The guqin (; ) is a plucked seven-string Chinese musical instrument. It has been played since ancient times, and has traditionally been favoured by scholars and literati as an instrument of great subtlety and refinement, as highlighted by the quote "a gentleman does not part with his qin or se without good reason,"[ Li Ji: Quli, second half 禮記‧曲禮下.] as well as being associated with the ancient Chinese philosopher Confucius. It is sometimes referred to by the Chinese as "the father of Chinese music" or "the instrument of the sages". The guqin is not to be confused with the guzheng, another Chinese long stringed instrument also without frets, but with moveable bridges under each string.
Traditionally, the instrument was simply referred to as the " qin" (琴)[Zhang Yushu et al. Kangxi Zidian 【康熙字典】. Folio 28.] but by the twentieth century the term had come to be applied to many other musical instruments as well: the yangqin hammered dulcimer, the huqin family of bowed string instruments, and the Western piano ( gangqin (钢琴)) and violin ( xiaotiqin (小提琴)) are examples of this usage. The prefix " gu-" (古; meaning "ancient") was later added for clarification. Thus, the instrument is called " guqin" today. It can also be called qixian-qin (七絃琴; lit. "seven-stringed qin"). Because Robert Hans van Gulik's book about the qin is called The Lore of the Chinese Lute, the guqin is sometimes inaccurately called a lute.[John Thompson on the Guqin Silk String Zither (2005) Qin: Lute or Zither? (http://www.silkqin.com/11misc/lute.htm , 29 July 2006)] Other incorrect classifications, mainly from music compact discs, include "harp" or "table-harp".
The guqin is a very quiet instrument, with a range of about four octaves, and its open strings are tuned in the bass register. Its lowest pitch is about two octaves below middle C, or the lowest note on the cello. Sounds are produced by open strings, stopped strings, and harmonics. The use of glissando—sliding tones—gives it a sound reminiscent of a pizzicato cello, fretless double bass or a slide guitar. The qin has 13 "hui", which represent the different position in one string. Pressing different "hui" produces different sound keys. The qin is also capable of many harmonics, of which 91 are most commonly used and indicated by the dotted positions. By tradition, the qin originally had five strings, which represent gong, shang, jue, zhi, yu in the ancient Chinese music system, but ancient qin-like instruments with only one string or more strings have been found. The modern form has been stabilized to seven strings.
There are more than 3,360 known surviving pieces of guqin music from ancient and imperial periods. On 7 November 2003, UNESCO announced that the Chinese guqin was selected as an Intangible World Cultural Heritage. In 2006, guqin was listed in the List of National Non-material Cultural Heritage in China. In 2010, a Song dynasty guqin was sold for $22 million, making it the most expensive musical instrument ever sold.
History
Legend has it that the qin, the most revered of all Chinese musical instruments, has a history of about 5,000 years, and that the legendary figures of China's
pre-history –
Fuxi,
Shennong and Huang Di, the "
Yellow Emperor" – were involved in its creation. Nearly all qin books and tablature collections published prior to the twentieth century state this as the actual origins of the qin,
[Yin, Wei. Zhongguo Qinshi Yanyi 【中国琴史演义】. Pages 1-10.] although this is now viewed as mythology. It is mentioned in Chinese writings dating back nearly 3,000 years, and examples have been found in tombs from about 2,500 years ago. The exact origins of the qin is still a very much continuing subject of debate over the past few decades.
In 1977, a recording of "Flowing Water" ( Liu Shui, as performed by Guan Pinghu, one of the best qin players of the 20th century) was chosen to be included in the Voyager Golden Record, a gold-plated LP recording containing music from around the world, which was sent into outer space by NASA on the Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 spacecraft. It is the second-longest excerpt included on the disc. The reason to select a work played on this specific instrument is because the tonal structure of the instrument, its musical scale, is derived from fundamental physics related to vibration and , representing the intellectual capacity of human beings on this subject. In 2003, guqin music was proclaimed as one of the Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO.[United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (2004) The Art of Guqin Music (http://www.unesco.org/culture/intangible-heritage/masterpiece.php?id=65&lg=en, 29 July 2006) ]
Schools, societies and players
As with any other musical tradition, there are differences in ideals and interaction between different people. Therefore, there exist different schools and societies which transmit these different ideas and artistic traditions.
Historical schools
Many qin schools known as
qin pai developed over the centuries. Such schools generally formed around areas where qin activity was greatest.
Some schools have come and gone, and some have offshoots (such as the Mei'an school, a Zhucheng school offshoot). Often, the school is originated from a single person, such as the Wu school which is named after the late Wu Zhaoji. The style can vary considerably between schools; some are very similar, yet others are very distinct. The differences are often in the interpretation of the music. Northern schools tend to be more vigorous in technique than Southern schools. But in modern terms, the distinction between schools and styles is often blurred because a single player may learn from many different players from different schools and absorb each of their styles. This is especially so for conservatory trained players. People from the same school trained under the same master may have different individual styles (such as Zhang Ziqian and Liu Shaochun of the Guangling school).
