Advice on buying my first erhu

[brandnew]

Hi guys,

After a excellent trip in China, I'm very interested in starting erhu, and probably some other instruments which are amazing.

So far, I've found eason.com thanks to this forum and plan to maybe buy one like this : www.eason.com.sg/products/erhu/ykm4.jsp

What would be your advice ? I'm musician since a dozen years and don't want to buy a starter one, I would go for a right one taht can have a good sound, maybe be amplified at some point, and in my country it's very hard to find (Belgium). Would you recommend me to buy it through that website and also, to get a good erhu do you think the one mentionned is good ?

Thanks a lot !

[George]

Hi brandnew,
Eason have often been recommended here and if they have the kind of instrument you want then go with them.

As for the erhu you linked to, it seems a good choice for its price, though if you ended up playing the erhu seriously then you'd eventually want to replace it, probably with an old rosewood ("lǎo hóng mù"), small-leaf sandalwood ("xiǎo-yè zǐtán") or maybe ebony sandalwood ("hēitán") instrument, either in the gentler Shanghai style or the more robust Suzhou style. Any type of wood can be rubbish or excellent, but good small-leaf sandalwood is now very expensive for makers to buy: enough well-aged top-quality small leaf sandalwood for an erhu could cost them €500. Perhaps the cheapest super-erhu you'll find is thus a Shanghai-style old rosewood instrument by Zhang Jian Ping or Hu Han Rou. Zhang Jian Ping is the chief Erhu engineer at Dunhuang, and Hu Han Rou (who I think may actually now work in Beijing) was apprentice to his famous predecessor Wang Gen Xing. Erhus by both are available from D'oritale at www.dunhaungonline.com, an old rosewood erhu by Hu Han Rou being about €750 including delivery.

I hope that helps. I'm afraid I don't know know anything about amplification.

Best wishes,
George

[davidmdahl]

D'oritale is at www.dunhuangonline.com . Interesting website. I wish there were more close-up shots of the erhus, especially on the high-end models.

[George]

Thanks for correcting my bad link to that website, David. You won't get anything very high-resolution, but did you try clicking the little four-arrowed buttons under the pictures of the erhus?
They have more high-end erhus than are on the website, and can get hold of others for you, though prepare to pay lavishly in the latter case. I suspect their means of settling the price for my dream instrument involved a long drinking game in the basement.

[brandnew]

Thanks a lot for your answer ! It helps a lot !

Also, just to make sure, do have all erhus two strings ? I was wondering because sometimes it seems you have to chose between a high erhu or a low. Is it what the two strings are about ?

According to what I've heard so far, I would prefer a low-pitched erhu I guess. Once again, it's hard to tell and impossible to test where I'm.

[davidmdahl]

Hello George,

Yes, I did click to get the larger pics, but I would have liked better close-ups of the snake skin and head stock. Eason does a pretty good job with close-up photos of the important parts, and also has videos so you can get some idea of the sound. I admit though that I don't really want to know how good those in the collector series sound. <g> Some day I would like to get a cloud head as on #29, although maybe at a less dear price.

Best wishes,

David

[song]

Hi brandnew,

I am Sung Wah and I run the Eason Music website. The erhu that you had your eye on is out of stock and we will not be restocking that anytime soon.

This is a good alternative though:
www.eason.com.sg/products/erhu/mmk3.jsp

It has good tone, volume and responsiveness. You can request for a video clip of the erhu if you want to see what exactly you are buying.

Yes all erhus have 2 strings. Most people start off with an erhu first before branching out to gaohu (high pitched), zhonghu / erquan (low pitched).

Feel free to email me at [e-mail] if you have more queries.

Thanks!
SW

[George]

Hi Brandnew,

Just to add to what Sung Wah has said, the erquan erhu's strings are tuned to C4 and G4. [Edit: I got this wrong - they're actually tuned to G3 and D4.] You'd expect one to sound quite a bit darker and deeper than an erhu. The zhonghu's strings are [also] usually tuned to G3 and D4, like the violin’s lower strings. Bigger instruments exist but seem to be on the way out, and you won't find one easily (though there's a dadihu - a contrabass erhu - with wood instead of snakeskin on eBay at the moment. God knows what it sounds like). There is one maker of three-stringed erhus ("sanhus"), Yang Shining, but I've not been able to get through to him.

Besides www.eason.com.sg and www.dunhuangonline.com, you could have a look at www.cnshope.com and www.shoppingchinanow.com (the same company, but the two sites show different stock and prices), www.melodyofchina.com, and www.carrotmusic.com. www.sogoeo.com have lots of different kinds of strings.

Best wishes,
George

[davidmdahl]

That last link should be www.sogoeo.com .

The package that my erquan erhu strings came in indicated a tuning of G/D, and that's what I tune to. Are there other sets for higher tunings?

Best wishes,

David

[song]

Hi George,

There is a special type of strings called 'chang cheng' strings that is used on the erhu and tuned to C / G. They are specially used to play the song 'chang cheng sui xiang qu' - Great Wall Capriccio.

SW

[George]

Thanks Sung Wah.
Incidentally, I did get a (charming) reply from Yang Shining in the end. Apparently he doesn't check his email very often. He said he hadn't any experience exporting beyond Taiwan, but would be happy to look into doing it, and offered an instrument in African sandalwood (not a very valuable wood) at an extremely low price. The extra string on his sanhus is tuned to a lower pitch than the others.

[brandnew]

Thank you very very much for your answers, there are very helpful to me. Sung Wah, thank you for taking the time, I will contact you soon.