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Post by sanmenxia on May 8, 2006 21:57:54 GMT
I don't know the name either, I'm not even sure there's even a standard Chinese name. You need to try different materials, sizes, shapes to find out what's best for your erhu. You might want to start with a thick one, it might help damp down any roughness you might with your erhu.
You can hang an erhu from under the tuning peg, it's no problem at all, just make sure the actual fitting (nail, hook, whatever) on the wall is absolutely secure. I normally just leave mine upright on the floor in a corner of the room, or anywhere where it's not going to get knocked over.
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Post by davidmdahl on May 8, 2006 23:08:24 GMT
My erhu came with a piece of felt to dampen the strings below the bridge. I think that any cloth-like material that dampens the strings adequately should be fine. I used paper towel on another erhu and it worked okay, although it did not look very good. Maybe a bigger consideration is the position of the felt (or substitute) relative to the bridge. My erhu is pretty bright, so I have the felt close to the bridge. Much more important factors in the sound of the erhu, at least in my experience, are the bridge and strings. The qianjin must be adequate as well. The skill of the player is of course the largest factor of all. A good player can overcome a lot of shortcomings in the instrument, but a good quality instrument in proper adjustment is a lot easier to play, and more fun. Best wishes, David
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Post by notmadeinzhongguo on May 8, 2006 23:21:25 GMT
Thank you all! You have all been very helpful! ;D Another question: (Sorry! I'm just full of questions ) So what erhu CDs are any good? I have Jia Peng Fang's "Best", I like the sound of piano and erhu together it's really relaxing. But I don't know of any 'straight up' erhu CDs. Recommendations?
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Post by song on May 9, 2006 0:38:28 GMT
We use a kind of cloth called "rong bu" in Chinese. Felt kind of material. Normally we junk away those rectangular white spongy dampeners that come together with the instrument. You have to fold it so that it is thick enough to have a little pressure on the skin, but not too thick or your erhu will sound muted. Your instrument will sound sharper if you position the cloth further away from the bridge and closer to the base of the instrument. So you can adjust the cloth to suit your preference. If you have old army berets lying in your basement you can cut them up and use too.
You can also try this also: Cut a piece of cube(6mmx6mmx6mm) from a piece of rubber eraser. Put the cube at the position between the bridge and the cloth, in between the strings. You can cut a small groove at the 2 opposite sides of the cube so that the strings run through the grooves. This can help in noise reduction.
I have also seen Erhu players lodging a piece of soft sponge between the cloth and the bridge.
And of course the bridge of the Erhu affects the sound. - The position need not exactly in the centre of the snakesin. If your Erhu is producing a lot of unwanted harmonics, you can try shifting the bridge slightly higher, but not too high as it will affect the resonance of the instrument. - The shape of the bridge also affects. Its good to experiment with different shapes of bridge. The A shape bridge produces a sharper and brighter sound. - And of course the kind of wood the bridge is made of - rosewood, whitewood, ebony, maple, sandalwood. The ebony ones produces a mellower tone. - Lastly you can get out some tools to try to modify the bridge a little. China bridges are quite poorly made to be honest. No two bridges are exactly the same. Sometimes the grooves too close to each other and sometimes too far apart. Some too high some too low. Some have a very thick base. If you find that the bow is touching the inner string while bowing the outer string(or vice versa), you may want to make another groove to widen the distance btw the strings. Some might find it takes forever the move from one string to the other because the distance is too great so you might want to adjust that also - but that shouldn't be too much of a problem if you practise switching between strings.
You can try sanding down the base of the bridge to make it thinner. 2 schools of thought here: Some say a thinner base produces more volume and resonance. Some say some bridges come with a slight curvature at the base so that the base of the bridge conforms to the shape of the slight depression of the snakeskin at the point of contact - so better not sand the base.
That's all for now. You just need a little time and effort. Trial and error and you may find that you improved the grade of your instrument by a notch!
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Post by YouLanFengChune on May 9, 2006 1:01:34 GMT
There are a lot of principles regarding this.
