New erhu is on the way

[janamaffet]

Hello to all here!
I havent been there for some time, but during that time I become so fascinated by erhu and was slowly falling in love with chinese music more and more that I ordered one. Well ... I know ... it's cheap starter erhu, but as I was reading through this forum and other discussions about erhu, I ordered starter erhu from Eason and it seems to me that with them, you can't go wrong even with their most easy model. Btw. Mr. Sung Wah was great and communicating with real care.

My erhu is still at Delivery company for custom clearence (uh! I hope they will have no problem with snake skin .... I hope...) and I am like little child now. Once it will be at home, I will probably join more often to have some questions. My cat will have "second" Christmas when I start to practise. I have also some downloaded lessons and short videos from youtube and internet generaly. So I will see. There is one man here in Prague who play erhu, so maybe I will be than able contact him and ask for some little help.
Well I dont expect anything else for next few weeks than finding how to make reasonable sound anyway. I dont hurry.

Btw. I have funny experience with my harp version of "Erquan pond". I have been playing on some public event as background music and it's always so long that I have to play my playlist up and down twice, but it's not problem because people usually dont listen too much. I play mostly celtic, historical and local traditional music. I one moment I was little bored so I decieded to play Erquan pond - just only for my fun and also to try it in front of people. When I finished one young man come to me and he looked really suprised. He told me that he knows this tune and it's all background, history and composer. Oh! My God! I would never ever expect that first time I will play it publicly, there will be a student of sinology in audience. But he liked that. :-)

[calden]

Wow, what a great experience.

I think you'll find that "Er Quan Ying Yue" is extremely well known, like "Fur Elise" in stature, to many people from Chinese culture.

Enjoy your erhu. Do contact that other player. There are some aspects of hand position and bowing that are near-impossible to explain in words or even show on a DVD. Not hard, just different. Let us know how it goes.

Carlos

[janamaffet]

Lol! My erhu arrived some two or 3 weeks ago and it was very funny experience as border officers never had seen anything like this and they "bombarded" me by phone with very strange and funny questions, like: "What's rosin?" I told them that it's what we call in czech "kalafuna" for violins (and even kids know that :-). Right o.k. Call one hour later: "What's rosin's chemistry?" I sent them to see Wikipedia. Call another day "Does that little hairclip belong to your order, we dont have it on list." I was half dead by laughing. Ok enough of fun!
I started to practise, hidden in most far corner of family house. :-) I expected shock from horrible sound and I was true. I sounded like angry cat mixed with old doors. But I dont loose hope. I still practise mostly only bowing, very slowly and it's better step by step. Now I am able to play long clear tone on outer string, but I still have problem to keep clear "non-shaking" tone on inner string. I told myself not to play with fingering or scales until I will be able to produce clear tone on both strings, but from time to time I try and well .. ehm .... It will take long time. Uf! It's hard work. I had disscusion about harp with kids in library and they asked me if harp is difficult instrument to play. Before experience with erhu I never answered so fast, like this time: "YES, YES!" Harp is VERY EASY and ELEMENTAL instrument, because from first minute you can produce perfectly clear tone. ;D ;D

[calden]

janamaffet:

Great news. Thanks for letting us know. We've all been there.

You are doing things EXACTLY RIGHT. Take it slow and easy and with regular practice the sound gets clearer. Especially with the inside string. It takes more of a focused pressure of the bow on the string.

To get the right kind of pressure on the inside string it sometimes feels difficult to do this just by using your wrist. There's just not enough pressure. Pull your whole arm back from your shoulder and your elbow - this might help give you more consistent pressure and thus a less shakey sound. Also, your elbow should be out away from your body when you are at the end of the pull stroke (beginning of the push stroke.) In sum, use your entire arm to bow with, from your shoulder on down, not just your forearm.

Otherwise you'll suffer the dreaded "老外拉二胡“ disease, where it looks like somebody is sawing a piece of wood in their lap.

Carlos

[song]

The hairclip's hilarious.

The harp's just like the Chinese Guzheng. When my customers ask me which Chinese instrument they should pick up. I always say if you want mobility and music on the go, pick the dizi or erhu. If you want to sound good right from the start, pick the Guzheng!