Hi Abie.C ,

Welcome ... nice to note the length of time you stopped learning Gz/Eh ....    Wonder whether you have either instruments from those days .. would be quite an antique now.

Anyway my Sis-in-law learns GZ from a place around Kepong so if you are keen I can get her tutor contact for you. Pm me. For Erhu I know that Pusat Seni Zhuan Yi 专艺艺术中心  does provide classes because my brother who has just started to learn the Erhu went to their place to buy an Eh bag. You might want to visit them for further information. They used to be based around the Pasar Road are but have shifted so just google for the latest address. Do let us know further your interests ... .

Kc

This is very good logistics. You are now elected as the logistic man for this project. Oops I am talking like I am the host of this thread.

This is a well define purpose and objective. I agree and support.

Nice of you to make the offer. Music practice session is just noise to people who don't like music. Starting with a small group, I can accommodate in spite of living under a roof where people don't appreciate music.

It comes down to you and I to get this going. Extra effort is all we need here.

A new thread will be due in no time. In this forum once a thread exceed 138 page the moderators will close the thread. Then we can look at getting a version 2 of this thread going. You have already outline the objectives for it.

WHAT! 2.2k for guzheng 27 years ago! It must be performance class material. I would certainly love to see it. I can go to Ipoh just to sight it. Hahahah, only Ipoh I will go. Ipoh has many attraction along the way. Chicken biscuit in Kampar. Some very smooth chee cheong fun. Salted chicken and bean sprout chicken in Ipoh itself .... many more attraction. Some place along the way, they have the good old soy sauce made the traditional way. The taste is just nostalgic. I must check with my friend before I make the trip so that I can stock up my soy sauce supply. If you can play host and tour guide me will be ideal lor. Oops pardon the Malaysian lingo. Anyway back to guzheng. Somehow Ipoh just makes me think of food.

27 years ago the guzheng is most likely a slanted back bridge as oppose to an "s" bridge. It is most likely 18 strings. If I am right about this, you can't buy strings. It is no longer in production. I don't advise playing it. Once any string snap, that will be the end of your antique.

I also doubt you can get lessons. The new breed  or old timers who had adapted to the 21 strings will have problems with the missing 3 strings. Even then music scores today are made for the 21 strings. I did cover the history of guzheng development and how 21 strings became the in-thing and the 18 strings got phased out here but I can't find which page.  To cut it short, some power house (maybe Shanghai or Beijing Conservatory) endorsed the 21 strings sometime in the 80s. Since then 21 strings is the standard and others got phase out.

If you can't find lessons, maybe you can join me and KC Leong. Now we are talking about getting a small group going on a regular basis. I have good teaching skills but my performing skills sucks. We can do it the way we started our first AGM (see some of my post 2 -3 pages back). Show us what you have been talking about when you post on the thread. My post impressed people here but when it comes to performance, I can't play a complete song without mistakes. I guess I am not a perfectionist when it comes to music. But nobody cared. As long as I have knowledge and was willing to share it and you can benefit from it.
Then all we need is another long overdue AGM and you bring out the colors.

Get a tuner and tune it yourself is better. Transport a guzheng to people for tuning not "ma-fan" meh?  Good news no need to buy tuner if you use android phone. There are plenty of tuners there. I believe there tuners on mac/iphone too but I am not a mac user to comment.

Some 5 years ago I bought a tuner off the shelf and it showed me ABCD. These type of tuner is no use for GZ. From string 1 to 21 you have 5 - D notes. You will not know which D note for the string. You need a tuner that shows the frequency. You can get this type of tuner on android apps.

String #1 for GZ is the highest note. It is the thinnest string. GZ colored (green) strings is call note 5. The highest note 5 for GZ is string #3. It is tuned to 440Htz. Going down another 5 strings to the next colored string is the middle note 5 or string number #8. It is tuned to 220Htz. Next colored string is 110Htz and the last one is 55Htz. With the frequency as a guide you will know how much to screw the tuning peg. Any string between the middle 5 and upper 5 note had to be in the range of 220-440Htz.

The alphabetic note guide is Note 1 = D, Note 2 = E, Note 3 = F#, Note 5 = A, Note 6 = B. If you tune with this guide (without frequency) you can snap some strings tuning them too tight. It was my first experience.

String under tension is an exciting story. This was on girl's experience. She was my class mate and I know her because she starts class when I finished mine. I told this story here too. Her GZ always run out of tune. Her GZ spend more time at school for tuning than at home for practice. When string come under tension it takes time for them to settle into position for a good grip. It usually takes a week. In the interim the position will run and tuning is required again. It the case of my class mate GZ it will always run. I asked my teacher about it and he told me about string under tension. Feeling sorry for my class mate, I taught her how to tune with a tuner and that solved her problem.

If all this is too complicated, you can bring your GZ to me. I can teach you how to tune with a tuner. No need to buy tuner just download one. By the way I am meeting with KC Leong this Sunday. You are welcome to join us.

Looks like you kept your Gz in a very good condition for such long period of time. I can't remember anything I have with such a long ownership time frame . If all the notes still sound right I would start plucking straight away although I think it's time to keep a set of spare strings to replace any worn out ones.

PM you about the session next month . Very much welcome. Tentatively on a Sunday - 18th Oct 2015. My bad on the first pm meet date (15th Oct) . I did not realise that it is a weekday. Kc