Guqin Fingerings?

[sinohomme]

Hey David or Dennis (or anyone else who would have good knowledge on the guqin),

I was wondering if any of you guys would mind posting these fingerings online, since I need to transcribe an accompaniment for my current erhu transcription project that I posted under the Erhu section. If any of you could please do it within the next 24 hours, that would be great, and appreciated so.

I've also started to get the hang of jianpu, so you wouldn't have to explain it to me, lest there be any new members out there just starting up with any other oriental instruments.

Thanks a lot,

sinohomme

[davidmdahl]

It is not clear to me what you want, but in any case, I don't know much about the guqin. Maybe Charlie can help.

Best wishes,

David

[sinohomme]

Well, David,

If I didn't make myself clear the first time, all I wanted to ask was if anyone had a fingering chart for the guqin like Dennis (dsouthwood) had lent me for the erhu, so that I could transcribe the accompaniment of Sai Ma (or Competing Horses for those who don't know) into a staff score.

I need that to help me complete my project, as you would know from my very first post. I need this as quickly as possible, because my school's district known and published composer really wanted to help me publish a concerto version of Sai Ma, but she couldn't due to whole copyright issue with the deceased composer's son being still around. She helped me with some possible accompanying chords that my Chamber Orchestra could play to, but she had to drop the project entirely since it would just waste her time if she couldn't publish this piece due to the above said problem. So, my Chamber Orchesta Director, who also knows about my secret project, said that I'll have to come up with something we could practice, and my goal is to finish the score by myself before the end of the month, with both the recommended chords and actual accompaniment for Sai Ma.

The above paragraph, as you can see, is the whole reason why I created this thread in the first place.

I was able to read jianpu fairly quickly with Dennis's help with the fingering charts he provided, and I was wondering if anyone here would have the same thing so I could transcribe and work with Sai Ma's accompaniment for my project.

Well, if I hadn't repeated myself enough, this is why I need them as quickly as possible.

I don't mean to rush anybody for them, but I would be especially grateful for the chart. If you can, David, would you mind acquainting Charlie Huang with me so that I can get this done?

A million thanks,

Sinohomme

[davidmdahl]

Feb 21, 2009 0:20:57 GMT sinohomme said:

Well, David,

If I didn't make myself clear the first time, all I wanted to ask was if anyone had a fingering chart for the guqin like Dennis (dsouthwood) had lent me for the erhu, so that I could transcribe the accompaniment of Sai Ma (or Competing Horses for those who don't know) into a staff score.

You mean that you have an arrangement of Sai Ma (Horse Race) accompanied by guqin? That is very uncharacteristic of the guqin. The typical accompaniment is probably yangqin or maybe less commonly guzheng. In what notation is the accompaniment?

If you truly have a guqin score you wish to transcribe, then PM Charlie. I don't have any more of a hotline to him than you do. I really don't think a guqin accompaniment is going to help you much though. Knowing the erhu part well enough to play it should be enough to come up with an accompaniment. If you have some keyboard skills, you could write out a keyboard part, and then score it for whatever instrument you have available. That sound easier to me than transcribing guqin notation and making it work for a chamber orchestra.

Best wishes,

David

[sinohomme]

Well David,

I do have the original jianpu score for Sai Ma with its accompaniment, and now that I think of it, I guess I haven't noticed that the accompaniment was another type of qin. I did manage to find that staff score of the piece on the "huain.com" site you recommended, and wished to create an East-Meets-West type of piece, however, without sacrificing the authenticity of both the rhythm and the sound; hence, why I wanted to transcribe the original accompaniment and work from there.

And seeing how you weren't able to provide anything (But I greatly appreciate your help and effort anyway), would you mind teaching me how to PM someone? I know it's quite ironic for someone my age (that being part of the ultra-digital/internet-socializing generation) to not know how, but I'm just a young man who doesn't find socializing online nearly as appealing (or safe) and is too busy for this kind of stuff.

Anyway, if you wouldn't know where I can get the charts, just teach me how to PM Charlie as a last favor for the time being.

Thanks for the help,

Sinohomme

[davidmdahl]

As you wish...

To send a PM to a member of the forum:
1. Click on their name wherever you see it, as an author of a post, for example.
2. The member's profile will be displayed. Click on "Send Personal Message" at the head of the Member's Bio section.
3. Fill in the subject and text as you see fit, and click Send Personal Message.

The above works for me, at least.

If you want to scan and post the first page of the score, we can tell you the name of the accompanying instrument. It probably is not a guqin.