1) The "Felt" cloth is responsible for removing the pressure off the brigde. Remember that snake skin is usualy irregular. hence, one should pay attention to density of cloth.
2) simple physics such as p=f/a. Think of how to make an erhu lowuder or softer. 3) There are ways of making any erhu sounding sweet and even. Its more about the maker and the players heart, rather than science....
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Post by sanmenxia on May 9, 2006 1:41:49 GMT
Song: Thanks for all the information about the cloth and setup of the erhu! It's really interesting to read about this in such detail. www.hugomedia.com/library/china.htm, Title: Spring Morning in Suzhou, Artists: DENG Jian-dong This is one of my all time favourite erhu CDs. So are these two: www.hugomedia.com/inst/HRP723-2.htmwww.hugomedia.com/inst/HRP765-2.htmhas recordings of various huqin. It might seem a bit odd but my favourite erhu CD is a set of instructional VCD/CDs, introduced by Wang Yongde (Shanghai Conservatory of Music), it has complete performances of nearly all the pieces in the syllabus played by his students. Unfortunately it is in Chinese only, but it is easily available in China.
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Post by notmadeinzhongguo on May 9, 2006 1:55:16 GMT
Song, Thank you for all that info! ;D Very helpful! Sanmenxia, thank you as well I will check out those cds.
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Post by notmadeinzhongguo on May 12, 2006 22:38:37 GMT
I got my erhu today! yeah! I am very excited! I also got the book and VCD that Carlos suggested today. I have yet to get it to make a sound more than once. I think I need more rosin or something, I bought some violin rosin today. The quian jin (sp?) was tied perfect but the bridge was not on yet. So I put the bridge on and rolled up some scrap cloth to go under it. the bow hair is black, but it does seem to be the promised real hair (one fell off and I burned it, and it burned just like hair). I am having trouble putting rosin on which I think is the problem, because I did get it to make a good sound once after I just put a little rosin on. for some reason I can't get the rosin to go on very well, maybe it's too cold? I was sitting right in front of the AC and it developed a fog on the top. Pictures here Everything seems to be fine, but your eyes are better trained then mine. Do you guys see anything wrong? And any tips on rosin would be very helpful! Thank you!
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Post by jdclay on May 13, 2006 0:59:03 GMT
Good looking erhu! How much did you spend?
Some wil probably recommend that you get a white-haired bow, and Cadenza has the best prices as I've seen ($18 for 1, $30 for 2). I would buy more than one so you can change hair if one falls apart.
As for the rosin, I've read that you might want it a little warm, room temperature probably, and scratch the top with sandpaper.
Good luck and keep us posted!
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Post by song on May 13, 2006 1:55:35 GMT
The position of your bridge seems a little high and it looks like a huge roll of cloth there. You might want to lower the bridge more to the center and I usually fold the cloth rather than roll it. If its too thick use a smaller cloth.
Scratching the top of your rosin a little is a good idea to start the powder coming off, but you don't need to do that with better violin rosins.
When applying the rosin, careful not to apply too much pressure on the bow hairs or you might pull some of them out if there is too much friction.
Also the hairs on your bow looks like its set a bit tight and taut. Erhu bows are not like violin bows where it needs to be taut. Preferably the bow hairs should be loose enough to form a small angle when resting against the strings.
Thanks.
Sung Wah
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Post by notmadeinzhongguo on May 13, 2006 2:16:51 GMT
jdclay: thanks! a new bow will have to wait for at least a month because I'm so broke right now lol. I got my erhu off ebay for a really good deal, it was only $125.00 with shipping and it came with a really nice case as well.
song: Thanks for the rosin help, I'll see how that works tomorrow morning. Oh, and how do you adjust the bow tension?
Thanks!
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Post by song on May 13, 2006 3:14:48 GMT
Just turn the knob at the end of the bow in an anti clockwise direction to loosen. here's a pix: How do you imbed pictures in your post? Sung Wah
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Post by notmadeinzhongguo on May 13, 2006 13:57:44 GMT
Ah! so that's what that is for! lol "How do you imbed pictures in your post?" I'm sorry I don't get what you mean, I just uploaded the pics to photobucket and linked them here.
