prevented me was the backboard is black in color. Painting a backboard (and black of all color) indicated the manufacturer wants to hide the type of wood used for the backboard. I am not saying chamber music is bad. They had carried good products on their shelves. I can only say they dont know guzheng which is not a popular instrument here that well.
Subangman is our shopping expert here. He know all the shops sell guzheng in Klang Valley. He also the location of all the school. If he is not busy he will tell you. Otherwise look through back pages as he had listed them several times. Keep us posted before you make a purchase and we will try our best to guide you. There are so many thing involve in buying a guzheng and it is not easy to cover them all.

oh really..? thank u so mch again for your detail guidance... I will continue to source and check up the schools as well, and keep you all posted..I read from Subangman's earlier posting, there is one teacher at taipan usj, but not sure which centre to call..

Yes...Subangman is the taiko here when it comes to GA. NExt in line is Faceless. Hehehe...

Brudder Empire... waahhh that high hat is too big for me lar.

---

Added on October 26, 2012, 9:10 pmthe teacher that teaches in taipan is the CEO/MD for the jalan othman music school.... except the teacher teaching
there is his brother.

---

Added on October 26, 2012, 9:15 pmDunhuang Duo crane ...RM2,300/= ok lor....

But if I am the one... i'll go and get the one in do re mi.... at least it's an old season wood.

x fingers its still there only....

---

Added on October 26, 2012, 9:18 pmBrudder... indeed i was flat out kaiyo by my sch.

Cali makan manyak susah ohhh.


====================================================================================================



TO ALL,

3rd International Guzheng (Malaysia) Competition will very likely be on schedule next year 2013 March.


Briefed by the organiser... very likely total 8 contestant (2 from varies categories) will be sent to Hong Kong for grand finals.

1st Cat... Young students from 7yrs old

2nd Cat... Teens

3rd Cat ... Youth .

4th Cat... Senior.. .. Above 40... hahaha.. Brudder Faceless so this round hope you will join.

The fierce round shall be the group within the Youth..... Clash of the Titians again.

Now only trying to get sponsors.

Helping to rope in at least RM30,000 for the 8 winners trip to Hkg for the Grand International Zheng Championship later year.

This post has been edited by subangman: Oct 26 2012, 09:48 PM

Empire is our in house professional. People come here to find lesson or guzheng, Subang and I can attend to them. Once they are good Empire put them on the stage.
Empire, when are you giving a second trip to MPO happy hour. I miss going to MPO and getting the box seats.

Wow, you status had been elevated to serious contributor. Now promoting guzheng by getting sponsor.
I most likely will not join. I still cant play a full song without mistake. Fisherman Serenade I still can't play in spite of playing it for 2 years. I practise for our CNY gathering. Hope can do it then see how Empire comments first.

is the teacher still teaching in Taipan? prefer to have class in Taipan..

I went for a trial class in sunway at one of the music school, they have a part time teacher teaching GZ, I only realise she is teaching the Dun Huang 23 string but Malaysian syllabus, she says they modifu the syllabus to suit Malaysian who prefer to learn for pleasure and the songs they teaches are more modernised. not sure if 23 string is better than 21 string, she says the GZ cost RM4K above for 23 string, in SS2 Dun Huang

You need to google up guzheng history. If you read chinese then you have added advantage on this. Based on my research there was a time where there were no standards as to how many strings were use. There was 6, 12, 18, 21 and 25 strings. The beijing opera house finally declare the 21 strings to be the standard opera size. Ever since then guzheng manufacturers quickly adapted to this change. The 21 strings was the main item in their product lines and other sizes gradually got phase out.

According to my teacher different number of strings has different teacher. I do not see the logic in that. A few notes missing or extra should not make a difference. Perhaps the genre and syllabus are different for different strings. My advise is stick to the 21 string. As it is the guzheng itself is already a not so popular instrument. There is no need to select an unpopular class within the unpopular item.

Base on my understanding of wood, the reason to standardize it to 21 string is a wood issue. Due to the size of the "tong" tree, the best part of the tree is big enough only for 21 strings. Anything more than 21 string is made from the not so good part of the tong tree. Many years later as you get better you may get so fussy that you want a "grand" guzheng (Subangman has one). If you choose 23 string you can never get this grade because the best part of the tree can't fit this size.

If I need to pay 4K entry level for 23 string I might as well pay for 4K+ for a 21 string mid range product.

I can see you don't like to take exam. If you don't like to take exam then the word syllabus modify or unmodified make no sense. So, don't let this syllabus stuff confuse you. I got faceless syllabus too, you want? All there is to it is I tell you all the 21 string and where are their position on the piano and you can play it like a piano. I don't even need to meet you for lesson. Just type everything here on this thread will suffice. After that you can get the sheet for any modern songs and bingo you are an expert already. Do a decent job and Empire may even sign you up to his band/group.

Great deal, right? NO! You miss out on the flavor of a guzheng. Guzheng is a water instrument. By that I mean it can mimic the sound of water best. There is flowing water, cascading waters, raindrops, strong waves, and many more. Touch the strings in the right way and you can get these sounds. It can also mimic several types of thunder and wind sound. The song 沧海一声笑 by Sam Hui is the theme song for the movie "The Swordman". Go listen to it. If you can find the movie better. They play the song when the heros boarded a ship. The ship then went through rough sea as they sang. The guzheng sang the sound of thunder, wind and waves in this song (movie version).

