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Post by wfranklin on Feb 14, 2006 3:33:47 GMT
did anyone see the movie "hero" with jet li. he does a fight scene in a tea house where there's an old guy playing somethig reminiscent of a lap steel. what instrument is that? heres a pic  |
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Post by davidbadagnani on Feb 14, 2006 4:32:54 GMT
I think this was supposed to be a guqin (qin), an ancient bridgeless/fretless Chinese zither with usually 7 silk strings. Two other recent Chinese films deal with the same story of the unification of China by Qin Shihuangdi (and his attempted assassination) and all three feature the guqin as played by the real court musician Gao Jianli. But apparently Gao really played the "zhu," another type of ancient zither (now died out) that was played by plucking the silk strings with a stick.
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Post by Charlie Huang on Feb 14, 2006 14:43:50 GMT
Yep, it's an ancient form of the qin. The guy who plays it in the film is a real qin player who mimes it to the qin music composed and played by a real qin player as well.
It's my favourite moment from the film (obviously).
Moving thread to Guqin forum.
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Post by eon5 on Feb 14, 2006 23:47:28 GMT
Liu Li of the China Central Conservatory of Music plays the guqin.
Xu Kuanghua appeared onscreen.
Xu Kuanghua makes a unique design of guqin that he developed.
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Post by blueharp on Feb 15, 2006 7:09:14 GMT
The instrument strongly resembles a cross between one of the zithers found in a Western Han tomb at Mawangdui, Changsha, Hunan dated about 150 BCE and a zither found in the tomb of the Marquis Yi of Zeng, Leigudun, Suizhou, Hubei Province dated about 433 BCE. You can see both on one of John Thompson's superb web pages: www.silkqin.com/09hist/origins.htmA picture of a surviving zhu can be found here: www.newyorkqin.org/journal/volume1/volume1no4p3.htmlDid Xu Kuanghua make the instrument he is playing in the film? |
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Post by Charlie Huang on Feb 15, 2006 11:29:16 GMT
Maybe he did. I doubt the props department doing a good a job as that. I've seen some rather bizzare creations of qins and zhengs in my viewings of various films and soap dramas. The recent HK soap drama adaptation of Fengshen Bang had Bigan playing a modern qin. Good that they actually got a proper qin, not so good that it was historically inaccurate (plus, a character grabbing it and physically smashing it on a table... oo-er).
It was also an interesting playing technique. He uses a lot of bo and la to attack the strings in the film.
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Post by lumry on Feb 15, 2006 21:25:26 GMT
Maybe he did. I doubt the props department doing a good a job as that. I've seen some rather bizzare creations of qins and zhengs in my viewings of various films and soap dramas. The recent HK soap drama adaptation of Fengshen Bang had Bigan playing a modern qin. Good that they actually got a proper qin, not so good that it was historically inaccurate (plus, a character grabbing it and physically smashing it on a table... oo-er). It was also an interesting playing technique. He uses a lot of bo and la to attack the strings in the film. hey has anyone seen kung fu hustle?...cause there two guys playing a guqin but it has guzheng bridges |
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Post by Charlie Huang on Feb 15, 2006 22:19:29 GMT
DON'T even mention THAT! I tried to alter the wikipedia article on KFH saying that was a guqin when it wasn't, and someone reverted it back to guqin, which pissed me off. The only thing guqin about it was the shape of the instrument, that's all. Bridges, sound was all guzheng... God I don't want to waste my breath ranting about it again!
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