Dizis with equidistant fingerholes

[Flolei]

On Taobao I noticed that a seller sell dizis with equidistant fingerholes, which is different from common modern dizis, especially if we consider the right hand.

item.taobao.com/item.htm?spm=a230r.1.14.45.SiWi2h&id=7905756373

So, for example, he sells two kinds of C dizis: one modern one and one with equidistant fingerholes.

I know that in the past all dizis were with equidistant fingerholes, but I don't know what it means in terms of tuning. Does anyone know how they sound? If anyone has such a dizi at home, I would be very grateful if he could record the scale with it.

Attachments:

[Blue]

I have a shinobue with equidistant holes, which is more or less equivalent of what you're asking except that there's no membrane hole of course. I'll provide a demonstration of what it sounds like when I can find the time to do so.

Bought it in Tokyo at a shop where there wasn't an English speaking staff and they didn't allow me to try their shinobues. At that time I was even more ignorant about flutes and later deeply regretted purchasing the one with equidistant holes.

Shinobues with non-equidistant holes are called uta (song) and are properly tuned to the western scale. Additionally the holes of uta-type shinobues are not all the same size.

Shinobues with equidistant holes are called hayashi (festival). You won't hear do-ra-me-fa-sol-la-tea-do when going up the scale with it! Additionally the holes of the hayashi-type shinobues are all the same size. Hayashi shinobues are used to play Japanese festival music.

Hayashi shinobues are sometimes up to half the price of uta-shinobues. Maybe it has something to do with the tuning effort.

More information about this distinction can be found here:
www.mejiro-japan.com/products/music-shakuhachi-shinobue-nohkan-taiko-drum/shinobue-flute/shinobue-faq

But to directly answer your question: equidistant holes are a tuning disaster for nearly all of us as we are all used to the western scale.

[ziman]

My father used to have one. Unfortunately, it was destroyed many years ago by a termite infestation of the cabinet it was kept in. I can't remember how it sounded like now.

Within Chinese musicology circles, there is an unresolved debate on whether the scale played by the old-type equidistant fingerholes dizi could be considered a seven-tone equal temperament scale. The guqin master and co-founder of the Jinyu Qin Society (今虞琴社) Zha Fuxi (查阜西) thought that it could, at least in the case of the equidistant finger holes dizi used to accompany Kunqu opera in his time. His contemporary, the eminent musicologist Yang Yinliu (楊蔭瀏), disagreed.

When playing notes outside its scale, the fingering for a dizi with equidistant fingerholes differs from the modern dizi-- much more use of cross fingerings and hardly any half-holing. Here is a fingering chart I found:



Where:

小工調 = key of D
凡字調 = key of E
六字調 = key of F
正宮調 = key of G
乙字調 = key of A
上字調 = key of B
尺字調 = key of C

I got this information from this article, written by Chen Zhengsheng (陈正生) of the Shanghai Arts Research Center (上海艺术研究所):
www.suona.com/instr/ph20011111a.htm

Am very curious to hear how one would sound like too.

[Flolei]

Mmm... Thanks a lot to both of you. It's really very interesting and I'm impatiently looking forward Allen's recording of the old Asian scale... A rare, quite historical recording! It's really exciting!

[Blue]

Picture of equidistant hole shinobue is attached here!

Okay, here we go:

Attachments:

[Flolei]

It's really diffierent tuned, thanks to have shown us how it sounds!

[dawei]

Sorry to bump an old thread - but the older unreformed flutes are of interest to me, as are the original non-chromatic fretting on string instruments.

[dawei]

I just got a "dragon phoenix" pair of one piece bitter bamboo old-style dizi, with the equidistant holes. I really can hear the difference and the fork fingerings work really well.

Supposedly the older Jiangnan Sizhou players prefer these type.

[davidmdahl]

Congratulations on your new dizi. I am afraid that I am too stuck in my ways to adjust to such a beast. Have fun!

D.

[dawei]

Jun 30, 2017 16:32:40 GMT davidmdahl said:

Congratulations on your new dizi. I am afraid that I am too stuck in my ways to adjust to such a beast. Have fun!

D.

It's not that different in actual playing, kind of...

It's in the intervals and fingering, but even then not so much as to be really a different beast - just a different flavor.

In the past I've played a lot of Arabic and Turkish nai/nay/ney and am used to "odd" intervals, and even then it is a lot different than the reformed modern dizi.

But not as much as I had anticipated.