Pictures and Videos of Wang Gen Xing Erhus

Here are pictures and videos clips of Wang Gen Xing Erhus.

The Small Leaf Sandalwood Erhu has gone over to Hawaii but the 2 aged Rosewoods are still around.

Aged Rosewood Erhu:

Price: US$1300

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Small Leaf Sandalwood Erhu:

New Stocks of Hulusi and Dimo's Alter Ego

Our new stocks of Hulusis are here. Mr BCK had a go at the Black Sandalwood model again.



If anyone would like to learn how to play the Dizi, Suona or Hulusi with Mr BCK, please contact me at tansungwah@eason.com.sg.

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I'm sure you know I've posted some videos on youtube. One of them was on how to fix the dimo onto the dizi.

If you are familiar with youtube, they allow you to link youtube videos to your website. And if you are the owner of the video, you can see who has linked your video to their website and the number of clicks the link received.

So I was looking at the links to this video and the link with the most number of hits is an Israeli blog.

I was thinking....wow... Israelis are quite interested in Chinese Bamboo flutes. I clicked on the link and it brought me to this blog with the title "Disease of the Living Dead".

The website is mostly written in Hebrew. I was looking for clues as to how my innocent Dimo is related to the Living Dead.

So I browsed through the pictures to find something to link to my Dimo. Body piercings...nope.....gravity defying rainbow colored hair....nope....graffiti.....nope.....leather and chains......nope.....gothic makeup......nope......earring hole big enough to put a G key bamboo flute through it...maybe.

Let's look at his choice of music genres....Industrial...no, Grindcore...no, Hardcore...no, Metalcore ...no, Breakcore...no, Noise...no, G.B.M...unless it stands for G key Bamboo Flute Music.

Oh wait. The writer of the blog is called Dimo!

But it still does not explains why my Dimo pasting video was linked to his blog but I decided to stop browsing anyway.

I wouldn't have any clue what's written about it even if I find it.

Click here for the website if you are curious what it looks like.

New Pictures of Guzhengs in Stock

I took some pictures today of the Shanghai Dunhuang 'Yun' Brand Guzhengs that I have in stock that are not already listed on my online store.

Some have been around for quite a while and some are from the latest shipment.

- Monks in a monastry design


- Plain design Guzheng

- An alternative to 'Duo Cranes' design


- 'Silent Night' design


- Woody bamboo design


It'll be a while before I list them on my website. So if anyone is interested, please send me an email.

Alternative Designed Aged Rosewood Erhu

This is the only Erhu that I brought back from the Shanghai Music Fair 2007.


It's quite an oddity actually. Something quite different from the traditionally designed Erhus.

The soundbox is shaped like a trumpet, which gives it better projection and volume. The soundbox is slightly larger than usual. The baseplate is different from Suzhou, Shanghai andBeijing designs as well. None of my belt clips are going to fit this baby.

Its made from a mean looking piece of Aged Rosewood. Those that really feel like an old piece of wood in your hands.

The tone and balance of the instrument is quite wonderful actually. The tone is clean, clear, warm and has a certain degree of richness. Does not sound as sweet as Wan Qi Xing or Lu Lin Sheng Erhus, but definitely louder than them. High notes ring out clearly as well.

Here is a sample:

The only thing I think it can do without is the "all seeing eye" headstock. But I usually look at the tone and feel of the instrument more than anything.

I'm just glad the eye is not those where the pupil is a movable bead inside the eye...

Interested parties please email me at tansungwah@eason.com.sg or have a go at it at our showroom.

Space Management of Chinese Orchestra Room

Besides selling music instruments, helping schools to set up Chinese Orchestra, repairs and restoration of instruments, arranging music performances, arranging music classes, we also help schools look at how to better manage their space in their Chinese Orchestra room.

Below is a Chinese Orchestra Room of a school located in the north of Singapore. The instruments are strewn all over the floor because there is no proper storage system. It looks rather messy and instruments get damaged when they are accidentally kicked.





So we came in to take stock of their environment and instruments, and gave them suggestions on the layout, fixtures needed and exactly where the instruments should be placed.

