Purchasing Zhongruan and/or Daruan.

[stacote]

Hello, I'm new here so if this topic is covered somewhere (I looked but came up with nothing) please forgive my question and kindly point me in the direction of the appropriate thread.

Just a little background so you'll know where I'm coming from. I am a long time fairly advanced player and maker of classical guitars/renaissance lutes. I have been given an opportunity to join a local group of chinese musicians (husbands of a few ladies in my wifes Chinatown Lionesse club) as long as I learn an appropriate instrument. I'm looking into taking up Zhongruan and maybe later Daruan. They seem the most likely for someone with my experience.

There isn't much available in my area to try out so I've been looking on line to make a purchase. I've come across what seem to be the most popular sites, Eason, Red Music Shop and a couple others. Any advice on these and any direction to other on line sources would be greatly appreciated.

My main question involves pricing vs quality of the instruments. I'm well aware of the quality in materials and workmanship one can expect for the various price ranges in classical guitars/lutes but I'm totally clueless when it comes to these instruments.

It seems that the "Popular grade" which I assume would be the student/entry level instrument is in the US$100.00 - 300.00 range, the "Professional grade" starts around US$500.00 and the "Concert grade" US$1300.00 and up with the most costly I've come across being about US$2500.00.

So, I'm not so concerned about the price except as a point of reference for me to understand the "grades". For example, would one of the advanced soloists one sees on utube use one of the Concert grade level, a better quality instrument or would their instruments be commissioned from an individual maker?


Thank you in advance.

[edcat7]

Hi stacote and welcome

just a quickly, late for work.

Get a Song Guan Ning, any one will do, though experience has taught me to get the best I can afford. The SGN's are simply the best.

[stacote]

Thank you very much edcat7. I've read good things about the SGN instruments and am headed in that direction.

By chance, just this morning, I came across another posting you were involved in which helped clear up most of my questions concerning what to expect from the different instrument prices.

starvoid.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=Other&action=display&thread=1593

I seriously doubt I'll go for the top of the line instrument listed on Eason, maybe later assuming I take to it, but I'd want something upper intermediate-ish. A good instrument always inspires one to practice more, I think. Perhaps this one. Any comments?

www.eason.com.sg/products/ruan/tbzr10.jsp

Out of interest sake as an instrument builder myself, I'd still like to know about high end and custom makers if anyone is familiar with this.

[edcat7]

The one you're interested is a very good one. My teacher told me SGN zhongruans sound better than other dearer makes.

One word of warning though, make sure for example a D on the first open string sounds the same as a D on the second string, etc. Eason will give you a video clip of the said purchase.
Otherwise the bridge will have to be rotated.

If you can get one, as I understand it, he only sells to friends and his students a zhongruan made by:

www.hkco.org/old/eng/about_om_eng.asp

The liuqin player makes his own instruments, and his designs and even his picks are now widely copied. His zhongruan design has a fine tuner at the base and my teacher says his zhongruan sounds more like a guqin than a zhongruan. Since he's mature in age there won't be many more made.

[stacote]

Aug 20, 2012 23:59:35 GMT edcat7 said:

One word of warning though, make sure for example a D on the first open string sounds the same as a D on the second string, etc. Eason will give you a video clip of the said purchase.
Otherwise the bridge will have to be rotated.

Thanks for the heads up edcat7. I take it to mean the pitch should be the same for first string open and 2nd string 7th fret or the bridge will need adjusting.

As long as the frets are accurately placed and properly leveled (very important!), I think I'll be ok working on any of the other issues that might need looking at but to be honest I'd rather not have to do anything except minor adjustments like bridge placement (intonation) and maybe string height above the frets (action).

Anything else I need to keep an eye and ear out for, please let me know.

Also, thanks a lot for the info on the maker (Yeun Shi-chun, is that the fellow you are refering to?). I might try to make contact instrument maker to instrument maker and see if we can learn something from each other...he sounds like a very interesting fellow.

[edcat7]

Yes I mean the pitch.... I think, I have no prior Western musical trainning so I dont really understand the terms.

Yes, Yeun Shi Chun taught my teacher's teacher and he needed a letter of introduction when he went to HK to get his zhongruan and liuqin.

