new to the erhu. and hello :)

[stehl]

well i have done some reading on this board and i have to say thnk to all the people here for their understanding and guidence to all the people before me that will ask that same question. I have a erhu now what.. i just got my erhu from SanFran and i brought back to chicago via my girlfriend. great girl! ... a have a couple of Q's about rosin and if there is something like Tabs for the erhu like there is for a guitar.... i hope that we are allowed to share our sounds with each other. i like to tape myself with every instrument i play and ask other about tone and all the stuff..

And who has the simple and good lesson vid...

[calden]

stehl:

Welcome. What a great instrument you've become interested in. First and best advice: find a teacher. A quick google search turns up this person:

Dr. Yuan-Yuan Lee, Director, Concert & Lecture Division, Chinese Music Society of North America, PO Box 5275, Woodridge IL 60517-0275 USA. Tel: [phone]. FAX: [phone]

Who could, if nothing else, help you find a resource in the Chicago area. You will seriously be playing sooner and better if you have a teacher walk you through some initial technique stuff at the very beginning. There are some hand position, posture, and bowing pressure issues that simply cannot be explained in words or even a video. Sitting down with someone for an hour will show you an awful lot that you would never grok on your own.

As for tab, well, you're out of luck. But there IS jianpu, which is as easy to learn as tab and ultimately more useful:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numbered_musical_notation

Definitely share sounds! Here are some MP3s and videos of my playing:
eaglelake1.org/chinesemusic.html

Rather than asking us replicate everything we've said about rosin, you should do a search on the forum and you'll get scads of posts about different kinds and techniques for application. Good luck, and let us know how you get on with this.

Carlos

[davidmdahl]

Good advice from Carlos, as always. Another potential teacher in Chicagoland is Betti Xiang.

xiangerhu.com/Contact.html

Your teacher is a good source of info on what rosin to use. I use Pirastro Obligato, but any good quality European rosin should work. But again, some other things must be right on the erhu before the type of rosin matters. Even one lesson to have your erhu checked out and the basics covered will be well worth the investment.

Best wishes,

David

[davidmdahl]

By the way, make sure you use violin rosin on your erhu. Sometimes cello rosin is sold with a new erhu, and it is not suitable.

Best wishes,

David

[jetz320]

Uh, there is a lot of rosin for erhu. Many erhus come with rosin that is made just for erhu, but I use Pirastro. I think it's a violin kind but it works really well on my erhu. My cousin is a pro violinist and he suggested it. The erhu and violin bow are pretty similar so that brand works really well.

[YouLanFengChune]

yupz. In Fact, We give ONLY Violin rosins. Most chinese rosins are too impure. Spoils the bow