How hard to press the strings?

[cowlegend999]

Hello everyone! I am new to learning the erhu (and this forum), and I am trying to teach myself.

I haven't been able to it mentioned anywhere online, how hard should you press the string with your left hand? The harder you press, the string will start to bend increasing the pitch of the note. Should the strings be pressed very lightly so that they don't bend? They seem to bend with very little pressure so I am unsure of how hard to press on them.

This is making learning the proper finger placements difficult since the same placement can have a very different pitch depending on how hard I press on the strings.

[davidmdahl]

Welcome to the forum, cowlegend999. You don't need to press very hard on the strings. Use only the amount necessary to stop the string at the point of contact. If you are pushing on the strings enough to raise the pitch, that is too much pressure.

I suggest checking out the Learn Erhu course (http://www.learnerhu.com/). Many basic techniques are covered through this course.

You also might check out www.erhulessons.com/ . I haven't looked at this site much, but it appears promising.

Best wishes,

David

[cowlegend999]

Thank you for your response!

I was going to sign up for Eason's learn erhu course since when I signed up for their newsletter it said you could email them for a 50% discount on the course, but I never received an email back. Maybe I will go through the free lessons on www.erhulessons.com and then decide what to do.

[davidmdahl]

I would try emailing Eason again. They are usually pretty good about responding.

Best wishes,

David

[d̗̰̗͆͘ǎ͔̱͈̰̬̫ͨ̌ͮͥ͗ͭ̕vid]

Press the string hard enough so that it is in tune... Too light=wolf tones/harmonics... Too hard=out of tune... You can change the pitch of the note during vibrato, etc