Qin (The Wild Goose Lands on the Smooth Sand)

This instrument is also called guqin or the seven-stringed qin. The body is a long and narrow sound box made of wood. It is 130cm long by 20cm wide, by 5cm thick. The surface is generally made of paulownia wood or China fir, and has seven strings stretched along it. On the edges are 13 inlaid jade markers. Catalpa wood is used for the base, and there are two holes, one big and on small (called the "phoenix pool" and "dragon pond", respectively) to emit the sound. The fingering techniques are known as recital, rubbing, plucking, concentration, floating notes and harmonious notes (same measure, five measure and octave). The instrument is rich in tone color, with airy, floating notes, and simple and solid scattered notes. The fingering is mellow and exquisite.

The Guqin This is a representative instrument of traditional Chinese musical culture. Because it embodied the traditional cultural values of clarity, fineness, simplicity and far-sightedness, the guqin headed the list of four subjects scholars trained themselves in along with chess, calligraphy and painting. Throughout history, philosophers and artists such as Confucius, Cai Yong and Ji Kang were all masters of the instrument. Everybody in China knows the stories of how Sima Xiangru got a wife by playing the guqin and the exploits of the guqin masters Bo Ya and Zhong Ziqi. Old records contain a large number of treatises on the guqin, making them treasuries of ancient Chinese esthetic thought, and thousands of pieces of music for this instrument have been preserved. Their scores are reliable, having been passed down through generations of music masters in an unbroken sequence; as such, they are authentic gems of traditional Chinese music.

Although the scores have been handed down, written in an abbreviated form of characters, the rhythms are not fixed, and so the interpretations of the different schools of their transmission differ. As a result, a comparatively demanding task of textual interpretation faces the performer. This interpretation of the score is a profound skill, measuring a performer's musical attainments. In recent times, a dozen or so masters of the guqin have emerged in China, including Wang Lu, Guan Pinghu, (Fig. 2-9) Zha Fuxi, Zhang Ziqian, Wu Jinglue, and Gu Meigeng. They have mastered the strong points of the various schools of this instrument and grasped the interpretation of a large number of pieces of guqin music, manifesting not only their musical skill but also their deep esthetic appreciation. Following are introductions to some of the most famous guqin pieces.

The Tipsy Fisherman Sings in the Evening was composed by Pi Rixiu and Lu Guimeng of the Tang Dynasty. Nowadays the interpretation most commonly played is that of Zhang Kongshan of the Sichuan school. The tune describes a fisherman who steers his boat on a river as fascinated with the surrounding landscape. The music starts off on a low pitch, and then progresses at an evenly rolling pace. The melody is rich in cadences. Through repetition of the rhythmic syncopation, with alternation of scattered and concentrated notes, and contrasts of light and dark tones, it gets across to the listener vividly the unsteadiness of the fisherman and the sentimental mood he is in.

Flowing Water first appeared in the Mysterious and Secret Musical Scores, and is connected with the well-known legend of the musicians Bo Ya and Zhong Ziqi of the Spring and Autumn Period. The piece is divided into four parts: introduction, taking up, transmitting and bringing together. The first part, through the floating notes of a deep, lucid and fluent melody, conjures up a vision of cloud-shrouded peaks and secluded, torrent-filled gullies; the second part unfolds in a continuous sequence, like drops of water gathering together and forming a thin, gurgling stream; in the third part, the notes are taken from the lower part of the scale and the pentatonic scale in a wide portamento, giving the tumbling and swishing effect of cascading waterfalls and rushing torrents; the final part brings the whole together by echoing the previous two parts. The lingering echo of the dashing waters are a paean of praise to and an expression of love for China's landscape.

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