Guqin

There are a number of ancient sources that discuss qin lore, qin theory and general qin literature. Some of these books are available inserted into certain qinpu (qin tablature collections). The basic contents of qin literature are mainly essays discussing and describing the nature of qin music, the theory behind the notes and tones, the method of correct play, the history of qin music, lists of mentions in literature, etc. The detail can be very concise to extremely detailed and thorough. Some are mostly philosophical or artistic musings, others are scientific and technical.

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).

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. Of course, societies do not have to have a strict structure to adhere to; it could mostly be on a leisurely basis. The main purpose of qin societies is to promote and play qin music. It is often a good opportunity to network and learn to play the instrument, to ask questions and to receive answers.

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".[7][8]

• Confucius: Philosopher, 551-479 BCE, associated with the piece Kongzi Duyi,[9] Weibian Sanjue[10] and Youlan.[11]
• Bo Ya: Qin player of the Spring and Autumn period, associated with the piece Gao Shan.[12] and Liu Shui[13]
• Zhuang Zi: Daoist philosopher of the Warring States period, associated with the piece Zhuang Zhou Mengdie[14] and Shenhua Yin.[15]
• Qu Yuan (340-278 BCE): Poet of the Warring States period, associated with the piece Li Sao.[16]
• Cai Yong: Han musician, author of Qin Cao.[17]
• Cai Wenji: Cai Yong's daughter, associated with the piece Hujia Shiba-pai,[18] 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.[19]
• 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[20] ("10,000 Qin Hall") in his palace.
• Guo Chuwang: Patriot at the end of the Song dynasty, composer of the piece Xiaoxiang Shuiyun.[21]

The classical collections such as Qin Shi, Qinshi Bu and Qinshi Xu include biographies of hundreds more players.[22]

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 occupations 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 necessary Chinese) and give recitals or talks.

The tones of qin can be categorized as three characteristic "sounds". The first type is san yin (散音), which literally means "scattered sound". It's the fundamental frequency produced by plucking a free string with the fingers of the right hand. (Listen ). 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 (Listen ) named fan yin (泛音), or overtone harmonics. Important scale notes, called hui and 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 (按音 / 案音 / 實音 / 走音), or "changing sounds". 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 slides 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. (Listen to Pei Lan ). 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.[23] Most of the qin's techniques are obsolete, but around 50 of them still appear in modern performance.

• 
  〈挑〉 Tiao
• 
  〈勾〉 Gou
• 
  〈劈〉 Pi
• 
  〈撥〉 Bo

The above four figures are from an old handbook.[24]

First section of Youlan, showing the name of the piece: "Jieshi Diao Youlan No.5", the preface describing the piece's origins, and the tablature in longhand form.

Chinese Wikisource has original text related to this article: "Jieshi Diao Youlan" 《碣石調幽蘭》

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 system, or indicate rhythm using dots. 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[25] (Solitary Orchid in Stone Tablet Mode). It is written in a longhand form called wenzi pu (文字譜) (literally "written notation"), said to have been created by Yong Menzhou[26] during the Warring States period, which gives all the details using ordinary written Chinese characters. Later in the Tang dynasty, Cao Rou[27] 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 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 (琴譜) (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.[28] In the 1960s, Zha Fuxi discovered more than 130 qinpu that contain well over 3360 pieces of written music. Sadly, many qinpu compiled before the Ming dynasty are now lost, and many pieces have remained unplayed for hundreds of years.[29]

The Qinxue Rumen 【琴學入門】 (1864) tablature has dots and gongche notation next to the qin tablature to indicate beats and notes.

Qin pieces are usually around three to eight minutes in length, with the longest being "Guangling San",[30] which is 22 minutes long. Other famous pieces include "Liu Shui"[13] (Flowing Water), "Yangguan San Die"[31] (Three Refrains on the Yang Pass Theme), "Meihua San Nong"[32] (Three Variations on the Plum Blossom Theme), "Xiao Xiang Shui Yun"[33] (Mist and Clouds over the Xiao and Xiang Rivers), and "Pingsha Luo Yan"[34] (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.

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).

The Qinxue Congshu 【琴學叢書】 (1910) uses a more detailed system involving a grid next to main qin notation; right grid line indicates note, middle indicates the beat, left indicates how the qin tablature relates to the rhythm.

There is a saying that goes "a short piece requires three months [of dapu to complete], 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.

It has already been discussed that qin music has a rhythm and that it is only vaguely indicated in the tablature.[35] 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.

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[36] 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;[37] 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"[38] and "phoenix pond".[39]

Names of (from left to right) the front, inside and back parts of the qin

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' (絃膠), (上音牌琴弦) Shangyin Shanghai Conservatorie Quality Qin Strings (metal-nylon), (虎丘古琴絃) Huqiu Silk Strings

Until recently, the guqin's strings were always made of various thicknesses of twisted silk, but since then most players use modern nylon-flatwound steel strings. This was partly due to the scarcity of high-quality silk strings and partly due to the newer strings' greater durability and louder tone.