My advise is do a proper syllabus. You dont have to take the exam if you dont want to. There are two syllabus out there and I am a noob on syllabus. Subangman can better advice which syllabus to take.

This post has been edited by faceless: Oct 29 2012, 12:18 PM

aiyoh....PLEASE read thread 1 to 10 ... I'm very sure the info u want is mentioned there.

I cannot widely recomands ppl to go to certain centre openly as most of the well known guzheng centres in klang valley
i know them personally in one way or another and I don't drive a W210 benz. later they kayoh me lar.

---

Added on October 29, 2012, 10:31 pmCCMA sunway mentari is the centre for Gz examination (21 strings).... organising exam is their core $$$$.

But nobody can force u if u dun want to sit for the exam right !

Just finish the songs within ur grade and i'm sure ur teacher will advance to the next chapter.

My gal didn't sit for any exam right until she finishes her G6 songs then to G8 and G9 ..

they just encourage u to sit but at the end it's u whois the paymaster.

---

Added on October 29, 2012, 10:35 pmI'm just trying to help out as the previous conducted one the fund and support level was very limited.

---

Added on October 29, 2012, 11:19 pmOk... me getting very cheong hai again.

there is no right or wrong in which syllabus you going to choose. MUSIC is MUSIC.

Just like in cooking...... hopes you are not like any one of gals. ...

# Nowadays the gals don't cook like their mums, they drink like their Dads . #

In normal cooking... we ccok using pots, pans and woks. right ?

How about cooking with mircowave oven?

U can still cook.. but limited choices lor... 90% cook books way of cooking is the normal way not microwave.

So u cook alone and with you microwave gang lor.

come competition or want to venture in new dishes ... ho ho ho.... have fun in modification to suit !

==============================================


same thing... most of the scores are written for 21strings... 23strings only remains in "DunHuang" KampungKUL ... and
nothing affiliated with the Dunhuang Shanghai.... that was yrs ago... (thousand apologise to any 23strings teacher in the forum if I'm wrong).

Last year during the 2nd International Malaysia Zheng Open Championship there were quite a number of the 23strings contestants
but none of them made to semi finals. Mayb the panel judges dun know how to grade them or perhaps they think we are still
in dino era (my humble opinion) !

Technically these 2 type are two different in each other way.
One emphasize lots of method and 基本功 while the other is as long as u play the correct sound ... why worry.

This tie back to the above example... as long as the food is cooked ...wah lar who cares.... microwave or normal stove doesn't matter.
Job accomplished and that's IT ????!!!!!

BUT taste is not the same........ I would like my veg stir fried with wok hai .... not 'ting' in 3min and serve .

================================================================

Been to Sg for guzheng workshops and just got back from the Hkg Open youth Zheng championship..... ONLY 21 strings used.

But I still have an old highly paid 23 steel strings Zitan guzheng hibernating in its box.
Yearning for its owner to fiddle with it which I think very unlikely until my next after generation..... present from ah kong.

Choice of the guzheng for 23 strings are very limited and the steel strings not only expensive but limited places to obtain too.

While the 21 strings gz you can get it almost every chinese music instrument shop in town and I can say 99% are all
Shanghai / Yangchow / Tianyi Zheng.

Only the last 1% is the Xian Zheng and can be seen in PJ Keegan or another one is in Pg.

Honestly the price you pay for a beginner 23 string guzheng you can get a mid-range 21 string from Dunhuang or Yangchow.

The slightly better one of the 23 strings I can get an elite level for a 21 strings.

P/S :- Brudder faceless... Meimei accumalated another 15yrs old black DunHuang rare Zitan recently.
Now hunting for the ultimate "倚天劍".

=====================================================================

I think i said enough ...... the rest is up to you. ..... these two syllabus not like wat u comparing between ABRSM and Trinity.

Its like something using a keyboard and a piano in playing Beethoven Pathetique Sonata, 3rd movement.


Feel free and surf this link.

https://www.facebook.com/#!/SoundofChina?fref=ts

She is a personal frd and 100% trusted seller .... one of my gal's wood is from her (Carol Chang). Her wood flew the entire world
(China - US - Germany - MY) before landed back to KampungKUL and all her strings are from this centre.

This post has been edited by subangman: Oct 29 2012, 11:59 PM

Help promote guzheng by looking for funds is any time better than me lor. I only contribute to the thread.

The next gathering must be at your house. I waiting to see and try out your sword collection. Come fix a date now. I hope Empire can make it. I think it is coming in to his peak period already.

Dear All,

Pls come and support if u r in Kluang area. Tq







This post has been edited by subangman: Nov 3 2012, 01:14 AM

faceless....it has been the peak period for me since Hari Raya d. Ya...it will be wonderful to meet up again. Subangman's house is filled with treasures! :-D

hi all, seeking a 2nd hand good er hu... any idea?

Are you a beginner or advanced erhu player?

where got ? Only junks and rubbish.

So, when want to do gathering. Do one before CNY lah.