Tuning practice in guqin practice?

[guzhenglover]

Can anyone please shed light on this: when you are practising and your pieces appear in different diaos, do you start with those that have certain diaos before moving on to those that have certain other diaos? Do you "cluster" your pieces based on the necessary diao changes? If so, do you do this in a particular order? I'd have thought so, and I guess it might be logical to practise those pieces in the standard huangzhong diao before practising the other pieces in other diaos. Or do you not agree?

Also is it normal to be changing the tuning frequently/regularly/daily, I mean, each time you do the practise routine? I ask this question because this means that we have to be "tampering" with the pegs every time we practise - but then maybe this is what's expected? Are guqins and their pegs designed for constant adjustments etc.?

[SCWGuqin]

Uhhh.....

...

This is all personal preference. Me, I go months without changing out of zheng diao. I think maybe you could do a concert where one half is zhengdiao and one half is ruibin... how you choose to practice for such a performance would be up to you.

Are you still hung up on tuning as something difficult? It's really not...

[guzhenglover]

No, thanks to you all, I've now discovered that tuning is actually quite manageable. So when you practise different pieces in different modes, don't you have to keep adjusting back and forth between the standard diao and other diaos?

[SCWGuqin]

Yes, so if you find that inconvenient, group pieces in the same tuning together. Since over 90% of pieces are in zhengdiao, you can go a LONG time and learn a lot of qin without ever re-tuning...then you can have a "ruibin week" or a "huangzhong week" etc.

[Si]

Yeah, honesty I could not undertand why earlier you wanted to tune into other daos.

I find it a gross pain in the neck to have to change daos. Its easy to do but I hate the inflexibility of it.



When I was learnig YGSD before, I used to keep that daos for say 2 days, then change back for a day or 2 then, then back again. I was seriously thinking of getting another qin at that point hahahah but maybe I am a very lazy qin player.

[guzhenglover]

Well I guess I haven't minded changing diaos as I am enjoying my newly acquired tuning skills and have actually found it quite fun to do. As you say it's not as hard as I first thought and I haven't found inflexibility such a bother. I asked the question initially because I am practising many pieces in standard diao and some new pieces in other diaos, incl. feng qiu huang, YGSD and Yu Lou Chun Xiao. I want to practise them all each day but just wanted to make sure that people do keep adjusting the pegs and they can do this as often as is required without having to worry about causing damage to their qins. But from what I gather, I don't think that damaging the qin is a concern but, rather, the bother of it.

[Charlie Huang]

You can hardly damage the qin just by the tuning pegs!

Anyways, do not fall into the trap of treating tunings as a gymnastic exercise. You need to learn to tune otherwise, you'll always be refering back to the book to find out how to. I tune almost several times a day depending on what piece I practice/play. It helps it to become second nature and it will be pips from then on.

Besides, you're suppose to check the tuning before every piece to see if it hasn't slipped and you'll be adjusting it slightly anyways. It really is simple practicing; you'll understand which strings at which huis raise or lower the tuning by x steps, etc. Of course, don't go overboard.

As for a list, again with the fingerings, learn them as you come across them.

[guzhenglover]

Yes I agree with you there Charlie. I've begun to discover for myself the joy of tuning as it really is a kind of exercise in listening and also getting to know more about how the guqin works. And I can see now that the way tuning works on the guqin can be quite systematic and not as hard to grasp as I earlier thought.

[Charlie Huang]

Also, make sure you have good tuning pegs (the ones with grooves at the side) so you can turn it more easily.

[guzhenglover]

A curious thing's happened. After tuning my qin, I thought I'd check the second open string which is tuned to D against the piano. Oddly enough, the second string is in harmony with the middle D on the piano but not with the lower D in the bass (i.e. D on the third line of the bass clef) on the piano. Why is this so? Is this an indication that I've not quite tuned my qin properly, or is my piano out of tune (though it can't be, as I've just had it tuned this morning)? Or would you say that the two tuning systems (qin and piano) are tuned differently according to different tuning principles, so a slight harmonic mismatch is posssible?

[Charlie Huang]

Have no clue here! The only guess is your qin is shorter, therefore you tuned it considerably higher...

[guzhenglover]

Well not to worry, I think it's OK now. No my qin is a Wang Peng standard length instrument. Thanks.

[blueharp]

The piano and the guqin are tuned to different temperaments (piano equal temperament and guqin what amounts to pythagorean). Generally on a piano the octave is stretched slightly a few cents, so it might be slightly out of tune in comparison to the guqin where the octaves are pure. It is more apparent on pianos with a shorter string length like baby grands and spinets.

There is a complex explanation for it involving the physics of wire strings that is sure to make your eyes glaze over. ;D

[guzhenglover]

Thanks blueharp. I did suspect that maybe different temperaments have something to do with the situation.

[Charlie Huang]

I still think this tuning to exact pitches is a bit anal for beginners!