Best wishes,

David

[calden]

Sinohomme:

I bet that your score just indicated "qin" which is kind of like saying "musical instrument". Definitely would not be a guqin. Only Jimi Hendrix could play a guqin fast enough for SaiMa, and unfortunately he's gone on to a better place.

But if you wanted to impart a cool east-west feel to SaiMa you could easily pop a mandolin in there. I've done that, and it sounds great. It would be very easy to score with regular notation or tablature, and any competent bluegrass mandolin player could learn this tune. It's in Dm (well, okay okay, F) and that lays easily on a mando. Besides, the whole cowboy/Western/country thing fits really well with the Mongolian/nomad/horse thing.

Carlos

Feb 21, 2009 7:47:00 GMT sinohomme said:

I do have the original jianpu score for Sai Ma with its accompaniment, and now that I think of it, I guess I haven't noticed that the accompaniment was another type of qin. I did manage to find that staff score of the piece on the "huain.com" site you recommended, and wished to create an East-Meets-West type of piece, however, without sacrificing the authenticity of both the rhythm and the sound; hence, why I wanted to transcribe the original accompaniment and work from there.

[davidmdahl]

The suggestion about the mandolin is a good one. The funny thing is that when my teacher's group plays Sai Ma, the accompanying instrument is the liuqin. The sound of the liuqin is a lot like a mandolin. It is just not double-strung.

Best wishes,

David

[sinohomme]

Well gentlemen,

I do appreciate your suggestions and good humor, but I still haven't learned how to PM somebody, and do remember that this arrangement (which I will definitely need the YangQin fingerings by tommorow) that I'm currently working on is for my solo erhu and my fairly small Chamber Orchestra (about 13-15 members). This is the most Western facet that I have available.

I need to get this done before the end of the month, and no offense (and I honestly mean it), comments like these won't help me. If you need an example of what exactly is it that I need, re-visit my first thread on my project back in the ErHu section, and pay special attention to the last post by Dennis (dsouthwood), in which he gave a link to erhu fingerings needed to read and/or compose jianpu.

I'm not asking for much more, and would just like help from somebody (especially from the moderator Charlie Huang that you speak of)

And one more quick reminder: this arrangement is my Senior Graduation Farewell Special, which no one knows except for the few who have read my threads and my orchestra directors, so this is pretty (please excuse my language) damn important to me.

Not to be rude (I never meant to be anyway), but this is all I'm really asking. Whether it's the YangQin (as I now see, thanks David) or the GuQin (this could come in handy anyway), I really need these fingerings.

As a token of thanks when my arrangement's done, I'll post a copy of the score online for you guys to see, though I do not intend to publish it due to my inability and lack of rights to do so--this is an event exclusive only to my year-end banquet for Orchestra as my farewell to my high school. No one else will ever see the sheet music for it except for my Chamber Orchestra (it is Chamber-exclusive, not for the regular) and the few of you, and I'll probably have it destroyed physically, but I'll keep the digital version with my Finale NotePad composition program.

So if you would please help me out this one time (well, maybe one of a few, but not more, I assure you), I'll be highly grateful for it.


With all due respect,

Sinohomme

[calden]

Sinohomme:

I did a quick google search and cannot find anything clear or concise for guqin like Dennis' charts for erhu. As for the yangqin, try this:
www.melodyofchina.com/12score/charts.html
it's got some yangqin note diagrams on it, but it's dependent on which model you intend to use.

I'm not clear about what you want exactly. It first sounded like you wanted a chart for the guqin so you could use it with Saima. We suggested it probably wasn't the right instrument to use in Saima and suggested Yangqin, so then you asked for a chart for that. And this is to use for the performance, right? Then convert it to notation? Or something? Then you indicated you were going for a east/west feel, and I suggested mandolin, thinking it would be easy to chart out and notate and play, trying to be helpful. Then you say you don't know how to PM someone after David tells you how, and chide me for not being helpful.

It's clear you're under stress for quickly-approaching project (we've all been there), but it's not our obligation to respond to your emergency on your unclear terms. Really, I think a bit more respect is called for on your part, and it would certainly get people maybe wanting to help you a bit more.

Anyway, hope this helps.

Carlos

[sinohomme]

My apologies, Carlos.

I guess I was quite a bit anxious to get that done, and at times (and I find this as a detrimental idiosyncrasy of mine) miscommunicate. I didn't mean to rush anybody, and I do clearly understand such circumstances. Please accept my apology.

