Healing Ancient Music of Guqin for Modern Minds
Let the pure and soulful quality of Guqin music still your mind and calm your soul
Originated at least 3,000 years ago, Guqin, a long Chinese zither, was one of the four arts in ancient Chinese society that every self-respected scholar was expected to master along with calligraphy, painting and Go, an ancient form of chess.
Playing Guqin is a form of self-cultivation for the mind, body and spirit in the past as well as present. Its pure, crisp and yet expressive music qualities are said to be the echo and reverberation from the spiritual realm. Liken to a guide for the musing mind, Guqin can lead one to progressive self-discovery and cultural, mental and spiritual refinement with its healing notes.
Guqin is a rather quiet instrument; that’s why it is usually played solo. However, it has also been paired successfully with other instruments such as qin, flutes and even keyboards and acoustic guitar. You can hear samples of Guqin and flute combo by Dean Evenson and Li Xiangting, as well as ancient Guqin melodies rendered by Wu Ziying from Amazon.com.
Open your mind, especially if you are new to the sounds of this age-old instrument, and you might be pleasantly surprised by its soulful qualities.
Interesting facts
Here are some interesting facts about Guqin:
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In 1977, Guqin was chosen along with other music from around the world to represent humanity in the Voyager Golden Record, a gold-plated LP recording which was sent into outer space by NASA.
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UNESCO declared Guqin as one of the world’s important cultural treasures that warrants preservation in 2003.
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Originally, Guqin only had five strings that represented the five elements: Metal, Wood, Water, Fire and Earth. A sixth string was added by Zhou When Wang during the Zhou dynasty to commemorate his son, Bo Yihou. The seventh string was later added by Zhou’s successor, Zhou Wu Wang, as a morale booster for his troops in the battle against the Shang. Apparently, his tactic worked.
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A unique feature of Guqin music is the sound of the fingers sliding along the strings even though the sound may be hardly audible. This apparent silence invites the listeners to fill in the ‘missing’ notes and purportedly forms the qi, or life force, of the music.
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Guqin is often confused with Guzheng, another Chinese long zither. The difference between the two is that Guzheng has moveable bridges under each string, while Guqin doesn’t.
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Interestingly, most traditional written Guqin music (called qinpu) did not indicate note value, tempo or rhythm. Instead, it was written in tablature form which describes how to play a piece in words with full description on where players should place their fingers, how the strings should be plucked and etc.
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Modern qinpu still retains the use of tablature, albeit a less verbose version called jianzi pu and with added staff notation, because it is still the fastest and easiest way to learn a piece.
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In the past, one learns to play the Guqin by oral transmission and by imitating a teacher, which explains why note values are not recorded. The tablature will only be consulted as and when needed by the teacher for clarification.
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Guqin used to be played using over 1,000 finger techniques. But, most of them are obsolete now, leaving only some fifty of them still in common practice.
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In olden days, playing Guqin is a serious devotion. A player can spend as long as three years to master a single piece so as to perfect the fingering, rhythm, timing, as well as the expression of emotions required in a piece.
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A number of ancient Guqin melodies are inspired by nature and are meant to evoke listeners’ imaginations by painting a particular scenery or to convey certain emotion with notes.
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Since ancient qinpu did not indicate any tempo or rhythm, a player can choose to use whatever beat to suit his or her emotion at the time of playing. However, some melodies do have sections of fixed rhythm which are played more or less the same way.
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