[stacote]

Aug 21, 2012 1:55:35 GMT edcat7 said:

Yes, Yeun Shi Chun taught my teacher's teacher and he needed a letter of introduction when he went to HK to get his zhongruan and liuqin.

Ok, I understand. My wife is chinese so I occassionally forget that dealing with her extended family and friends is vastly simpler than it might be with the more traditional folks. Good you brought that up. It's a point to remember...helps me save a little "face".

Your understanding of the terms is just fine, our words are slightly different that's all. But we worked it out perfectly, that's all that really matters. Just wait until I try to figure out the chinese way of doing things...that will be foder for many jokes, I'm sure.

I'd like to hear you play sometime...have you posted anything on youtube or...?

[edcat7]

No, I havent posted anything on youtube as I'm no where near good enough. I'm sometimes frustrated by being taught by Chinese teachers. I have two, a dizi/erhu and a liuqin teacher, though lately since my new job with it's ridiculously long hours and low pay, I haven't practised much.

Chinese teachers spent so much time on the basics. With the liuqin every note has to be in time with a metronome, how I hold the liuqin, posture, relaxation, 'CHI' ? how I hold the pick, it goes on.....

Valdae, who has become a very good friend, plays the zhongruan unconventionally but with very good results. You'll find him on youtube.

[davidmdahl]

Welcome to the forum, stacote. I recently purchased a Man Rui Xin zhongruan, and second the recommendations to get a SGN, from a vendor such as Eason. I am a fan of MRX fiddles, so I was predisposed to get a ruan from the same maker. Unfortunately, while the sound satisfies me, the tuning in the frets has been problematical. The tuning was helped some by turning the bridge around and adjusting the position. I also have had some touble with a bridge that was too short, so that the note sounded when pressing the high string at that fret was the same as the next fret. I fixed that by applying several layers of tape.

From what I hear about SGN, it should be unnecessary to monkey with the frets. The tuning and setup should already be good.

Best wishes,
David

[stacote]

Thanks David.

That's unfortunate about the frets on your ruan. Poorly placed frets can make an otherwise good instrument frustrating faster than anything else, I think.

I can see that the accurate fret placement, on many of the chinese instruments that have the high raised frets, would be fairly difficult and demand special attention. I suspect a qualified luthier could make adjustments to the fret placement should the tuning be too annoying. If you don't care to mess with it yourself and want to get it looked at I know an excellent luthier (who I would trust working on my instruments) in Portland. I'm sure he would be happy to check it out for you. Nice guy and very reasonable.

Tell me a little more about turning the bridge around. I'm not quite clear on what that does. The bridges on ruans look similar (in the photos at least...) to mandolin or arch top western guitar bridges where adjustments can be made simply by moving them forward, back and/or at a slight angle. How are the ruan bridges different in that respect?

[davidmdahl]

I would love to get some help from your Portland luthier friend, stacote! I will send you a PM with my contact information.

The bridge on my zhongruan appears to be made to account for the thickness of the strings. If the bass strings go over the part of the bridge intended for the treble strings, they sit too high. This is enough to throw off the tuning, at least to my ears. Apparently the bridge was either misinstalled from the beginning, set up incorrectly by the retailer, or by an other frustrated customer who returned it.

The string height is a little high, but that might be normal for a ruan. I think if the tuning issues can be resolved it will be a much more enjoyable instrument. If you can purchase a ruan that is already set up well, you can avoid some frustration and expense. That can be hard to judge over the internet, so reputation of the maker and dealer increases in importance.

Best wishes,

David

[edcat7]

Turning the bridge, or more accurately rotating the bridge so that it angles upwards towards the thinnest string, will alter the length of the string to the bridge. My teacher had done this to my mid-priced SGN, a common problem with budget instruments.

If you are getting the SGN as shown above, this shouldn't be a problem as that one is supervised by Zhang Xin Hua. My mid-priced one was not.

Unfortunately my liuqin, bought for me by my teacher from Taiwan, supervised by a professor Wu from Shanghai University, has the same problem. It has also developed a crack and hopefully I'll try to get the tunning sorted out as well.

I would make clear to Eason that the one you want does not have this problem.

[stacote]

Thanks guys. Good info.

[dragona]

thank you so much,its very useful.

[Blue]

Hi dragona,

How so do you find it useful?