To clear things up for you all, what I'm doing is I'm trying to convert the jianpu into a western staff score so I could arrange the other parts (for Violins 1 & 2, Viola, Cello, and Double Bass) for my Chamber Orchestra to play. Since this is a project unique only to me and the Chamber Orchestra I'm in (as I'm a 1st violinist), the concern over time is quite pressing, and since I have about three months before my graduation and banquet, my director says that I need to get the music done before the end of the month, let my fellow classmates lay their eyes upon my exalted and exotic Erhu (for they've never seen one in person--and will be sworn to secrecy for it) when I submit the completed music, and most essentially, use that time to practice for the event. That's the general plan I'm currently working with. I hope this explanation helps a lot--I didn't want to bog you guys down with too many details.

I saw how I could transcribe from jianpu to western staff score after seeing Dennis's chart, and noticed the accompaniment that I heard from internet audio samples--was also in jianpu score.

Though I now know that the numbering system is basically the same as the octave-scale (8 notes comprising a scale) in western music, and know that the notes within the scale corresponded with those numbers, I wasn't quite sure if it was the same deal for the YangQin accompaniment. This is why I need the fingering charts so that I could confirm and move on toward composing the parts. If it was, then I'd be done a long time ago. Another thing that I wasn't quite sure about was why there were two sets of numbers--and whatever that meant. Though I could see how the ways the rhythm of notes were written correspond with the western model, I went ahead and decided to be cautious, so as not to make a quite regrettable mistake in the composition for my Orchestra's parts from the jianpu if and when they play it.

As for the site that you gave me, well, I could see how it was little compared to Dennis's chart, but nonetheless, it was a good clue (or at least something) to go on. Thanks.


As for you David, my apologies as well.

I guess while I wasn't on the board and when I checked back, I skipped everything to the last reply and didn't see your response. I'm greatly sorry for that, but am grateful for your response anyhow.

I personally didn't want to be too much a bother for anyone here on Zhengyu Qin Guan, but I guess my miscommunication and desperation led to that.

I guess I'll go ahead and contact Charlie to see if he has anything on the YangQin and its jianpu fingerings.

Again, I'd like to thank you all for your help, and am both very sorry and grateful at the same time.



The temporary and unintentional klutz-composer,

Sinohomme

[davidmdahl]

Hello sinohomme,

At the risk of beating a dead horse, I would like to point out that if you have the jianpu notation for the accompaniment, you should already have what you need to make a transcription to staff notation. The jianpu indicates note by note what to play. The instrument it is to be played on is irrelevant.

Chords in jianpu are indicated by stacking up the numbers in a column. That is typical of notation for yangqin.

There is nothing in a yangqin chart that will be of much use to you in doing a transcription. There is no such thing as a fingering chart for a yangqin since the strings are beat with hammers. The tuning chart that Carlos posted is a good example of what there is. You won't see jianpu on a yangqin tuning chart.

That's my advice and $.02. Good luck.

D.

[calden]

Seconding what David said.

Now that I know what you want and why, I can see that you do not need any fingering charts. The jianpu gives you all you need - key, notes played, meter, rhythm elements. What separates erhu jianpu from, say, yangqing jianpu is little markings for that particular instrument's technique: bowing or sliding for erhu, and hammer techniques for the yangqing. You wouldn't need any of these anyway because you're transcribing it for regular chamber orchestra instruments and can put in your own markings for bow direction, pizz, etc. Additionally, as David indicated, yangqing will often have "stacks" of numbers (notes) that are simpy chords. If you see a score with what seems to be two lines, it could be it's for two instruments. But that will be clearly indicated at the front end of the line at the top - for example, it will say 二胡 and 扬琴 in front of each line.

Another note about yangqing fingerings - there are none. Yangqing is played with hammers, and each little group of strings is a separate note. It's a piano opened up and played with hammers. The note is the note, and if you're changing it for a different instrument it won't matter what the music tells you to do with the hammering.

Thanks for the clarifications and apology. It's not your request that is bothering anyone, and we love talking about chinese music and we support what you're doing. It's a great idea. Let us know how it goes.

Carlos

[sinohomme]

Thanks a lot, gentlemen.


I greatly appreciate all that. I really do.

So, now in the least, I know that I expanded what actually was a small problem maybe a bit out of proportion. I guess I'm such a klutz for that sometimes.

Since you've helped clarify for me any differences (seeing as there were little) between the jianpu and fingerings, I guess either of you could go ahead and tell Charlie to disregard my PM that I sent to him last night.

And as a hint for what I'm to do next after this project, I'm "going up north" for another related, but double-pieced intrument practically made for and in tribute of the originators of the Yuan Dynasty's most beloved animal.

And if you can solve this above riddle, you'll know for sure what next I'm after. However, I'm going to need some help to procure one of a good instrumentalist's quality.

