CCC's guqin notation surgery

[Si]

you mean like fang he?

they do call for fang he a few times on the included section, bu they use the correct symbols. I can see that the first character is fang but the section one seems not to be written in any english sources.

Thanks!!!

[charliecharlieecho]

Essentially it is a fang he as the open third string and the stopped fourth string both sound as F. I don't know why the normal graph for fang he isn't used here, but it may be something as simple as a copying error.

[Si]

how do u manage to understand these scores when they have such errors and none standard characters? for me i have to search search search search in vain for these characters that dont exist...

Thanks

[Charlie Huang]

It is no mistake. The absence of a 'he' means you delay the plucking of the string below so they sound separately. If a 'he' is included, you play so they sound simutaneously, like a 'tan'. Look at the staff for clues.

[charliecharlieecho]

There's a problem with Charlie's idea, unfortunately, and that is that while the staff is clear for ZYCW it doesn't always help . If you look, for example, at the 4th line on p. 117 of Vol. 2 of Guqin Quji, you'll find 2 'fang he' for As an octave apart, but in each case only one A is shown on the staff.

How do we know what the 'non-existent' characters mean? It's because they're characters which occur in everyday Chinese, and I'm afraid the only thing someone who doesn't read Chinese can do is to build up a list of them. That may sound difficult but there aren't all that many of these characters and a good teacher should be willing to help.

[Si]

Ok, thanks.

So whats that criss crossy character (afer fang) say? Does this character get used often in other tunes and other situations?

[Charlie Huang]

The 'criss-crossy' with the radical is the full character.

[charliecharlieecho]

syburn said:

So whats that criss crossy character (afer fang) say? Does this character get used often in other tunes and other situations?

It generally means 'release'. More precisely in the qin context: drag the stopping finger from one string to the next higher one, so that the first string sounds and the finger stops the second one in the correct position as indicated in the symbol following the 'fang'.

[guzhenglover]

OK, so people are still using this forum, after all...

[Si]

yes i still like it, and this place is a purpose made forum,

but u still ought to look at facebook. there a lot of stuff to do on there, which does not interest me so much, but u can be a facebook lite user too.

i only realy ude if for the other forum and sharing photos.

what u playing these days??

[guzhenglover]

syburn said:

yes i still like it, and this place is a purpose made forum,

but u still ought to look at facebook. there a lot of stuff to do on there, which does not interest me so much, but u can be a facebook lite user too.

i only realy ude if for the other forum and sharing photos.

what u playing these days??

Good to know that we agree that we should keep up this forum! I've just finished Ping Sha Luo Yan and am now tackling Yi Guren (and I believe you'd already spent time learning/practising/polishing up this piece some time ago?)

Happy CNY to you!

[Si]

CCC - in the fisherman score that i was talking about before, on the 3 line down - the 2nd to last notes - what does that small note with a line through and the curved bit that joins the bigger note mean?

I think play them so no gap inbetween....

[charliecharlieecho]

The small note with a line through is what they call a grace note, i.e. a note used to decorate the melody. Putting the grace note at the beginning of the curved line means that the grace note should be played first.

In ZYCW you should play the grace notes as close as you can before the main notes. In fact it's not difficult to do that because you have to pull the left finger off one string and onto the next, which automatically produces two notesa very short time apart.

[Si]

the fang he works fine........then later i saw this weird item in pink.

its lun then down to 9. open 5.......then looking at the western notes i looks like im supposed to be playing 2 strings at once.

i find this a bit hard to follow. any tips

[charliecharlieecho]

You 'xia' to the 9th hui on the 7th string and when you arrive there you 'gou' the open 5th string; then you 'shang' back to the 7.6th hui on the 7th string and simultaneously 'gou' the open 6th string.

[Si]

Oh so those smaller typed lines refer to the 7th string only.

Are they luns at the end of these small typed lines?

Thanks a lot. I want to get as far as I can before I have some lessons later this month.

[Charlie Huang]

No, they are 'he', to match. What they are matching are the pitch of the 5th and 6th strings on the 7th.

[Si]

"he" as in fang he?

[charliecharlieecho]

mais oui, mons gars.

The difference between a 'lun' and a 'he' is that the 'lun' has the silhouette of a table under the tent-looking thing, but a 'he' has a box there.

[Charlie Huang]

'HE' MEANS 'TO MATCH'. IT IS NOT SUPERVENIENT ON THERE BEING A 'FANG' INVOLVED.

[guzhenglover]

Hi, just wondering whether the figure after the fan shuang zhuang is qia qi or zhua qi? If I go by the staff notation, the second note should be zhua qi. If that's the case, then I think there are many places in the score where one needs to be careful in distinguishing between qia qi and zhua qi...

Jan 27, 2007 16:21:49 GMT Si said:

more queries.

this looks like slide up to 9, then tui fu back to 10, then back up to 9, then 7.6, 7, then 7.6, 9, then jing fu to 7.6, then finally finish at 9 (5 hours later)

When i get to 7 i have run out of sounds already after that its just scraping sounds on the string......



next one - well i assume its zhuang x3 (3 zhuangs)



this is PAZ.......................BTW

[charliecharlieecho]

It's a zhuaqi. The "rule of thumb" is that you should play a qiaqi where the tablature indicates that the string is to be stopped for a lower note by the ring or finger, and a zhuaqi if there's no such indication.

[guzhenglover]

Thanks for the reply. Wouldn't you say, though, that sometimes the way this 'character' is written/printed in the tablature makes it hard to distinguish between zhaqi and qiaqi (and maybe even daiqi)? But you're right. I've been guided not only by the 'rule of thumb' you've said but also the suggested note in the staff notation.

Jun 10, 2009 8:37:10 GMT charliecharlieecho said:

It's a zhuaqi. The "rule of thumb" is that you should play a qiaqi where the tablature indicates that the string is to be stopped for a lower note by the ring or finger, and a zhuaqi if there's no such indication.

[charliecharlieecho]

sometimes the way this 'character' is written/printed in the tablature makes it hard to distinguish between zhaqi and qiaqi (and maybe even daiqi)

That's absolutely right about. Your combination of strategies for deciding what is intended seems to me to be the only thing we can do. In China they have more teachers and of course a much closer connection to the musical traditions that underlie the qin. We "laowai" have to make do with tablature and occasionally a complete lack of understanding of our predicament.

[guzhenglover]

Jun 12, 2009 7:13:02 GMT charliecharlieecho said:

sometimes the way this 'character' is written/printed in the tablature makes it hard to distinguish between zhaqi and qiaqi (and maybe even daiqi)

That's absolutely right about. Your combination of strategies for deciding what is intended seems to me to be the only thing we can do. In China they have more teachers and of course a much closer connection to the musical traditions that underlie the qin. We "laowai" have to make do with tablature and occasionally a complete lack of understanding of our predicament.

Still on the subject of Pu An Zou (PAZ), I am finding it very difficult to execute a daiqi on guizhi from section 6 onwards (you know, where you first do a guizhi with the index finger of the LH then, a few notes later, daiqi with the same guizhi knuckle?). Maybe I just need more practice and time to get the hang of it but, at the moment, this technique is just not making much sense to me as I can't seem to find the right angle of the knuckle to do the plucking action required of daiqi (and the fact that my strings seems to have a tighter tension than some other guqins doesn't help, either).

Can anyone please offer some advice here? Thanks!

Guzhenglover/guqinlover