First Guqin "Performance"

One reason that I like the Guqin is because it's not really a "performance" instrument, per se, but rather more of a meditative instrument played alone in a room or out on a hillside somewhere.  It is studied as a way of improving and fulfilling the student. It is studied as a sort of 功夫 (Kung Fu), with the purpose of developing discipline and bringing clarity of thought.  Perhaps I like this sort of instrument simply out of a fear of performance and the possibility of failure in front of a live audience.  Regardless, it is an art, and despite it usually being a solitary one, art at times requires an audience and interpretation, or at the least an evaluation...

Over the past few months, I have been taking part in weekly lessons as part of the Guqin Society at the college where I teach.  As a fulfillment of the "course," each student is required to participate in 雅集 (ya3ji2), which is basically a more formal "performance" of the piece that you have learned. The audience, in my experience, is still just your classmates, as it has been all along, but there is still somehow an added element of stress.  This was my first time playing a piece in front of a group of live listeners, and as you can see, my playing still largely lacks any real musical quality (despite the fact that I've been learning this instrument for over a year now).

The song played is called 湘江怨 (xiang1jiang1yuan4). The first two characters are the name of a river, the Xiangjiang river in Hunan; and the last character means "lament."

<https://baike.baidu.com/item/湘江怨/819704 >

The Basics of Reading Guqin Tablature

“Most of the instruments required in [Chinese] ritual music have a particular kind of musical notation adapted to the exigencies of their conformation.  For instance, a piece written for [Qin] presents a complicated combination of strokes difficult to learn and decipher.  Still it is an ingenious and abbreviated kind of notation.” – J.A. Van Aalst, Chinese Music

I can still remember sitting in the upstairs music room of my elementary school where the teacher described a half rest as a top hat and a whole rest as a hole in the ground.  I remember taking up trumpet in middle school and learning to use a musical instrument to create music according to such written representations.  I remember joining the jazz band in community college and dedicating free time during the summer before to learning to read the bass clef, which I had never needed to know for trumpet, so I could be a proper bassist.  All along, I assumed that this was the way that music was to be written, and never did I imagine that there might be other systems of recording sounds on paper.

A piece of Guqin music.

The system of writing Guqin music is very fitting to the culture which the instrument comes from.  If someone were to string together several Chinese words and among them include a single character that was actually for Guqin musical notation, the western eye would have much difficulty deciding which was the odd man out.  Despite this, many Chinese people might look at it and be very confused by the character which they were unable to read.  The basic character strokes denoting finger plucking techniques (right hand) were presented in this post: Characters Representing Right Hand Finger Techniques.  These strokes are the foundation upon which more information is built through a use of radicals, similar to Chinese orthography, so that each character in the tablature represents one musical note created through actions of both the right (plucking) and left (pressing/sliding/tapping) hands. Guqin music is written as Chinese used to be, that is top to bottom and right to left. 

 There are thirteen inlaid dots along the top of the body of a Guqin which are used to show the location of notes, similar to the fretting and inlays on the neck of a guitar.  The numbering used to represent these locations in the tablature naturally use Chinese numbers: 一，二，三，四，五，六，七，八，九，十，十一，十二，十三.

 The next bit that one needs to know is character/radicals which represent the fingers of the left hand:

The left hand characters.

The pinky finger is not used for Guqin, whether on the right hand or on the left.  The character representing the pointer finger changes to the radical form of 人 when used in musical tablature.  For the ring finger, only the top portion of 名is used (see below).

When reading a piece of Guqin music, one character made of several radicals represents one note to be produced.  Each radical tells the player something about how to make the note, e.g., which finger of the left hand to use, which location to press down on the string, how to pluck with the right hand, and, of course, which of the seven strings should be plucked.  

Timing is also represented in modern Chinese music, though there was a time when this was not the case, but an explanation of that will be saved for another post.

Characters Representing Right Hand Finger Techniques

The following are the characters that are representative of each of the right-hand finger techniques of Guqin discussed in the previous post:  Finger Techniques of Guqin - Right Hand.  These characters are necessary for reading Guqin sheet music.

Thumb

 

Pointer Finger

Middle Finger

Index Finger

Finger Techniques of Guqin - Right Hand

The following are the basic finger techniques of the right hand that should be used when playing the Guqin.  It is important to keep a good posture when playing with back straight and shoulders relaxed, but not slumped forward.  Feet should be squarely on the floor and elbow is usually at a relaxed position next to the musician's body.

Thumb

bō / pi4
The middle finger rests several strings lower (further away from your body), elbow is raised, thumb plucks straight across and downward toward your body.  Motion is focused in shifting of hand and arm while thumb remains somewhat stiff and rounded.  Do not extend the thumb upward after plucking motion.





tuō
The middle finger rests several strings lower (further away from
your body), but elbow is lowered to relaxed normal position, hand is set sideways.  Lower side of thumb plucks string away from your body and slightly downward.

The thumb fingerings of the right hand are really only used for the highest two string which are nearest your body.  For bō, hand can sometimes come completely off the strings and towards the musician's body when plucked.

Pointer Finger

mu4
Hand should be relaxed and with a natural shape.  Pointer finger is straight and stiff, plucking downward and towards your body to stop on the next string.  Movement is focused in your large knuckle while other joints remain static.




tiāo
Middle finger is rounded with the tip resting on a string one or two forward.  The thumb is bent with tip pressing against the the pointer finger and the first joint.  Make the empty space between pointer and thumb circular.  Using your fingernail, pluck downward and away from your body, but don't hit the next string or the body of the instrument.  The thumb should add the necessary stability and control.

Middle Finger

gōu
Similar the mu4 of the pointer finger, keep hand relaxed, slightly rounded and fingers close together with your thumb down and its top facing parallel to the strings.  Middle finger is stiff and movement occurs only in the large knuckle as you pluck the string downward and towards your body.





tī
Middle finger slides upward against one string higher (closer to your body) than the one you want to strike until the tip comes to rest on top of the string.  The string should touch just under the fingernail; the middle finger is quite bent while other fingers are relaxed, uniform and only slightly rounded.  The middle finger then extends quickly to pluck against the string in front of it.  Be careful not to cause the string which you were resting on the sound.

Index Finger

dǎ

This technique is the same as gōu, but done with your index finger.









zhāi
This technique is the same as tī, but done with your index finger.

Index finger techniques are rarely used.  Most playing is done with the thumb, pointer, and middle fingers.



For the written characters that are associated with each of these techniques, see this post:  Characters Representing Right Hand Finger Techniques.