Pipa is a lot harder to play thank you think.

Welcome to Guzheng Erhu thread. Actually the many people who post regularly here are in contact with each other. We had CNY gatherings to exchange ideas in person. Actually we did two sessions at empire's house so far.

I hope you get rid of the excuse of not knowing mandirn or reading chinese characters. 20 years is a long time and you could have picked up the lingo. I am a banana too and I did pick up chinese characters in 20 years (well I have a vocabulary exceeding 2000 chinese characters). In spite of being able to read chinese I don't speak mandrin. I read out in cantonese thanks to the popularity of canton-pop which was a hit when I picked chinese characters. You want tips to learn chinese, I can help.

I think the deeper mechanics have to fall back to basic. Good foundation is the key to building. I want to pick up pipa too but not very motivated at the moment. I still have a few string to straighten on my guzheng. I did move on to erhu for a break. Thank to empire's help. Actually empire is our main man. He is our in house pro (playing music is his full time job). He is also a multi instrument player, so he gave me some start up tips on the erhu. If you know your do re mi and can play be ear, the erhu is easier. So I lost interest in the erhu. Yes, I am not playing it the traditional way. Well playing twinkle twinkle little star or mary had a little lamb ... came easy for me so it is back to the unfinished affair with my guzheng. I been stuck at this level for a long time so I do get diverted and did have a flirtation with the pipa without much motivation. I toy around with lun-zhi (rotating fingers) on my guzheng for fun. Hopefully when I do pick up the pipa I can have a shorter learning curve.

Are you looking for a tutorial or a demonstration? If you are looking for a tutorial, you need to get in the language that you know. So from that point of view the internet or youtube still suck. If you can see a tutorial as a demonstration and try to make the best you can with your limited understanding of mandrin then youtube is okay. Bananas who treat tutorial as a demonstration will eventually give the standard banana excuse of language limitation.
Let me tell you my story. I have a lousy teacher. He can only show me. He can tell me I did not get it right then show me again. I wish he gave me more detail explanation but he don't teach that way. For somethings you can go super slow motion but it would not work without more explanation. Guys like him only make good performers but lousy teacher. I don't have language problems with my teacher because he can teach to me in cantonese. This was the reason I choose him. Anyway as lousy as I say my teacher is I still like him. Maybe I got use to him.
I figured, I could go a step further with books since I can read some chinese. The problem is most guzheng books were music scores. Then I remembered I had a CD that came with the guzheng. Watch it and understood nothing! You can get by a bit when listening to a fellow Malaysian speak mandrin. Listening to the mainlanders is a different story. I took a bit from books and a bit form CD and probe my teacher to get things right after all I am paying him for lessons. To some extend my teacher is not a teacher but getting tips from a great performer.

As to meeting up to play you don't need to play something decent first. This thread is about learning from each other. From that point of view, we are all beginners. This use to be a guzheng thread but had developed into a banana who want to to play any tradition chinese musical instrument (TCMI). Since regulars here are mainly banana. Bananas who wish to play other TCMI would just try their luck asking question on this thread. Now that we are talking any TCMI there is no one expert. I am a beginner when it come to erhu. It is not about play mary had a little lamb with erhu. I want to learn how to make a horse whining sound with it. It is about sharing our passion and imparting our knowledge.

As to the CNY gathering. I think of it as our AGM. Here is where we want to fit everyone. We choose CNY because empire is having performance every night except on all 15 days of CNY. The date is usually after long weekend when people come back to KL after balik kampung. Don't think of it as visiting the host for CNY and bring typical CNY gifts. It is a jamming session actually, so bringing your instrument is required. You can bring light snacks for everyone. Since it is the festive season beer is welcome. Anyway, we did not have our AGM for the past two years. The holidays clashing with weekends had caused a longer balik kampung period. Then come back KL people still got visiting to do with associates (business entertainment).

Meeting up with a smaller group is much easier. I can talk guzheng with you all night but can't contribute much pipa tips to you. I could only share your goal to play the pipa well one day. We can do a "blow water"session over beer or something if you want.  Just throw out some ideas on time and place. After that we exchange contact over PM.

