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Post by sanmenxia on Sept 3, 2011 20:05:55 GMT
I've got a 17 pipe traditional sheng, are you suppose to blow or suck to play a single note, or can you do both?
When I blow with all pipe holes open, I get several random notes sounding at the same time, making a dissonant sound. Closing some of the pipes doesn't seem to make much difference.
It's only if I inhale with one pipe closed (finger over the hole in one pipe), then I get one single note; 2 pipes closed makes 2 notes etc. Inhaling with all pipes open makes no sound.
I'm sure when I tried a different sheng some time ago, I remember I could make a single note with one pipe closed by blowing.
Is my sheng back to front or some sort of weird model? I thought you could produce a note by putting a finger over the hole in a pipe and then blow or inhale, both blowing and inhaling would sound the same. Or I'm I completely wrong?
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Post by mrbamboo on Sept 3, 2011 23:00:40 GMT
I could ask my teacher but you will have to wait a couple of weeks for a reply. He's one of the most accomplished sheng players in the world and therefore difficult to contact.
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Post by sanmenxia on Sept 4, 2011 11:55:13 GMT
Unless I'm doing something completely wrong, I don't see how it's possible to play my sheng. I mean, you can't keep on sucking in air to play several notes, and then pause to breathe out, then suck in more notes! You can blow a lot longer than you can suck...
OK, blowing does makes a sound when the pipe hole is open, it is when it's closed there's no sound. I've checked by wrapping a cloth around the sheng and using some fingers to block off all the holes except for one, and getting a single note. Blowing with all the holes open make all the pipes sound a note, which make a sound of 17 notes all at the same time.
In practice this seems to make blowing a single note impossible unless you have 17 fingers and put them on each pipe hole at the same time and then lift off one finger!
Inhaling, I think, works normally on my sheng though.
So to sum up; my sheng has 17 pipes, all connected to one air chamber with a mouthpiece. Each pipe has one reed and one finger hole. You blow or inhale into the mouthpiece causing air to pass through the pipes.
So far so good, but the problem is when blowing, you get a sound when the hole is open and no sound when it's closed. When inhaling it's the other way round and is correct i think; you get a sound when the hole is closed and no sound when it's open. I thought blowing or inhaling works the same way.
I'll ask some other people (offline) as well.
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Post by mrbamboo on Sept 4, 2011 22:39:01 GMT
Congrats on your new sanxian! Hope you`ll have fun with it. Questions concerning your sheng ought to be answered by the "shengplayer" Chris Lim. www.chrismusica.com/rare_instrument.html ...unless he prefers to get paid for his advice. I am not much of a help in this matter.
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Post by sanmenxia on Sept 5, 2011 18:53:30 GMT
Thanks, I'd expect he would know, but I think I'll ask him as a last resort.
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Post by edcat7 on Sept 6, 2011 21:49:16 GMT
The Chinese music world in the UK is very small and I suspect Sanmenxia knows the same muscians as I do. Amongst Cheng Yu's ensemble there is a sheng player and a couple of lessons just to get started would invaluable.
If you thought changing the reed on a hulusi/bawu was tricky, then the sheng will be a nightmare (don't use glue)
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Post by sanmenxia on Sept 7, 2011 12:41:32 GMT
I could of course look at formal lessons but I feel that might be excessive for what I'm aiming for; playing along in a ensemble. I just need to get started with how to blow a single note, after that it's a matter of practice. I'm not going to play with advanced techniques.
Another thing I've noticed is my sheng has a very limited range. It starts on 5, lower octave (A), then goes to 7, but there are two 1s and two 2s, both on the same octave, so you can't play a scale of 1 to higher 1. And also it is 25 cents sharper than A=440.
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Post by davidmdahl on Sept 8, 2011 5:44:25 GMT
I could of course look at formal lessons but I feel that might be excessive for what I'm aiming for; playing along in a ensemble.<snip> You don't necessarily have to make a long-term commitment for lessons. When you are starting from scratch, a few lessons with a good teacher can save you a lot of time and give you a good start. Connecting with a teacher may also help you to find an ensemble. Best wishes, David
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Post by edcat7 on Sept 8, 2011 22:14:41 GMT
Well, in the UK there's Charlie (guzheng) George (erhu) Xindi (dizi) and me (hulusi, bawu, dizi,erhu)
(Sorry if I have missed anyone out) When I'm profficient I'd love to all meet up.
Give me a call in a couple of years!
Ed
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Post by sanmenxia on Sept 10, 2011 10:24:59 GMT
Going off topic: it looks like this forum only has a handful of regular posters so I'm sure there are a lot of people out there learning or playing Chinese music in the UK who don't post here or even read this forum.
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Post by theshengplayer on Sept 11, 2011 2:28:39 GMT
Sorry for the late reply, I have not been to this forum recently. I hope this will solve your problem. Solution to your problem: 1) Try to blow into the mouth piece softly and cover the holes one by one. When one of the "soft" sounds disappear, that is the reed which got problem. 2) Remove the bamboo pipe and use a mini screw driver to gently depress the reed (that small part which vibrates) until it is "flat" with reference to the whole reed. This should solve your problem.