Guqin societies
There is a difference between qin schools and qin societies. The former concerns itself with transmission of a style, the latter concerns itself with performance. The qin society will encourage meetings with fellow qin players in order to play music and maybe discuss the nature of the qin. A gathering like this is called a
yaji (雅集]], literally "elegant gathering"), and takes place once every month or two. Sometimes, societies may go on excursions to places of natural beauty to play qin, or attend conferences. They may also participate in competitions or research. Societies do not need strict structure to adhere to; they can operate on a leisurely basis. The main purpose of qin societies is to promote and play qin music. They create opportunities to network and learn to play the instrument, to ask questions and to receive answers.
Players
Many artists down through the ages have played the instrument, and the instrument was a favourite of scholars. Certain melodies are also associated with famous figures, such as Confucius and Qu Yuan. Some emperors of China also had a liking to the qin, including the
Song dynasty emperor, Huizong, as clearly seen in his own painting of himself playing the qin in "Ting Qin Tu".
[聽琴圖, Listening to the Qin][Yang, Xin et al. (1997). Three Thousand Years of Chinese Painting. Page 122.]
Historical
-
Confucius: Philosopher, 551–479 BCE, associated with the piece Kongzi Duyi,
[《孔子讀易》] Weibian Sanjue[《韋編三絕/韦编三绝》] and Youlan.[《幽蘭/幽兰》]
-
Bo Ya: Qin player of the Spring and Autumn period, associated with the piece Gao Shan.
[《高山》] and Liu Shui[《流水》]
-
Zhuang Zhou: Daoist philosopher of the Warring States period, associated with the piece Zhuang Zhou Mengdie
[《莊周夢蝶》] and Shenhua Yin.[《神化引》]
-
Qu Yuan (340–278 BCE): Poet of the Warring States period, associated with the piece Li Sao.
[《離騷》]
-
Cai Yong: Han dynasty musician, traditionally attributed author of Qin Cao.
[【琴操】]
-
Cai Wenji: Cai Yong's daughter, associated with the piece Hujia Shiba-pai,
[《胡笳十八拍》] etc.
-
Sima Xiangru: Han poet, 179–117 BCE.
-
Zhuge Liang (181–234): Chinese military leader in the Three Kingdoms, one legend has him playing guqin calmly outside his fort while scaring off the enemy attackers.
-
Ji Kang: One of the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove, musician and poet, writer of Qin Fu.
[【琴賦】]
-
Li Bai: Tang poet, 701–762.
-
Bai Juyi: Tang poet, 772–846.
-
Song Huizong: Song emperor famous for his patronage of the arts, had a Wanqin Tang
[『萬琴堂』] ("10,000 Qin Hall") in his palace.
-
Guo Chuwang: Patriot at the end of the Song dynasty, composer of the piece Xiaoxiang Shuiyun.
[《瀟湘水雲/潇湘水云》]
The classical collections such as Qin Shi, Qinshi Bu and Qinshi Xu include biography of hundreds more players.[Zhou, Zi'an. Wuzhi Zhai Qinpu 【五知齋琴譜】. Volume 1, folio 1, leaf 18–28.]
Contemporary
Contemporary qin players extend from the early twentieth century to the present. More so than in the past, such players tend to have many different pursuits and
profession other than qin playing. There are only a few players who are paid to exclusively play and research the guqin professionally and nothing else. Qin players can also be well-versed in other cultural pursuits, such as the arts. Or they can do independent research on music subjects. Often, players may play other instruments (not necessarily Chinese) and give recitals or talks.
Performance
During the performance of qin, musicians may use a variety of techniques to reach the full expressing potential of the instrument. There are many special tablatures that had developed over the centuries specifically dedicated to qin for their reference and a repertoire of popular and ancient tunes for their choice.
Playing technique
The tones of qin can be categorized as three characteristic "sounds". The first type is
san yin (散音]]), which literally means "unfettered sound". It's the fundamental frequency produced by plucking a free string with the fingers of the right hand. The second type, made by plucking a string with the right hand and gently tapping specific note positions on the string with the left hand, will create a crisp sound named
fan yin (泛音]], lit. "floating sound") or overtone
harmonics (the equivalent technique in Western music is the
string harmonic or
flageolet). Important scale notes, called
hui (徽]]), are marked by 13 glossy white dots made of mica or seashell inset in the front surface of the qin, occur at integer divisions of the string length. The "crystal concordant" (perfectly harmonic) overtones can only be evoked by tapping the strings precisely at these
hui. The third type is
an yin (案音]],
[案 is a dated variant of 按] lit. "pressed sound"), which is sometimes also called
shi yin (實]]音, lit. "full sound") or
zou yin (走]]音, lit. "changing sound"). These comprise the major cadences of most qin pieces. To play
an yin, the musician stops a string at a specific pitch on the board surface with the left thumb, middle or ring finger, strikes the string with the right hand, then they may slide the left hand up and down to vary the note. This technique is similar to playing a
slide guitar across the player's lap. However, the manipulation of qin is much more multifarious than that of a guitar, which has only around 3 or 4 main techniques. (). According to the book
Cunjian Guqin Zhifa Puzi Jilan, there are around 1,070 different finger techniques used for the qin. Thus the qin is possibly the instrument with the most playing techniques in both the Chinese and Western instrument families.
