Gu Qin Traditional Chinese Stringed Instrument

This Dunhuang brand Guqin is masterfully crafted with Wutong wood from the Paulowina Tree. Wutong is very light and strong, has excellent resonant qualities and produces a desirable sound for string instruments like the Guqin. It is a prized wood because of it is fine-grained and soft but warp-resistant.

This Guqin is lacquered with a elegant finish that brings out the natural, deep wood undertones. Thirteen mother-of-pearl inlays cascade down the front. These round shapes represent the 13 months of the lunar year.

Whether you are a novice to Chinese traditional instruments, an experience player, or even a collector of specialized musical instruments, you should find the history as well as the instrument itself unique. Learn more about the GuQin, and how this beautiful instrument is commonly played.

• Case for Guqin
• Tone generator

The Guqin (pronounced Goo-Ch’in) is a long zither with seven strings. Among traditional chinese musical instruments the Guqin is the oldest with over a 3,000 year old history. Its name even reflects this antiquity as "gu" means old and qin means "musical instrument." Its shape is unique; the top is rounded to represent the sky, but the bottom is flat to represent the earth.

To play the instrument, the strings are plucked. The player presses on a string with a finger or thumb of the left hand until it connects with the surface board and then the string is plucked. To modify the pitch, the musician slides up and down the instrument, thereby producing further variations of sound.

To tune the Guqin, use your thumb and index finger to adjust the tension of the strings utilizing the tuning pegs at the head end. With four octaves, it's tuned in F key pentatonic scale. Tuning in order from the 1st string to 7th string is as follows: C D F G A C D. The sound of the Guqin is softer than that of the Guzheng and is usually played solo rather than in a full orchestra.

Dunhuang is the leading brand of traditional Chinese musical instruments. It is manufactured by Shanghai No. 1 National Musical Instruments, a factory which is over 150,000 square feet in size. This factory holds an ISO 9001 certification, which is obtained by following a defined set of management and quality standards defined by the International Organization for Standardization.

Dunhuang’s skilled craftsman design and manufacturer traditional Chinese musical instruments while incorporating rich symbolism that indentifies Chinese cultural heritage. It even employs well-known folk musicians as consultants to review and improve design and sound quality.

The Dunhuang brand is known throughout the east and world wide specialty markets as a quality made product line that selects rich woods and traditional materials to honor the sounds and tones of its instruments long linage. It has repeatedly won the National Silver Medal and Ministry of Light Industry Award for quality products. The newly designed Electric/Acoustic Erhu was used in the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics in 2008.

Dunhuang’s goal is to write a new chapter in the history of Chinese folk instruments with constant improvement on quality and artistic design.

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