Tuning sounds like a daughting task...

[guzhenglover]

Hey fellow guqin lovers

Any suggestion or idea as to how I would be able to learn to tune my guqin by myself with confidence? At the moment I am a bit put off by those compositions which require tuning e.g. I am up to Feng Qiu Huang and Yang Guan San Die, each of which requires a different diao. I find tuning to the standard Huang-Zhong diao daughting due to a lack of experience, being a beginner who's self-taught, let alone tuning the guqin to other diaos . I think I have a fear doing anything to the strings, like tightening the strings at the pegs/pins, etc. thinking that I'd break the strings (esp. when I hear the scratching noise). To be honest, I also find the literature a bit "wordy" when it comes to actually teaching someone like me to tune the guqin the step-by-step e.g. a method that's fool-proof. Is this just a major disadvantage of self-teaching that one has to live with ?

Well you may be wondering why I should even find tuning daughting...well the reason is because I spent quite a lot of money on my instrument (for me, anyway) and I wouldn't want to do anything silly to it.

So much for that...so does anyone have any good idea and/or where I might be able to find help for clear and step-by-step (foolproof) guidance ?

[SCWGuqin]

The first thing is to make sure "the whole instrument" is at a good pitch. Standard pitch these days is A for the 5th string. I don't know which A that is in the Western system...whichever's closest to where you already are, I guess That means D for the 2nd/7th string, C for 1st/6th, etc.

Once you have the instrument roughly at the right pitch, the tuning begins. You can take any string as your "base" pitch, the one against which all are compared. I was taught to use the 4th or 7th, whichever is higher; now I use mainly 4th.

Tuning is all about harmonics. Play 7th hui harmonic on the 7th string. It should match PERFECTLY 9th hui harmonic on the 4th string. Play these back and forth and adjust one string until it matches the other. Now you have the 4th and 7th strings tuned to each other. You can use the logic of harmonics to tune all other strings from here.

Here is a sample sequence of matches. "h" means hui; "s" means string. Remember that harmonics are symmetrical across the instrument, meaning that 9th hui is the same as 5th hui, 10th is the same as 4th, etc. Use whichever set is comfortable.

7h7s = 9h4s
7h4s = 9h1s

...Actually, it's late. [yawn] I'll let CCC take over from here. Sigh...it's so much easier to do than to write about. Just find the harmonics! Maybe searching for matching harmonics would be a good exercise for the beginner.

[guzhenglover]

I think I am following you so far except the following questions:

(1) When you first start out, with A for the 5th string, do you play that as an open string, or is there a specific hui position on this string that's comparable to an A, say, on the piano?

(2) With the harmonic sequence of matches, does each invidual "diao" or "lue" stipulate a certain sequence of matches? I think I know how to test the harmonics in huang zhong diao according to the set of matches, but is the task now knowing what the specific set of harmonics are for, say, Ling-Zhong diao (e.g. Feng qiu Huang) which is entirely different to Huang Zhong diao, and so on?

(3) If each diao/lu has its own unique sequence of harmonic matches, how, then, does one go about finding out these matches/pairs? Is there a good reference point in the literature that actually gives these matches in tables so that beginners can learn?

Thank you guys for answering these questions for me and/or for continuing with utmostvacuity2's easy-to-understand instructions!

[Charlie Huang]

Bloody hell! Passing the buck, UV...

1. I wouldn't bother with exact pitch tuning if I was you at this early stage. Trying to get string 5 to exactly 440hz is rather redundant. Concern yourself with playing, thus, you are most interested in the pitch relations of the strings.

2. For zheng diao/huangzhong diao, everything is symetrical (sp) except for one pair. That later, but following on from UV, use harmonics to tune:

7s7h = 4s9h ying
4s10h = 6s9h
7s9h = 5s10h
6s7h = 3s9h
5s7h = 2s9h
4s7h = 1s9h

after that, check the tuning with other matches:

3s9h = 1s10h
4s9h = 2s10h
1s12h = 4s10h
2s12h = 5s10h
3s12h = 6s10h
4s12h = 7s10h

The only pair that does not match is 5s9h x 3s10h, which is used to either tune it to manjiao diao/linzhong diao (if 5s9h = 3s10h ying) or ruibin diao/zhonglu diao (if 3s10h = 5s9h ying).

[Si]

Well I was in the same boat as you a while back. Then I brought back my old electronic tuner that i used in my erhu days, an know i just use that - its quicker but at some point i really should make the effort to manually do it.

Its it bad to use an electronic tuner?

If A does not have to be fixed then even if I do tune to 440 should not be a big prob..........should it?

[Charlie Huang]

You only need to yune to 440 is you are plying with other instruments. Some qins can't tune that high. This whole tuning to CDF etc only came about in the 20th century. Before that, players tuned it to whatever pitch they want.

I other words, don't get so anal about pitches. Tuning exactly to the modern standard does not make you a better player.

