A Qing dynasty Qin

At right are three close ups of the later of the two instruments shown together on the top of this section's main page (the instrument there on the right). According to the date written in on the back side of the top board, barely visible inside the upper sound hole, it was apparently completed in 1874 (the inscription seems to include the characters （丙戌？）治十三年孟冬__鐘子題, making it the 13th year of the 同治 Tongzhi reign (1862-1874).²

Qing dynasty instruments in general, 19th century in particular, have a bad reputation. Over the years I have tried quite a few bad ones, a few that seemed quite good, but at that time it was difficult to find one still strung with silk strings. This one also had nylon metal strings on it, but it seemed promising, so I put silk strings on it and tried it out. The sound was quite good, but it had a severe problem with buzzing sounds (zayin).³

These buzzing sounds usually result from irregularities on the top surface of the qin, but it could also be that over the years the qin has become somewhat warped. The main cause of this is said to be leaving the qin too long in a horizontal position, though the tightness and inflexible tension of nylon-metal strings can also cause this.⁴

What I did, then, was put matchsticks under the string to raise them up; that helped, but even better was to put narrow chopsticks there to raise the strings further. This caused the buzzing to decrease noticeably. So after I had acquired the qin I took it to a luthier in San Francisco and had him shape and glue a piece of hardwood to the existing bridge (this can barely be seen in the image above: the wood is a slightly lighter color). This made the buzzing largely disappear.

The qin has a rather loud but still appealing sound, though some say the sound is somewhat "empty" due to the large soundbox.⁵ It has two sound posts and a trough-shaped nayin (bass bar). It might be interesting to see how it would sound if a piece of wood was properly shaped and fastened on over the nayin, as was sometimes done in the past.

One further note: the line between the top board and bottom board has become visible in several places. This is almost certainly a result of having to check the qin in during a trans-Pacific flight. The styrofoam qin case I generally use is actually quite sturdy, but the change of temperature in the hold can make the top board and bottom board expand/contract at different temperatures. If a repair person had "improved" the connection by using a modern glue then there is a good chance the instrument would have cracked. With the traditional glue it started to come apart, though not so much yet that it seems to affect the sound.

See also Qin storage and note that most of the solutions I suggest could be considered as non-invasive.

Footnotes (Shorthand references are explained on a separate page)

1. 清代無名琴 A Qing dynasty qin with no name
Acquired ca. 1990 from Tong Kin-Woon.
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2. Inscription inside
I took it to my dentist who used a special camera to photography it; however, we were not very good at placing it and the inscription itself is almost illegible.
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3. Extraneous sounds (雜音 za yin)
Also translated on this site as "disorderly sounds". For more on what causes this see "buzzing sounds". Related terms include "buzzing noise flaw" (㪇病 xian bing), and "beating the surface" (拍面 paimian). Note that these problems can mostly be addressed by temporary/reversible measures as well as more permanent ones.
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4. Qin damage and repair
The damage on this qin was probably a natural result of much use, but here it should be noted that the modern use of nylon metal strings can cause such problems to occur much more quickly. For example, nylon-metal strings much more easily put divots in lacquer and the only way to repair this is to relacquer that part of the instrument. But people who allow this sort of damage to happen to antique instruments have also been known permanently to alter the antique, for example by re-shaping the nayin on the inside of the sound box, or permanently lowering the bridge, since nylon-metal stringed instruments play better with a lower bridge. Sometimes such alteration is largely reversible, at other times it is not.
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5. Sound quality of this Qing dynasty qin
The sound of this qin can be heard in the first two CDs of my 6 CD Shen Qi Mi Pu complete recordings; those recordings are also on this website (the first 16 pieces here).

There are leading qin players today who say they would play with silk strings if their quality was better. These recordings were made in the 1990s using silk strings made in the 1980s and today silk strings of similar quality can still be found. So far I have not heard of anyone using these recordings to support that opinion.
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Return to the Qin as object, or to the Guqin ToC.