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Post by calden on May 13, 2006 14:28:45 GMT
Here's a tip about rosin on a new bow -
Try scraping some off the rosin cake onto a piece of paper so you've got a little pile of rosin dust. Make sure it's really pulverized - no little crystals. Gently work this powder into the bow hairs, thoroughly saturating the hair. Sometimes it takes some work to get a brand-new bow charge up with sufficient rosin- especially those black hair bows.
When I last visted China, I was in and out of various music stores. At one I saw a worker putting rosin on new bows this way - she had a long tray and was using a pounce pad to pat rosin dust onto bows that had the horsehair completely off the bow - really getting rosin into every nook and cranny. She then shook off the excess rosin.
Or if you're not sure about all this, take it to a violin shop and ask them to get it nicely charged up. Once it's got an initial hit of rosin, it's very easy and quick to swipe it every few days (provided you practice every day ... you DO, don't you?) to keep it responsive to the strings.
Carlos
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Post by notmadeinzhongguo on May 13, 2006 15:14:13 GMT
(provided you practice every day ... you DO, don't you?) Carlos Well I just got everything late afternoon yesterday and figured I'd better watch the first part of the VCD first and I'm working on translating the book now so I'll know what to do. Now that I know how to detach the bow hair I think rosining will be easier (I was trying to do it while it was still in the strings before) I'll try scraping some off like you said and see how that works, thank you indeed for you help!
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Post by calden on May 13, 2006 15:33:29 GMT
Notmade:
If you get stuck on something in the book, I might be able to help you because I've got it too, and I'm armed and dangerous with a shelf full of dictionaries. Seriously, with my erhu experience, same book, and three years plus of Chinese I could probably help straighten something out.
Carlos
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Post by davidmdahl on May 13, 2006 19:53:06 GMT
Ah! so that's what that is for! lol "How do you imbed pictures in your post?" I'm sorry I don't get what you mean, I just uploaded the pics to photobucket and linked them here. You can either paste the link in your post, or display the image itself with html code: {img}http://linkname.com{/img} (replace the curly brackets with square brackets []) Best wishes, David
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Post by calden on May 13, 2006 22:56:51 GMT
...And I just received the book's accompanying VCD today, so I'll have that as reference, too.
Carlos
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Post by notmadeinzhongguo on May 13, 2006 23:33:33 GMT
My erhu has a voice! yeah! lol Not the prettiest voice, at the moment, but it can sing. I took the hair off and dragged it through some rosin that I had scraped off into a fine powder then I ran the block over it a few times and I adjusted the bridge and folded the cloth better, that helped a lot. But you all were right, the black hair doesn’t hold the rosin that well and I have to re-rosin pretty frequently or it sounds like scraping nails on a chalkboard, not pretty.
Carlos: Dude, you are so freaking cool! I'll be sure to ask you when I get stuck. Right now its going real slow, I'm still trying to develop a system to make it go faster. Right now I'm looking up the character in the dictionary, then getting the pinyin for it then once I have a good bit of pinyin to translate I go on over to ZhongWen.com and use a pinyin search to get the English. My dictionary does have pinyin to English but it's fast to just type it in then to look it up in the book.
Thanks again, everyone, for all you help so far! ;D
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Post by maaltan on May 15, 2006 10:49:31 GMT
just a test
[img] http://sample.url.com/path/to/image.jpg[/img]
ahh i knew there was a way to prevent the fourm from interpreting the code.
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Post by notmadeinzhongguo on May 15, 2006 19:08:16 GMT
I got it to sound remotely like an erhu today! lol I got about an hour and a half of practicing in today, I'm going to try and get another hour in before the day is done. I am having a little trouble with the bowing, I can hold it right in both positions when its not moving but after a few strokes it gets messed up. I think I'm holding it to tight (my little finger often presses against my palm once I start bowing) but if I hold it too loose it either doesn't make a good sound or the wood scrapes on the top string. I guessing I just need more practice
Question on tuning: do you tune by the sound of the string when you pluck it or by the sound when you bow it? And what is a good tuner program besides AP Tuner? That one didn't work for me, it said it was an incomplete file or something.
