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Qin tablature and playing technique   /   Teaching guqin in China  /   Video for students 中文   目錄
Learning to play the qin
Including techniques and materials		 學彈絲弦古琴
Traditionally a student simply copied the
teacher, and did not look at written music
This site does not yet include an instructional page for fingering techniques.1 Rather it has general guidelines and historical information, such as the following:

  1. Teaching Historically-Informed Qin Performance (my teaching principles and syllabus);
  2. The beginner's melody Xianweng Cao (Transcendent Venerable One);
  3. Its predecessor Caoman Yin (Strum Silk Prelude);
  4. Qin notation and playing technique, with further links (see especially the Hand Gesture Illustrations).
  5. Fingering explanations from Van Gulik's Lore of the Chinese Lute, a .9MB PDF file.

In 2002, Guangzhou Dongtian Culture Enterprise, as part of their Dongtian Music Classes series, published a 5 VCD box-set showing Prof. Wu Zhao teaching qin. I don't know if it can be ordered from their website. There are also instructional VCD / DVD sets by other players. To my knowledge, all use metal string qins.

 

 

 

 

 
Footnotes (Shorthand references are explained on a separate page)

1. Specific playing instructions
The page Qin tablature and playing technique has some explanations that can be used with the specific Hand Gesture Illustrations translated from Taiyin Daquanji. More detailed information about the playing techniques can be found on other websites, in particular:

  1. Judy Chang Pei-You; see "Finger Technique and Notation"; and
  2. Jim Binkley's annotated translation of the Fingering techniques from Yuguzhai Qinpu.
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