The sound of erhu

[camela]

Hi guys,
I'm a professional violinist and I decided a while ago to play erhu.

My first erhu was lousy so I decided to purchase a concert grade erhu from Eason shop. It is great, but I have difficulties to obtain good sound on D string.
I have to play really hard and even then I there are some noises on a few notes.
I'm sure that I can do something with components of the erhu, but I don't have much experience with those instruments.
I would be glad if someone advised me something!

[davidmdahl]

Welcome to the forum, Camela, and to the erhu. I hope that your difficulties with your erhu can be resolved quickly so you can get to playing with more pleasure.

A concert level erhu from Eason should be pretty good. Have you tried contacting Sung Wah at Eason for advice? When there is a wonky string, I would carefully examine the path of the string and make sure that it is seated on the bridge properly. Sometimes adjustment of the damper makes a big difference in the sound. I would not expect the strings to be installed improperly, but it is worth making sure the strings are not crossing paths.

Make sure that the bridge is located in the center of the snake skin. I would expect that the erhu was tested at Eason, and the bridge was well-chosen, but if there were extra bridges included, you might try them to see if one works better.

The erhu bow is adjusted and rosined differently than your violin bow. The bow hair on the erhu should be much looser than what you are familiar with on the violin. You can use your good violin rosin to apply to both sides of the bow.

Best wishes,

David

[sanmenxia]

I have to play really hard and even then I there are some noises on a few notes.

Could you say a bit more what the noises are?

I think there are two things you could do; instrument set-up and bowing technique.

Set-up:

Try different damper pads, different thicknesses and materials.
Try different qianjin (loop of string around neck) heights. Different vibrating string lengths will have different string tensions.

Bowing:
Bowing is quite difficult to describe in words, perhaps try less pressure and more speed. Anyhow I think it's better to bow hard to get a big sound rather than try to play too softly, but of course it's possible to press too hard and get a harsh tone.

[camela]

Thanks for all advices!

Noises I mean - the tone is an octave higher when I'm not pressing the bow very hard (like flageolet but my finger is pressed properly to the string). Also some notes are buzzing (:
Also I'm sure strings are not crossed, but I will check the rest that you suggested and I'll report about success or failure (:

[sanmenxia]

the tone is an octave higher

I think that's caused by bowing, not the erhu. I've had it a few times. When the note starts, the string starts to vibrate as if a harmonic is being played.

Also, there might not be enough rosin on the bow.








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[song]

Well, we set up and played around with the erhu for while before sending it. So the bow is definitely rosined, the qianjin is in place, the strings are definitely not crossed unless it got loose during shipping.

If you have taken out the damper and have put it back yourself, make sure it is folded to the correct thickness.

We usually shift the bridge up before shipping. I have sent you a video link on how to do the setup when you receive it.

Let us know how it goes.

Thanks!
SW

[camela]

After changing rosin and loosing a bow everything works just fine. It sounds great and I have a lot of pleasure by playing it!

Thanks again for all your advices!

[song]

That's great Camela!

SW