[Guo, Ping. Guqin Congtan 【古琴丛谈】. Page 112.] Most of the qin's techniques are obsolete, but around 50 of them still appear in modern performance. Sometimes, guqin can be played with a violin bow. It has a tone similar to that of a
cello, but raspier.
Image:Qintech Tiao.PNG|〈挑〉 Tiao
Image:Qintech Gou.jpg|〈勾〉 Gou
Image:Qintech Pi.PNG|〈擘〉 Bo
Image:Qintech Bo.jpg|〈撥〉 Bo
The above four figures are from an old handbook.[Zhang, He. Qinxue Rumen 【琴學入門】. Volume 1, leaves 39, 40, 43 and 47.]
Tablature and notation
Written qin music did not directly tell what notes were played; instead, it was written in a
tablature detailing tuning, finger positions, and stroke technique, thus comprising a step by step method and description of how to play a piece. Some tablatures do indicate notes using the
gongche notation system, or indicate
rhythm using . The earliest example of the modern
shorthand tablature survives from around the twelfth century CE. An earlier form of music notation from the Tang era survives in just one manuscript, dated to the seventh century CE, called
Jieshi Diao Youlan[《碣石調幽蘭》] (
Solitary Orchid in Stone Tablet Mode). It is written in a
longhand form called
wenzi pu (字]]譜) (literally "written notation"), said to have been created by Yong Menzhou
[雍門周] during the Warring States period, which gives all the details using ordinary written Chinese characters. Later in the
Tang dynasty, Cao Rou
[曹柔] and others simplified the notation, using only the important elements of the characters (like string number, plucking technique,
hui number and which finger to stop the string) and combined them into one character
Musical notation. This meant that instead of having two lines of written text to describe a few notes, a single character could represent one note, or sometimes as many as nine. This notation form was called
jianzi pu (減]]字譜) (literally "reduced notation") and it was a major advance in qin notation. It was so successful that from the
Ming dynasty onwards, a great many
qinpu (譜]]) (qin tablature collections) appeared, the most famous and useful being "Shenqi Mipu" (The Mysterious and Marvellous Tablature) compiled by
Zhu Quan, the 17th son of the founder of the Ming dynasty.
[Zhu, Quan. Shenqi Mipu 【神竒秘譜】.] In the 1960s, Zha Fuxi discovered more than 130 qinpu that contain well over 3360 pieces of written music. However, many qinpu compiled before the Ming dynasty are now lost, and many pieces have remained unplayed for hundreds of years.
[Zha, Fuxi. Cunjian Guqin Qupu Jilan 【存見古琴曲譜輯覽】. Pages 3-44.]
Repertoire
Qin pieces are usually around three to eight minutes in length, with the longest being "Guangling San",
[《廣陵散》] which is 22 minutes long. Other famous pieces include "Liu Shui"
(Flowing Water), "
Yangguan San Die"
[《陽關三疊/阳关三叠》] (Three Refrains on the Yang Pass Theme), "Meihua San Nong"
[《梅花三弄》] (Three Variations on the
Plum Blossom Theme), "Xiao Xiang Shui Yun"
[《瀟湘水雲》] (Mist and Clouds over the Xiao and Xiang Rivers), and "Pingsha Luo Yan"
[《平沙落雁》] (Wild Geese Descending on the Sandbank). The average player will generally have a repertoire of around ten pieces which they will aim to play very well, learning new pieces as and when they feel like it or if the opportunity arises. Players mainly learn popular well-transcribed versions, often using a recording as a reference. In addition to learning to play established or ancient pieces very well, highly skilled qin players may also compose or improvise, although the player must be very good and extremely familiar with the instrument to do this successfully. A number of qin melodies are
program music depicting the natural world.