Though my lineage is from southern China (the GuangDong Province/Hong Kong area), and "Sai Ma" is from a region at the opposite end of my technical homeland, I also plan on trying to learn and play some songs from the region where my family originally comes from. Would you guys happen to know anything (as in songs) from that region, in that case?

Well, that's all I really have to say for now. I'll go ahead and post my concerto score once it's done and of great quality (but seeing no "add attachment" button, you'll either have to create one or teach me some alternate way), and for your enjoyment. But promise me this one thing, though, guys (and anybody else who reads this)--don't go off and print this and perform it--if Hwang Hai Wai's (the original, deceased composer) son finds out about this, then I'm going to have my butt busted for sure, though it's not an official publication--and that, obviously, wouldn't be good...

Thanks for all your support.

I'll be back ASP (As Soon Possible--I decided to cut the extra "A" since I'm lazy like that sometimes)


And again, with the already overflowing gratuitousness with my gratefulness and thanks.

Sinohomme

[davidmdahl]

There is a lot of wonderful music from Guangdang. My favorite is the famous tune Ping Hu Qiu Yue (Autumn Moon over Tranquil Lake). I don't do any songs though since I can't sing in Chinese. If you want to learn some songs and don't have trouble with the language, check out Cantonese Opera.

Best wishes,

D.

[charliecharlieecho]

In case anyone does want a list of guqin fingering symbols at any time, the best one on-line is at www.tcfb.com/guqin/.

[Charlie Huang]

Pardon my belated response as I now usually lurk on the facebook group these days.

1. Guqin Saima? No such thing, unless someone decides to transcribe it to guqin (that person probably be Gong Yi) and the results will not work IMHO as highlighted above unless the player can play that fast (probably only GY can).
2. My remit of knowledge extends to guqin only (and a bit with pipa and xiao) so I cannot help with other instruments which I have not touched before.

[sinohomme]

Hey there, David and Calden (and maybe Charlie, if he's reading this)

I know it's pretty much felt like forever since I last posted, but I just wanted to say hi and see how you're all doing. And for all your information, I'd like to say that my project overall has been a success thus far with my practicing (on erhu, of course) with my Chamber Orchestra on our rendition of Sai Ma!! I'm still writing the solis for the rest of the orchestra though, so that will be the last bit before the piece can be actually considered "complete".

Besides that, I had just read Charlie's post on "Forum Clean-up", and decided to drop by and inform you guys that you can delete all the prior posts I've made concerning my project and replace them with actual "related" material concerning the thread title (i.e. Guqin Fingering-related subjects under "Guqin Fingerings").

I say this since I believe too much time has passed since my matter last had significance, so it's completely okay to clean up my posts (unless, of course, you guys suddenly inform me that I have the power to do so in the face of my busy high school senior schedule).

Other than that, take care and have a nice day.

Once something comes up, I'll go ahead and update you guys on it.


Thanks,

Sinohomme.

[Charlie Huang]

Don't worry about it. It will stay.

[calden]

"Baked Potato changed my life
Baked Potato showed me the way
If you want to know what is wrong from right
You must listen to what Potato say"

Charlie, you are truly weird. I love this forum.

Carlos

[Charlie Huang]

British comedy at its best. I hope you watched the whole song on that Youtube link below.

[calden]

Apr 18, 2009 9:20:21 GMT Charlie Huang said:

I hope you watched the whole song on that Youtube link below.

Yes indeed, I did.

I've enjoyed Brit comedy for years - starting with Monty Python and Benny Hill, Flanders and Swann, anything with Peter Sellers, all the way up to Fawlty Towers and Red Dwarf. However this potato thing is in a class of one. It actually reminded me of some of the bizarre Japanese TV stuff. I even think a bagpipe could be inserted in the skit somewhere.

Carlos

[davidmdahl]

That Potato guy is pretty bizarre, but I think he would fit right on the Dr. Demento show.

Best wishes,

David

[Charlie Huang]

Ha! You haven't seen anything until you've seen British surrealist comedy!

Shotting Stars 1: www.youtube.com/watch?v=xinLivR8Sp0
Shotting Stars 2: www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3eYOEVCKHU
Vic & Bob: www.youtube.com/watch?v=towd9vZWDJg
Harry Hill: www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPrcr5Mj4y0

French & Saunders is also worth a watch, especially for their parodies and spoofs:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=HX1AH9581CA
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ha7EB5Y_RT0

Also, Peter Kay: www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbP247B-SIA

[davidmdahl]

I am really more partial to Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8ko2nCk_hE

www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHzYopnwSsQ

Best wishes,

David