Post by andrewwilt on Dec 18, 2008 15:36:25 GMT
Hello everyone,
I've been lurking for a while with nothing much to add since there is so much great info.
However, recently I bought a pretty nice erhu off of ebay. It is an older erhu, supposedly 60-70 years old. It really sounds great when I start playing. However, after about 15 minutes of playing/practicing, it seems to get tired. By tired, I mean that notes, especially the open A string, don't sound clear, but more hoarse. (Kind of like a singer that gets tired and the notes become hoarse.) I have to work much harder to get it to sound clearly.
(I don't think it is me, because I can switch to my normal erhu and everything sounds fine.) When I pick it up again the next day, it sounds good again.
My questions are:
Has anyone ever experienced this tiredness of the instrument?
Any thoughts as to the cause of it? I don't know if the erhu has been played much recently, so I've been trying to get it broken in again. Do you think it could be that the snakeskin is too old and can't take the vibration anymore?
One strange thing I noticed with it is when I used a humidifier in the room where I store the instrument. (Arizona is pretty dry.) After a day of the humidifier, the skin was really loose and not tight like a drum.
Thanks,
Andrew
I've been lurking for a while with nothing much to add since there is so much great info.
However, recently I bought a pretty nice erhu off of ebay. It is an older erhu, supposedly 60-70 years old. It really sounds great when I start playing. However, after about 15 minutes of playing/practicing, it seems to get tired. By tired, I mean that notes, especially the open A string, don't sound clear, but more hoarse. (Kind of like a singer that gets tired and the notes become hoarse.) I have to work much harder to get it to sound clearly.
(I don't think it is me, because I can switch to my normal erhu and everything sounds fine.) When I pick it up again the next day, it sounds good again.
My questions are:
Has anyone ever experienced this tiredness of the instrument?
Any thoughts as to the cause of it? I don't know if the erhu has been played much recently, so I've been trying to get it broken in again. Do you think it could be that the snakeskin is too old and can't take the vibration anymore?
One strange thing I noticed with it is when I used a humidifier in the room where I store the instrument. (Arizona is pretty dry.) After a day of the humidifier, the skin was really loose and not tight like a drum.
Thanks,
Andrew