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Post by davidmdahl on May 15, 2006 22:10:07 GMT
I got it to sound remotely like an erhu today! lol I got about an hour and a half of practicing in today, I'm going to try and get another hour in before the day is done. I am having a little trouble with the bowing, I can hold it right in both positions when its not moving but after a few strokes it gets messed up. I think I'm holding it to tight (my little finger often presses against my palm once I start bowing) but if I hold it too loose it either doesn't make a good sound or the wood scrapes on the top string. I guessing I just need more practice Something in the description of your bowing does not sound right. A video of your playing might help us advise you. Is there any chance of that? Question on tuning: do you tune by the sound of the string when you pluck it or by the sound when you bow it? And what is a good tuner program besides AP Tuner? That one didn't work for me, it said it was an incomplete file or something. Definitely tune while bowing. You can't hear the pitch properly otherwise. If there is much difference in pitch between bowing up and down, it will be an indication that your qianjin needs adjustment. I use a portable tuner/metronome by Sabine (MT9000) that works well for me wherever I happen to be practicing or getting ready to perform. If your AP Tuner doesn't work, you might try reinstalling it. Best wishes, David
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Post by song on May 16, 2006 15:14:09 GMT
NMIZG, it sounds like you are a little tense with your arms, which is a common problem for newbies. I am fortunate enough to have studied under some excellent and dedicated erhu teachers from China . I'll try my best to articulate what i've learnt from them about bowing the erhu.
- Start with the outer string first - When bowing the outer string, you just need 2 fingers in actual fact- the first finger and the thumb. - The bamboo of the bow should lie across the second joint of your first finger counting from the tip of your finger - Your thumb should be on the bamboo forming an equal and opposite action with the second joint of your first finger. - At the point of the equal and opposite action is the fulcrum point of your pull and push bowing action - To play the outer string, just apply a downward pressure on the bamboo at the fulcrum point. You can see that the hairs of the bow is touching the outer string when you do than. And when you bow, the hairs and bamboo of your bow will always be resting on the resonator. - Make sure the bow always maintains a position that is perpendicular to the strings and parallel with the ground. - When you bow, the bow should travel in a straight line, not a curve - When you bow, the elbow should lead the arm, the arm leads the wrist, the wrist leads the palm and the palm leads the fingers. - So in the instance of pulling the bow, your elbow will be moving away from your body first followed by the rest. - When your elbow reaches the point where it can't go any further, it will start to move towards your body. But at this point of time, your arm and wrist and fingers will still be moving away from your body - in the opposite direction of your elbow. - Same theory applies to the pushing action - The motion is something like how a snake moves, in an 'S' shape - Using just 2 fingers to bow the outer string will help you to relax the rest of your arms - Use the whole length of the bow instead of just the center while practising and practise at varying speeds - Once you get your swing right (like in golf), bowing the inner string should pose much less problem.
Very abstract at some parts I know, but I hope at least some parts make sense to you. Of course there are different ways to skin a cat. Others might have different methods to share.
Have fun.
Sung Wah
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Post by YouLanFengChune on May 16, 2006 17:12:34 GMT
Hi!
The centre of gravity of the erhu is such that it is designed to be hung. Trust me on thta.
one solid hosrizontal bar hangs 15.. its ok!
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Post by maaltan on May 17, 2006 0:41:41 GMT
yes, relax your bowing hand as much as possible. Other than my middle 2 fingers the rest of the hand is almost limp. Pressure on the string comes from the middle fingers, back and forth motion comes from the forearm. The wrist bending motion was almost automatic (for me at least). Without the erhu or bow in hand, try flopping your arm back and forth slowly with the wrist limp to get a feel for how the wrist should move throughout the stroke.
Of course, I'm still a beginner and i have not had an official teacher, so i might be all wrong.
as for ap tuner and other files. If you have a slow/unstable internet connection you might consider getting a program like "getright". it really enhances the integrety of downloaded files.
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