I need help on purchasing guzheng in singapore.

[vendredi]

Hi everyone,

I need helps as I'm going to start learning guzheng and I need to purchase one.

I found myself a guzheng teacher and she introduced me to get from www.dunhuangonline.com and she said since I am an adult, I should get the SGD$800+/- guzheng in the shop. I will get discount upon saying that I am her student.

I have read alittle on guzheng about rosewood, south africa wood and etc.

So, she told me to get south africa and strongly recommended the shanghai Dunhuang. She said that south africa wood suit most in singapore climate.

The guzheng only comes with the 2 stands.

However, when i surf www.eason.com.sg/ , their guzheng comes with 2 stands and tuner and the price is alittle higher than the above website.

Another werid question that I asked the teacher was: Can this SGD$800 south africa dunhuang guzheng last me for a couple of years? She said about 2 to 3 years and I will need to change to another better guzheng. I saw some posts in this forum that, guzheng matures as time goes by (when we play on it often to season it) will sound better. But a SGD$800 guzheng that my teacher recommends could only last 2 to 3 years and I have to change to a better one?

Can anyone enlighten me about the south africa dunhuang guzheng worth me to buy?
www.dunhuangonline.com/index.php?page=shop.product_details&flypage=tpflypage.tpl&product_id=59&category_id=5&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=53&vmcchk=1&Itemid=53


Of course, at the end of the conversation, i told the teacher that I might be alittle particular on the sound the guzheng produced. She adviced me to go down to the shop and listen to the guzheng on how it sound and purchase the one that I like.

Please help me on getting my first guzheng. Thanks alot!!!

[yudingbon]

Dunhuang zheng tend to be the industry standard, especially since they produce over 50% of all zheng. They are usually sweet sounding and bright, and actually quite loud. Dunhuang has developed a unique drying method for their soundboards to produce the characteristic dunhuang sound.

That particular model is the most popular and would last you many years. What is important to note is that, despite it being a factory instrument, no two zheng sound the same, and no two zheng behave the same overtime. Some will sound better, some can actually deteriorate. The pricing of dunhuang zheng is focused on the type of wood, type of finishing and the workmanship. As price goes up, so does quality. This does not mean that a cheap instrument will fall apart, though. Check out the Eason store in person, if you can, and try out the zheng to see if you like it. They are reliable. I find shopping online a daunting task for those who don't know the vendor or even what to look for. A well made zheng is easy to spot, even for a beginner.

Personally, though, I dislike the tone of Dunhuang and prefer the Xian instruments. They are much warmer and fuller in tone and give a sense of antiquity. Also nice are the two makers from Taiwan, but their instruments are more expensive. In particular are the zheng of Master Ji.

Despite playing for so many years, the instrument I still prefer to play on is my first one. It is a Xian instrument, but I selected it out of over ten of the same model and it is always sounding better and better, though I did have to repair a crack that occurred after a particularly cold winter in Canada.

So try it out in person to check if you really like the tone first. Or you can try your luck on the online purchase. With Dunhuang, getting a bad instrument from that model line is rare. If there were flaws in the manufacture, they would finish it differently and put it on a lower model line (they produce many zheng, so they can do this easily). But as I said, each one does behave differently, since they are made of wood, a natural product.

So in the end, I made a long detour to say that Dunhuang is nice, can last a long time, but there are definitely better sounding zheng out there. How long they will last is variant and cannot be put into a set time frame, no matter what your teacher says. The only reason why teachers say you need to upgrade is that your playing has surpassed the quality of tone the instrument can produce. Of course, this is also of personal aesthetics and very subjective.

Use your judgement, but know that that model is not bad and can last longer than you may think.

Hope this helps.

~Lucian

[xindi]

Hi there,

I guess if you have the chance to hear a S$800 guzheng which doesn't offend you across the octaves, that would be good enough.

Not so sure about buying over the internet though...a much harder task and you would prob. be better cutting your losses and get a Shanghai Dunhuang which most guzheng players have heard of as a brand. At that price band, you're really just trying to avoid buying a lemon.

At that price band you won't get a collectors item...and then the price of a used guzheng in that bracket is only ever going to go down unless you export it to western Europe where people pay twice as much for twice as little :-)