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Post by davidmdahl on Sept 11, 2011 6:30:03 GMT
Going off topic: it looks like this forum only has a handful of regular posters so I'm sure there are a lot of people out there learning or playing Chinese music in the UK who don't post here or even read this forum. That is so true, and not just in the UK. I know of at least eight people who perform Chinese music in the Portland, Oregon area, and there are probably more that I don't know. None but me are active on this forum. Best wishes, David
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Post by sanmenxia on Sept 11, 2011 15:50:12 GMT
Sorry for the late reply, I have not been to this forum recently. I hope this will solve your problem. Solution to your problem: 1) Try to blow into the mouth piece softly and cover the holes one by one. When one of the "soft" sounds disappear, that is the reed which got problem. 2) Remove the bamboo pipe and use a mini screw driver to gently depress the reed (that small part which vibrates) until it is "flat" with reference to the whole reed. This should solve your problem. Hi, thanks for the tip. I've tried it, and I'm not sure if I'm getting any "soft" sounds disappearing. I've done a bit more playing around with my sheng. I've found out that if I close one hole then blow gently, several pipes will sound, possibly all of them. Then if I continue to blow harder and harder, it gets louder and then when I'm blowing quite hard suddenly there is no sound. Then I blow a bit harder, almost as hard as I can, suddenly I get one single note! Then the sound stops if I take the finger off the hole and continue to blow hard, but if I ease off blowing, several pipes will start to sound again. So now I can get a single note but I have to blow very hard, and inhale quite hard as well. I don't play any wind instruments so perhaps what I think is blowing very hard is in fact normal.
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Post by theshengplayer on Sept 11, 2011 17:17:45 GMT
In normal working condition, no sound should be produced when the holes are not covered. Your sheng condition is due to the uneven reeds. Refer to my steps again. Thanks.
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Post by edcat7 on Sept 12, 2011 22:40:12 GMT
I'm no Sheng player but have a little experience with hulusi and bawu reeds. Infact it was a sheng player who taught my teacher how to change a hulusi reed without glue.
If the sheng reed is anything like a hulusi reed then it should be shiny with no discolourisation
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Post by edcat7 on Sept 14, 2011 21:51:41 GMT
Regarding Sanmenxia's desire to play in an ensemble and also not wanting formal tuition. Timing is everything and I think playing in an ensemble is alot more difficult than playing solo.
Lately I have been playing simple tunes, with my teacher backing me up either on the dizi or the yangqin. I'm itching to learn something more advanced but can see, language barriers apart, that he's trying to improve my timing and preparing me to play with others.
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Post by sanmenxia on Sept 16, 2011 16:10:50 GMT
I think I've solved the problem of the pipes sounding when blowing with the holes open. My sheng. To takes the pipes out of the air chamber: unscrew the knurled nut and remove the metal "clip" that wraps around the pipes. The pipes are a push-fit, so carefully push them out one by one, and note down which pipe goes in where. Pipes number 1 to 5 out. Close-up of the reed. You can just see a "n" shaped line around the red blob (used for tuning) to the left; that is the "tongue" of the reed that vibrates. It is cut on 3 sides from the rest of the reed. I wonder how they make the cut as there is no gap between the tongue and surrounding reed. With all the pipes out, test each pipe one by one to find out which are not working properly. An interesting thing I've noticed is that the pipe is closed at the reed end; the reed covers the end of the bamboo completely and is sealed with wax, I think it's wax. Test the pipe by putting the reed end inside your mouth, your lips do not have to form an airtight seal around the pipe, it seems you only have move air over the reed. The reed should not sound when you blow or inhale with the finger hole open, either gently or quite hard. With the hole closed, blowing or inhaling produces the same note. With a faulty reed, what happens is very gentle blowing with the hole open will make a sound, and it is a different pitch. Some of the pipes were OK but some were not. So I've done what was suggest and pressed the tongue down. This has cured the problem. However I've now got an even worse problem! When I was doing the pressing, I was only testing the pipe by blowing. I pressed a little bit, and then tried blowing very gently (finger hole open), if there was sound then I repeated until there was no sound. It seems the tongue has to be flush with the surround reed and the pipes which worked properly are like this. But with some of the pipes I pressed too much and now I have the opposite problem; a pipe with the finger hole open sounding when I *inhale*, &^%$)$£% and &%$*@& !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So if anyone is doing this; as soon as there is no sound, do not press the tongue again! I didn't know this and pressed a bit more just to make sure the sound doesn't come back. So if you inhale with the hole open and there is sound, then you have pressed too much. So now with the sheng back together, blowing is normal; hole open makes no sound, hole closed makes sound. But inhaling; all holes open several pipes sound, which is the opposite to what I started with. It is much worse because I need to lift up the tongue, and you can't press from underneath. I've tried lifting it up with a bit of sticky tape but tape wasn't sticking enough. I did manage to lift it once but I can't seem to do it again. I might have to try a different tape or some glue. It has also lifted off the paint from the reed, I'm not sure if this will be a problem. And I have to be very careful not to touch the red tuning wax. I guess the proper way is to remove the reed from the pipe, do what's needed and put it back on with wax. It might even be easier than trying to lift up the tongue.