Silk strings are made by gathering a prescribed number of strands of silk thread, then twisting them tightly together. The twisted cord of strings is then wrapped around a frame and immersed in a vat of liquid composed of a special mixture of natural glue that binds the strands together. The strings are taken out and left to dry, before being cut into the appropriate length. The top thicker strings (i.e. strings one to four) are further wrapped in a thin silk thread, coiled around the core to make it smoother. According to ancient manuals, there are three distinctive gauges of thickness that one can make the strings. The first is taigu[40] [Great Antiquity] which is the standard gauge, the zhongqing[41] [Middle Clarity] is thinner, whilst the jiazhong[42] [Added Thickness] is thicker. According to the Yugu Zhai Qinpu, zhongqing is the best. The currently used silk string gauge standard was defined by Suzhou silk string maker Pan Guohui (潘國輝).

Although most contemporary players use nylon-wrapped metal strings, some argue that nylon-wrapped metal strings cannot replace silk strings for their refinement of tone. Additionally, nylon-wrapped metal strings can cause damage to the wood of old qins. Many traditionalists feel that the sound of the fingers of the left hand sliding on the strings to be a distinctive feature of qin music. The modern nylon-wrapped metal strings were very smooth in the past, but are now slightly modified in order to capture these sliding sounds.

Around 2007, a new type of strings were produced made of mostly a nylon core coiled with nylon like the metal-nylon strings, possibly in imitation of Western catgut strings.[43] The sound is similar to the metal-nylon strings but without the metallic tone to them (one of the main reasons why traditionalists do not like the metal-nylon strings). The nylon strings can be tuned to standard pitch without breaking and can sustain their tuning whatever the climate, unlike silk. The strings have various names in China, but they are advertised as sounding like silk strings prior to the 1950s, when silk string production stopped.

Traditionally, the strings were wrapped around the goose feet,[44][45] but a device has been invented, which is a block of wood attached to the goose feet, with pins similar to those used to tune the guzheng protruding out at the sides, so one can string and tune the qin using a tuning wrench. This is good for those who lack the physical strength to pull and add tension to the strings when wrapping the ends around the goose feet. However, the tuning device looks rather unsightly and thus many qin players prefer the traditional manner of tuning; many also feel that the strings should be firmly wrapped around the goose feet in order that the sound may be "grounded" into the qin; and some feel that the device which covers the phoenix pond sound hole has a negative effect on the sound volume and quality.[46]

A painting by Chen Hongshou of a person with a qin.

Being an instrument associated with scholars, the guqin was also played in a ritual context, especially in yayue in China, and aak in Korea.

The National Center for Korean Traditional Performing Arts continues to perform Munmyo jeryeak (Confucian ritual music), using the last two surviving aak melodies from the importation of yayue from the Song Dynasty emperor Huizong in 1116, including in the ensemble the seul (se) and geum (금; qin). The Korean geum used in this context has evolved to be slightly different when compared to the normal qin in that there are 14 instead of 13 hui and that they are not placed correctly according to the harmonic positions besides other different construction features. The finger techniques are more closer to gayageum technique than it is to the complex ones of the qin. As the qin never gained a following in Korean society, the ritual geum became the fossilised form of it and to all intents and purposes unplayable for a qin player. The Korean scholars never adopted the qin but instead created their own instrument, the geomungo (玄琴), which adopted much of the qin's lore and aesthetics and essentially taking the qin's place as the scholars' instrument.

In China, the qin was still in use in ritual ceremonies of the imperial court, such can be seen in the court paintings of imperial sacrifices of the Qing court (e.g. The Yongzheng Emperor Offering Sacrifices at the Altar of the God of Agriculture,[56] 1723–35).[57] The qin also have many variations with a different number of strings, such as during Song Taizong's reign, but these variations never survived the changes of dynasty and so today the normal qin is used.

In Japan, the qin was never adopted into ritual music, but for a time in the late Edo period the qin was adopted by some scholars and Buddhist monks.

The guqin was also used in the ritual music of Vietnam, where it was called cầm.

When the qin is played, a number of aesthetic elements are involved. The first is musicality. In the second section of "Pingsha Luoyan", for example, the initial few bars contain a nao vibrato followed by a phase of sliding up and down the string, even when the sound has already become inaudible (Listen carefully to the sliding sounds of Pingsha Luoyan ). The average person trained in music may question whether this is really "music". Normally, some players would pluck the string very lightly to create a very quiet sound. For some players, this plucking isn't necessary. Instead of trying to force a sound out of the string one should allow the natural sounds emit from the strings. Some players say that the sliding on the string even when the sound has disappeared is a distinctive feature in qin music. It creates a "space" or "void" in a piece, playing without playing, sound without sound. In fact, when the viewer looks at the player sliding on the string without sounds, the viewer automatically "fills in the notes" with their minds. This creates a connection between player, instrument and listener. This, of course, cannot happen when listening to a recording, as one cannot see the performer. It can also be seen as impractical in recording, as the player would want to convey sound as much as possible towards a third audience. But in fact, there is sound, the sound coming from the fingers sliding on the string. With a really good qin, silk strings, and a perfectly quiet environment, all the tones can be sounded. Since the music is more player-oriented than listener oriented, and the player knows the music, he/she can hear it even if the sound is not there. With silk strings, the sliding sound might be called the qi or "life force" of the music. The really empty sounds are the pauses between notes. However, if one cannot create a sound that can be heard when sliding on a string, it is generally acceptable to lightly pluck the string to create a very quiet sound.[58]