The resonance soundbox is composed of the front board, backboard, and side board. The typical one has 21 strings which mainly consists of a front board, backboard, side board, head, tail, bridges and strings. By the 1960s, the model of guzheng we use today was set: 160.5 centimeters long and 33.5 centimeters wide with 22 strings.

In the 1950s, the design and manufacturing techniques of guzheng went through a major transformation, highlighted by an enlarged soundbox and the addition of metal strings which enabled the stings to produce a louder sound. By playing in concert together, two players make their rendition more expressive and touching through their musical interactions. Being widely played in the court and by the public, it had already become the most popular stringed instrument by the prime time of the Tang Dynasty (618-907).ĭuring the Yuan Dynasty (1206-1368), the guzheng duet performance emerged. There are a number of guzheng clubs and studios hosted by schools throughout China.Īccording to historical records, guzheng first became popular during the Spring and Autumn Period (770-476 BC). Played by millions of people in China, guzheng is a popular traditional Chinese musical instrument. Two minutes later during the school concert, the spotlight shined on her as she played her guzheng solo debut in the Dream Theater of Beijing 101 Middle School. With an audience of around 200 seated people in the school theater and 100 more watching live streaming online, 14-year-old Xi paced up and down behind the stage, looking a bit tense, but there were also sparkles of excitement in her eyes. Relax and just focus on your playing,' said Cao Yuanyuan, a young guzheng teacher at Beijing 101 Middle School, while adjusting the collar of Xi Rong, a girl who was dressed in an elaborate hanfu, the traditional Chinese costumes during the Han Dynasty (206 BC-220 AD).

As the art of playing Guzheng has been handed down by Chinese instrumentalists from generation to generation, for more than a millennium, countless people, from around the world, have become fascinated by the instrument's 'celestial beauty.' In 2008, the art of playing Guzheng was added to the list of the country's items of intangible cultural heritage. This reformed zither is widely known as the guzheng.Īpart from its role in the Chinese orchestra or as an accompaniment to other instruments, the guzheng now possesses a large solo repertoire, on par with that of other traditional Chinese instruments.Guzheng is a popular traditional, plucked Chinese musical instrument. The lower registers of the instrument possessed the tonal colour of the silk-stringed zheng, whereas the higher registers adopted the characteristic tonal colour of the steel-stringed zheng. Changes like these greatly increased the pitch range of the instrument, as well as improved volume range and contributed to the creation of hybridized folk tonal colours. During the Tang and Song dynasties, the instrument would then possess 13 strings by the Ming and Qin dynasty, 14 to 16 strings.Īs was the case for many ancient instruments, this Chinese zither was subsequently reformed the revolutionized zheng uses the 16-string silk string zheng as a basis for development and adopts the characteristic features of other zhengs, increasing the number of strings used to 17, 19 and then finally 21 in the 1970s. During the Qin and Han dynasties, more strings were added, making the total number of them 12. If proven to be one of the first zhengs to have existed, this information would provide a whole new perspective on the instrument’s history it would mean that, even prior to the pre-Qin Dynasty, the zheng had already spread to the Southern States, possessing a history of thousands of years.Īccording to end-Warring Period scholar’s Han Yingshao and Eastern Han period scholar Xu Shen, the first zheng consisted of five strings, a zither-like body and was played by using one’s hands.

In 1970, during the excavation of graves in the Jiangxi province that were dated to be as old as 500BC, two 13-stringed instruments that bore resemblance to the zheng were found. Lie Zhuan states that in the period before the Qin Dynasty (around 200 BC), the zheng was already a popular instrument that was typically used to accompany vocal music.Han Dynasty historian Si Maqian, in Shi Ji Not to be confused with the seven stringed guqin, the zheng is an ancient instrument that is now receiving immense popularity. One of the most popular Chinese instruments known to people, the zheng is a generic term for a long, plucked string box zither. Guzheng - Chinese Plucked String Instrument

Chinese string instrument guzheng