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Post by xindi on Sept 16, 2011 19:14:44 GMT
The shiny metal saucepan bit looks really funny with all those pipes!
That's quite a lot of pipes to contend with. Just looking at its complexity makes me gasp.
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Post by sanmenxia on Sept 16, 2011 19:55:27 GMT
That's a more traditional type with 17 pipes, more modern shengs have 21, 36 or more! I guess the "bowl" could be made from any material, I've seen pictures of wooden ones. Actually I don't think it's all that complex, it's only the reed that would be difficult to make at home, in the sense that many instruments are basically shaped pieces of wood glued and fitted together and takes only simple tools to make. I'm a bit annoyed it left the factory in an unplayable state. Perhaps it's standard practice and sheng players need to set-up any new instrument. The person I got from obviously didn't know anything about shengs! The reed has a kind of very thin and very matt paint on it, under it the reed is a brass colour. www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDFlMu9ccqo shows using wax to attach the reed. At 4:00 he talks about the problem I first had. I've actually seen this video before but I didn't really pay attention or understand it as I didn't have a sheng at that time. At least now I know it's fixable. He says the wax is beeswax mixed with rosin. Maybe I can reuse the wax that's already on the reed.
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Post by xindi on Sept 16, 2011 23:01:07 GMT
Oh I see.
Basically the wax is used to set the reed.
Would blu-tack be really bad?! But even with the wax, you're going to have to have some fine tolerances otherwise the reed won't vibrate optimally. At least it didn't cost too much, and you will also have a milk saucepan and several demo chanters for pipes if it all goes to tears.
Yes the quality control of many of these factory machined items can leave something to be desired.
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Post by sanmenxia on Sept 17, 2011 13:14:26 GMT
There's 2 waxes; the red wax for tuning, and the light brown wax for attaching the reed and sealing the end of the pipe. In the video you can see he's got the 2 different waxes in the tin, which he says you get when buying a sheng, so that suggests a sheng needs regular set-up and maintenance.
The red tuning wax is, I heard, wax mixed with apparently cinnabar. One time I saw a sheng player grind a stone on a cymbal with water when he was fixing his sheng, I presume he was making the tuning wax.
When you attach the reed with wax I don't think you need to set it in an exact certain position, like a finger hole in a dizi. It only need air flowing over it to make it vibrate. What is critical though is the tongue; if it in the wrong position even just tiny bit, it will sound when the finger hole is open.
I already have some rosin, and I think I have some beeswax somewhere but I don't know where it is at the moment, but making up of the sealing wax shouldn't be a problem.
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Post by xindi on Sept 20, 2011 22:21:35 GMT
That's 2 much!
I didn't realise it was such a fussy instrument. Generally reed instruments are more fussy than aerophonic flutes - particularly open hole flutes with no reeds nor moving parts. Although my school harmonica still works:)
The technique sounds like a skill too. Will you take up lessons from the Chinatown Chamber/Group?
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Post by sanmenxia on Sept 21, 2011 12:28:27 GMT
I think it should be fairly easy to make a start on the sheng, at least getting a note out of it is not difficult. Obviously, playing the sheng to an advanced level is not not "easy", as with any instrument. I've heard of the music club in Chinatown (London) but I've never been there. This is the type of music I'm aiming to play on the sheng: www.youtube.com/watch?v=1z9fXJXSpDsI've already practiced it on the erhu, and I've just started it on the sanxian. Next it's the sheng.
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Post by xindi on Sept 21, 2011 21:44:43 GMT
That's much easier than trying to play like Chunling! Ensemble playing doesn't interest me much - it contaminates the purity of the solo flute The last time I play a duet for flute and piano, the pianist was too short-tempered and kept playing staccato. I kept telling him rubato! Rubato! He retorted F off. So I did lol. Pianists are so annoying
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Post by sanmenxia on Oct 23, 2011 20:56:42 GMT
I've finally got my sheng working properly! I removed the reeds which were not working properly, adjusted them by pressing the reed tongue, and put them back on the pipe. I tested each pipe before putting them all back into the wind chamber, but I still got 2 "soft" sounds, ie a pipe sounding when is the finger hole is open, opposite to a correct pipe. With only 2 bad reeds, I could use what "theshengplayer" suggested, which was to produce the "soft" sound and then closed the finger hole on one pipe. If the sound continues, then that is not the faulty pipe. Repeat for the next pipe. The faulty pipe is the one which when you closed the hole the sound stops. Having found the bad pipe, I took it out and tested it again, but there wasn't the "soft" sound. It seems also with a correct reed, blowing and inhaling to produce a note should need the same amount of air pressure. If it doesn't, eg you need to blow a lot harder than inhale, then it seems this can also cause a "soft" sound. So with some more "tongue pressing" I finally managed to get it all working. starvoid.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=Other&action=display&thread=1456 for what I did.
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