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.

I enjoyed the session very much since it has been quite a while I played in a small group. I am quite sure this type of gathering would helps any beginners if they aspire to perform on stage one day. Showing your mistakes when you play is a very positive incentive to improve and sharing experience do helps to hasten your learning curve. For me all the noises we made are happy ones . And the two GuZheng together do twinkle.
Thanks for coming and also for the files downloads. Would try to make some head or tail out of that. Let's see what we can do in a couple of months time ... Kc

Aaahh... just any idea ... maybe we can try to invite a musician to our sessions once a while , just to do a short demo / talk ?

That is our 4th session. I figured Oct15 is the second and Dec15 the third session. Feb16 is most likely CNY if not we will make the 4th gathering Jan16. We will get empire to join us or we go to his place. Hopefully on the day Professor Ice visits empire for CNY. This guy post in the musician threads like a professor. The id is little ice.  I was very excited he came out of the blues to post in this thread saying he want to join our first AGM. At our AGM, I found out he is really a professor for music in our local collage. He can just come out from no where to post here because he is empire's friend and visits him every CNY.
We will have a session with you next CNY. I hope I can drag you in to join us. Maybe we will just crash at your place. I am planing to include Professor Ice on this. I miss his "meditation"  on the violin.
Great! Please join us this October. You can help us fix the date for the October's session. Find a Sunday in October that you will be available (it will be either 4, 11, 18 or 25). Place is still open for discussion. Where is you location?

Location is not a problem. Gathering of people from KL/PJ area will always end up with situation like this. On the north end you can get people near Sungai Buluh or Selayang. On the south end there will people from Puchong, Belakong, Sungai Long. East West had a thinner strip from Subang to Ampang. Distance is not a problem unless you don't have transport.

You at 7th mile or 11th mile Jalan Cheras? Please suggest a Sunday to meet. If you like we can go to your place.

Hi , Welcome !!

Thanks for your offer . It would great if you are able to add or provide simple harmony parts for the other instruments to the songs we are playing.This should be adequate for now to increase the fun. Pm me or fc if you need the scores we are using - all sourced from the Internet anyway. Getting the melody is easy enough but I am more interested to go along getting ourselves to play like an ensemble so playing the same tune together will only be good for a few sessions.

Good to know another Erhu player. Looks like this instrument is quite popular. I have never gone beyond the basics .. haha . Would love to have you joining us ... the more the merrier !!

Kc

Great. I should be available any Sunday in October too. Now we wait for kcleong18 to fix a date where is brother and sis-in-law is free.

I just done the chords 上学哥. Wow, I did not check this thread because I did not expect any activity. Well, things had been quite after exchanging contact with riku. So I thought of updating the thread after doing the chord section for 上学哥. I never though abie.c would join the group due to the silence after two invitations to join the first gathering.

I will join the next session on 18th Oct 2015.
riku2replica please give an indication if you would join the gathering this  now that we had fixed the date.

Anyway, I will sent the score out after getting abie.c email. We need to do a mass email to establish our email contact and perhaps discuss other detail.

abie, I had sent you a PM to get your contact details.
Actually there is 3 types of strings. There is still silk string available in the market but very expensive. Metal string was the next generation of strings but it had been phased when nylon strings hit the market. Metal strings do not sound traditional. It make the guzheng sound more like a guitar.

Don't worry, nylon string is great. If you get silk strings, it will be the best.

I guess your strings had arrived by now. I am sure they look more like metal strings than nylon. Well the term nylon string is very misleading. It is actually nylon string wrapped with metal. China manufacturer will just label it nylon string.

Next time when the string snap remember to look at it. You will see nylon being wrapped by metal and understand.