Transcription
Dapu (打譜) is the transcribing of old tablature into a playable form. Since qin tablature does not indicate
note value,
tempo or
rhythm, the player must work it out for themselves. Normally, qin players will learn the rhythm of a piece through a teacher or master. They sit facing one another, with the student copying the master. The tablature will only be consulted if the teacher is not sure of how to play a certain part. Because of this, traditional qinpu do not indicate them (though near the end of the Qing dynasty, a handful of qinpu had started to employ various rhythm indicating devices, such as dots). If one did not have a teacher, then one had to work out the rhythm by themselves. But it would be a mistake to assume that qin music is devoid of rhythm and melody. By the 20th century, there had been attempts to try to replace the "jianzi pu" notation, but so far, it has been unsuccessful; since the 20th century, qin music is generally printed with
staff notation above the qin tablature. Because qin tablature is so useful, logical, easy, and the fastest way (once the performer knows how to read the notation) of learning a piece, it is invaluable to the qin player and cannot totally be replaced (just as staff notation cannot be replaced for Western instruments, because they developed a notation system that suited the instruments well).
There is a saying that goes "a short piece requires three months of, and a long piece requires three years". In actual practice, it needn't be that long to dapu a piece, but suggests that the player will have not only memorised the piece off by heart, but also have their fingering, rhythm and timing corrected. And afterwards, the emotion must be put into the piece. Therefore, it could be said that it really does require three months or years to finish dapu of a piece in order for them to play it to a very high standard.
Rhythm in qin music
It has already been discussed that qin music has a rhythm and that it is only vaguely indicated in the tablature.
[ A more detailed analysis can be found here] Though there is an amount of guesswork involved, the tablature has clues to indicate rhythm, such as repeating motifs, an indication of phrases or how the notation is arranged. Throughout the history of the qinpu, we see many attempts to indicate this rhythm more explicitly, involving devices like dots to make beats. Probably, one of the major projects to regulate the rhythm to a large scale was the compilers of the
Qinxue Congshu tablature collection of the 1910s to 1930s. The construction of the written tablature was divided into two columns. The first was further divided into about three lines of a grid, each line indicating a varied combination of lyrics, gongche tablature, se tablature, pitch, and/or beats depending on the score used. The second column was devoted to qin tablature.
Western composers have noticed that the rhythm in a piece of qin music can change; once they seem to have got a beat, the beats change. This is due to the fact that qin players may use some free rhythm in their playing. Whatever beat they use will depend on the emotion or the feeling of the player, and how they interpret the piece. However, some melodies have sections of fixed rhythm which are played the same way generally. The main theme of Meihua Sannong, for example, uses this. Some sections of certain melodies require the player to play faster with force to express the emotion of the piece. Examples include the middle sections of Guangling San and Xiaoxiang Shuiyun. Other pieces, such as Jiu Kuang has a fixed rhythm throughout the entire piece.
Organology
While acoustics dictated the general form and construction of the guqin, its external form could and did take on a huge amount of variation, whether it be from the embellishments or even the basic structure of the instrument. Qin tablatures from the
Song dynasty onwards have catalogued a plethora of qin forms. All, however, obey very basic rules of acoustics and
of form. The qin uses strings of
silk or
metal-
nylon and is tuned in accordance to traditional principles.
Ancient guqins were made of little more than wood and strings of twisted silk. Ornaments included inlaid dots of mother-of-pearl or other similar materials. Traditionally, the sound board was made of Chinese parasol wood firmiana simplex, its rounded shape symbolising the heavens. The bottom was made of Chinese Catalpa, Catalpa ovata, its flat shape symbolising earth. Modern instruments are most frequently made of Cunninghamia or other similar timbers. The traditional finish is of raw lacquer mixed with powdered deer horn, and the finishing process could take months of curing to complete. The finish develops cracks over time, and these cracks are believed to improve the instrument's sound as the wood and lacquer release tension. An antique guqin's age can be determined by this snake like crack pattern called "duanwen" (斷紋).
Construction
According to tradition, the qin originally had five strings, representing the five elements of metal, wood, water, fire and earth. Later, in the
Zhou dynasty, Zhou Wen Wang added a sixth string to mourn his son,
Boyikao. His successor, Zhou Wu Wang, added a seventh string to motivate his troops into battle with the Shang. The thirteen
hui[『徽]]』] on the surface represent the 13 months of the year (the extra 13th is the 'leap month' in the
lunar calendar). The surface board is round to represent Heaven and the bottom board flat to represent the earth. The entire length of the qin (in Chinese measurements) is 3
chi, 6
cun and 5
fen;
[ff「分]]」] representing the 365 days of the year (though this is just a standard since qins can be shorter or longer depending on the period's measurement standard or the maker's preference). Each part of the qin has meaning, some more obvious, like "dragon pool"
[『池]]/龙池』] and "phoenix pond".
[『沼]]/凤沼』]
Strings
[[File:Qin Strings.jpg|thumb|A selection of different qin strings. Top to bottom: (太古琴絃) Taigu Silk Qin Strings (中清 zhongqing gauge) with a container of 'string gum' (
