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Q: Anyone tried learning the erhu/guzheng?
Or any other traditional Chinese instrument for that matter? I had a pluck at an erhu the other day and sounded like a cat dying (though it seems they often do.)
I'd like to recommend you the erhu music 《赛马》.It's like the representative erhu music.
My dad told me he used to be in the factory band playing erhu and my cousin sister has learned guzheng for two years. But I haven't learned either of them......
OP, can you play anything?
I tried a guzheng a few times. Great for arpeggios. I wonder what it would sound like with distortion through a Marshall or Vox? Probably not good.
The guzheng is great for melodies. Love it.
easyrider:
I'm a guitar player me, not too bad on the banjo either I have you know! But yeah I'd love to get my hands on a guzheng. They sound nice.
bill8899:
I play electrics. If you can pick a banjo you'd like the guzheng. You can find the tuning online somewhere (I'm lazy) and go to it. You can even do legato slides and whatnot. Please just don't play "One".
darkstar1:
That would be a funny sight. Sounds like those instruments are more suited to folk - I wonder what would have happened if Nick Drake ever got his hands on them..
Never learnt either, I play the sax, but I do have a vaguely related story: I study Chinese and often put vocabulary on my phone as it is a convenient way to make study available when you have a busy schedule that keeps you constantly on the move or if, like me, you just like sitting around on your arse all day playing with your phone. Anyway I made one list I labeled 'Entertainment' which included musical instruments, but when I got to 'guzhang' and 'erhu' I found myself stuck because they don't have an English name, so instead I chose to be physically descriptive. The 'guzhang' I simply described as 'chinese piano guitar' as that immediately conjures up a picture of the instrument in my mind. The 'erhu' is not so simple; it is a long instrument that is seated upright between the legs of the musician and it has a rather haunting sound if played correctly, not unlike a violin. For these reasons I gave the description 'long sad cock violin' which would have been fine had I not forgotten it was in there and texted my vocabulary lists to a group of my students as a means to help them with their studies. Fortunately they were all adult students or I might have had a few difficult moments with some very angry parents when their kids told them they were going to their rooms to play with their long sad cock violins.
I learned the dizi 笛子 for about a year, and now I'm learning the 古琴 guqin.