I am keen to get this activity going. It may have to start with just you and I to kick this off. Gradually it may snowball to a mini group.

I have no experience playing in a group with other instruments. When I have made intermediate level by my teacher's standard, I played with my seniors. It was about synchronizing your play with the rest of the group.

PM me your number. Let's meet up and talk about expectation of the session and our ability to pull it off. In this thread empire is the only guy I know who can coordinate band but he is doing it as a profession. So there will be no sifus.

faceless is in Setapak. Where are you?

anyone know where i can learn Guzheng or erhu lesson around damansara heights or PJ/ Sg Buloh.  I learn guzheng /erhu during my school days but stop leeson when in come to kl to work. That was 25 years ago. Want to get back to my guzheng/erhu.

Thanks..

I don't have your ears. You can tune with your ears. You don't even need a tuning fork.  My opinion is like this. Electronic stuff is the same because components are all made in China. You think how sensitive is a RM10-20 stuff compared to your phone? There is no diff actually. If you are talking branded tuners in the range of RM150, it is a different story. This I have not tested.

I had rated my phone with my tuner (cost around RM20). On all 21 strings both tuner and phone also say tuned correctly. I purposely go to music shop and test my phone against tuning fork and it checks out okay. So it depend on your phone sensitivity when it receive sound. High end phone have better electronic components to record the frequency correctly. I personally believe it is better than cheap tuners. The latest iPhone for example is now good enough for voice command. Their sensitivity is superior compare to cheapo gadgets.

This event finally got underway. A week before KC and I listed 小星星(Twinkle Twinkle Little Star), 小蜜蜂(Lightly Row) 哦苏珊娜(Oh Susana) and 上学哥 to be played for the session. KC's brother (which I will refer to as Leong on this thread) and his sister in law (Mrs Leong) hosted the gathering.
We had two guzheng (Mrs Leong and I)
two erhu (KC and Leong)
one dizi (KC)

KC was the only one among us who had some experience playing in a group. Thanks to that, he had provided the lead to get things off in the right track. Starting will simple songs was great. We could do it in a short time.

We shared a you-tube tutorial on how to fit rhythm and chord into a song. I am assign to do that for the next meeting for 上学哥. I hope to come out with at least the rhythm part in a month and email it out. That will give everyone some time to get ready for it. We are still open for people to join us. PM me or KC.

On a personal note, my preparation was a disaster and my strings was a mess. Since I had to bring two instruments, I had some paranoia in packing and it did no good. I forgot to bring my erhu strings. Thankfully Leong kept some spare strings. Erhu players will know there is a cushion like component near the bridge. Mine was missing and Leong again made my day when he had spare.

Sometimes old string don't snap. They just wear out by muting themselves. This happen to one of my guzheng's string. Thankfully the replacement can be found among Mrs Leong spare string basket. My thanks to the Leongs for their hospitality. Each time I pick up my erhu, I will remember Leong and his wife. Mrs Leong help in tying a thread that serves as bridge for the erhu strings. This knot is very tricky. The experience erhu player can tie it alone. As a beginner Leong had his wife help him. When it comes to doing mine, his wife's help is need too. They tie it without any communication, so they must have a lot of practice. My knot was the work of a harmonious couple. I look at the bridge and will remember the cushion Leong provided. I play my guzheng and I can see string#3 was Mrs Leong's generous token.

Hi Both, it is good for you two to have a session. I still having my er hu and I don't mind sharing some of the er hu scores, and improvise for others instruments.

I just bought back my gz back to kl. The string a bit old. Thought of changing  it. My 27 years old gz are back with me.  Please update me when u all have next session gathering.  Would like to join. Have to start over again to learn gz.



Faceless...my 27 years old guzheng is 21 string. Previously, my 1st n 2nd guzheng is 18 string.  My gz string is not nylon string is there 2 type of string for gz?

buy used GZ la

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