tyeing the Qianjing: Before or after tuning?

[anjinsan]

hello
I should receive my Erhu Monday or Tuesday. Can't wait to make a noise. However, a couple of questions , if any of you experienced players will be so kind as to answer.
1: Do you tune the strings before or after tyeing the qianjing?

2: Does any one know of a reliable place to buy a white hair bow? I get the impression from this forum that black hair bows are the work of the devil and should be hunted down and destroyed. I live in a remote seaside town in the U.K. Put it this way; Moscow got a McDonalds ten years before our town did, so I know the internet is the only place I'll get one.

3: I downloaded a free violin tuner from a website called Fretless finger guides so I could tune it to the D and A strings. Is this a reliable way of tuning the Erhu?

Thanks in advance for any replies. Now I'm off to the local Chinese take away for a chow mien and some discreet inquiries about the cooks Erhu playing abilities.

[calden]

Quick answers:

1) tune after the qianjin is tied

2) black hair bows aren't inherently evil, but they just don't take rosin well, and especially for a beginner it's much harder to get a "feel" on the string, and there's a higher percentage of awful dying-cat sounds. Get a new one from either Song (Eason) or YouLanFengChune both who post here. Get a good one - these things aren't expensive compared to a good bow for a Western instrument. My 15-year-old son is getting to be a proficient viola player in our local youth symphony. We just bought him a new good-quality viola. $1300. I thus don't complain about a new erhu at $500 or new bows at $40 (or whatever they are.) Also consider that if you play every day for at least an hour you'll probably be looking at a whole new bow every year. Don't sweat it - just buy it. I don't know if the bow has a huge impact on the sound, but a good quality bow will make PLAYING the erhu easier and more rewarding. Truly.

3) You can use a computer tuner, but I like the little hand-held ones. They're less than $10 here in the colonies, and really good ones are somewhere around $25. In any case, right now it doesn't matter if the strings are tuned exactly to A and D - it's important that they're tuned exactly a fifth apart.

4) McDonald's serves garbage food. You're much better off staying away anyway. It's an American export we are truly ashamed of. We got it right with blue jeans, jazz, and rock and roll though. Sorry about that.

Carlos

[YouLanFengChune]

hmm...
contact SONG on forum He has plenty of good bows now.

The bows in my store are avergae quality for the moment. My brandname custom bows of 3 grades wil only be out ebd of this year.

[jetz320]

YouLanFengChune, what is your store's website? Is it Cadenza?