[guzhenglover]

Well I wasn't thinking of tuning exactly or tuning with an electronic tuner. One of the questions I had from reading utmostvacuity2's message was simply, does the 5th OPEN string already has the A pitch? Sorry if this is a really stupid question... ;D

I can follow you thus far Charlie re what you are saying about tuning for zheng diao/huangzhong diao. But what about tuning for the other diaos? Is there a concise table somewhere that actually states all the harnomic pitch relations? Speaking of these, I did come across a Word document which I found on the University of Toronto's guqin website (http://guqin.sa.utoronto.ca/). It goes by the name "Tuning Settings and Modes - Quick Reference List" under the "Guqin Notebook" link. Is this what I want? Even if this is what I need, and while I can understand the gist of it - in theory - it still doesn't spell out the harmonic pairs like you have that I need to actually do the tuning in other diaos...

Help? And thanx for your patience, guys...

[SCWGuqin]

1. Open string and 7th hui harmonic are exactly the same pitch. And by 'exactly' I mean 'a priori'; that's how harmonics work.

2. When you re-tune one string to achieve a different tuning, the other harmonic relationships are unaffected. For instance, if from standard tuning you tighten 5th, only the relation you used to tune 5th in std. no longer applies. Some other match applies in its stead. To my memory (doing easier than describing!), the new match would be 5s5h=3s4h, as opposed to (for instance) 7s5h=5s4h.

[guzhenglover]

OK, I admit I've got a bit lost following your latest message, utmostvacuity2...Are these points answers to my last question? And in your second point, which diao are you thinking of when you referred to the "new match"? If different diaos have different harmonic matches, isn't it those matches that I need to know (I think...)?

[Charlie Huang]

Some qinpu do have harmonic tables (such as Qinxue Lianyao, though I noticed some mistakes). Chris Evan's sie has a complete list.

Further elaboration, if you tune to ruibin/zhonglu diao, you get the following matching pairs:

7s7h = 4s9h
6s7h = 3s9h
4s7h = 1s9h
6s9h = 4s10h
5s9h = 3s10h
4s9h = 2s10h
3s9h = 1s10h
etc...

The pairs that do not match are:

7s9h x 5s10h
5s7h x 2s9h
5s10h x 2s12h

[Si]

does the 5th OPEN string already has the A pitch

from what I gather - the A string can be any "note" as measured on a chromatic tuner. If depends how much you twist the pegs!
But for the purpose of a Qin - I think you just twist the pegs till the sound is OK for "you" then, you start to follow the above harmonic tuning steps.

For me - i am satisfied with tuning as per my chromatic tuner only because - i dont have any clue/preference as to how A should sound, so i just follow 440hz. For not i am happy with it.

[Charlie Huang]

Hmmm, do you mean is the 5th string the string you start at from which all other strings are tuned? It depends, because you can tune from any string. You start with 5 traditionally because you want to avoid tuning too high or too low for the other strings. That is all really.

For me, I start from 7th string.

[guzhenglover]

admin said:

Some qinpu do have harmonic tables (such as Qinxue Lianyao, though I noticed some mistakes). Chris Evan's sie has a complete list.

I found Chris Evan's site via the Uni of Toronto guqin website. But I can't make much sense of the tables in the documents yet. Anyway he doesn't spell out specific harmonic pairs that one has to tune and check when one changes diao the way that you do...?

[Charlie Huang]

Can't you tell from just looking? Surely, anything with the same note name is an obvious pair!

And surely, once you tuned the said string, that string's harmonic relation to other strings changes, the other strings harmonic relation remains the same except the relation between that string that has been changed. After that said string's tuning is accurate, you only need to check it with one other harmonic pair, just to be sure, but really, you don't need to in practice.

If you look at my tuning table for ruibin/zhonglu diao, you would see that previously 5s7h = 2s9h, 5s10h = 7s9h, 5s10h = 2s12h, but 5s9h x 3s10h. After tuning, all these pair flip because you changed the pitch of the 5th string so that 5s7h x 2s9h, 5s10h x 2s12h, 5s10h x 7s9h, but 5s9h = 3s10h. So really, you can't 'check' the tuning of that string (5) because all the three previous pairs do not match, only one does (maybe another, but it would probably involve a harmonic on 11h) and that was the 3s10h you used to tune it to that pitch in the first place!

Same principle for other one stringed tunings. We could do a complete table of pairs for every tuning but that is really a waste of time, because once you've got it, these tables are redundant. Besides, you can tell by actually listening and practice on the qin. Tables only serve as theory and it is actual practice that makes you understand and experience what works and what doesn't.

The only thing you need to know is the method of tuning for each tuning, That's all. If we start going through all the pairs in that tuning, then it will only confuse you and maybe make you tune it incorrectly, especially for tunings involving multipule strings; deviate from the correct method pairs and you mess up the tuning altogether.

[guzhenglover]

Well you are very patient Charlie, just as are our fellow guqin experts. I couldn't tell from "just looking", which is why I had asked for a fool-proof explanation from people. But your latest explanation has helped.

[Charlie Huang]

You can tell from 'just listening'!

[Si]

I know that you all dont tune to A = 440. I know its a personal preferance, but what is a common Frequency these days.

How much higher or lower - just as a guide line for me.