This is how the Chinese Orchestra room looks after our suggestions were implemented.



Now you can do a gymnastics floor routine.

Erhu Score Symbols and Notations

Thought this would be useful for Erhu players.

Explanations of the Symbols and Notations you see in Erhu scores. I made some modifications from the document posted by Paul in Zhengyun Qin Guan Traditional Chinese Music Forum who pulled it from Chen Jiebing's website.

I find it hard to explain the symbol that says "Slide without change hand position using 3 fingers" in a few words. In Chinese it is called "Dian Zhi Hua Yin".

Chicago Area School Presents Awesome Meet the Artist Concert

On January 10, 2008 I attended the Waubonsie Valley High School Music Department's Meet the Artist Concert and can only describe it as awesome! Music in our schools is very important at every level in schools. First a bit about Waubonsie Valley High School's Music Department:
- The GRAMMY Foundation® Signature Schools program, recognized the top 22 public schools across the country for outstanding commitment to their music education programs. Determined by a blue-ribbon panel of top music educators and professionals, schools are awarded grants for their music departments. In 2007, Waubonsie Valley High School located in Aurora IL was among the top 3 schools in the country, which gave it GRAMMY Signature Schools Gold status.

Last night's concert featured only the Freshman students from the following groups: Concert Bands, Concert Orchestras, Bass Chorus, Cecillian Singers. Each group performed individually. And the entire group (nearly 200 students) performed with an Artist-in-Residence, Tom Sharpe. Tom is an internationally recognized, award-winning composer, performer, and recording artist (read more about the artist).

The concert was about 2 hours worth of excellent music. All performances were great! Particularly enjoyable was the Percussion Ensemble performance of Nutcracker Sweets arranged by David Steinquest.

But they truly saved the best for last with all performance groups and Tom Sharpe performing Tom's World Percussion Symphony #1 in C minor. This is my type of music - lots of world percussion, lots of keyboard, and an inspiring combination of orchestra, band and vocals.

This artist-in-residence program was funded by a grant from the Indian Prairie Education Foundation, which supports all elementary, middle and high schools in Illinois' Indian Prairie School District 204. WorldMusicalInstruments.com is proud to be a fine arts patron to help support these wonderful school music programs.

Multicultural Instruments for School Assembly

WorldMusicalInstruments.com provides school assembly presentations to elementary schools in the Chicago area. We customize these school assemblies to fit with the school theme, like Multicultural Week, or Fine Arts Week, or Music in the Schools Week. WorldMusicalInstruments.com offers instruments from around the world, so the emphasis of our grade school assembly programs is showcasing a wide variety of instruments that represent many world cultures, as well as featuring music from around the world.

We're often asked about the instruments that we bring to these school assemblies.

Here is a general guideline of what types of instruments to include in school assemblies:
- durable musical instruments
- safe musical instruments
- lightweight musical instruments
- fun musical instruments

Durable musical instruments - We avoid ceramic doumbeks, because they easily crack if the edge is banged on the floor. Since we work with elementary school children, when they have hands-on experience with the drums and move from instrument to instrument, accidents do happen. With some items made from gourds like the shakere, a not-so-gentle dropping can cause a crack in the gourd.

Safe musical instruments - Safety is always important in the classroom, especially with the younger school children. Crowd control is also an issue during a drumming circle experience. We usually avoid putting "sticks" in the hands of the children. A lot of our drums are hand drums, which is best for the young elementary school crowd. Beaters can accidentally poke an unsuspecting classmate. Beaters can also be used on drums that are intended for hand drumming, which can damage drum heads. For items like the gong which require a beater, we like to have a teacher or assembly presenter manage the gong, passing the beater from child to child as they take turns banging the gong. Be sure to clean all instruments after each assembly presenation if the students have hands-on use of the instruments.

Lightweight musical instruments - We bring some heavy items to school assembly presentations, but keep them in contol of an adult or keep them on the ground. The gong is one that an adult must control. The djun-djun drum is kept on the floor and played by hand, unless the assembly presenter uses it to lead a drum circle. Fiberglass doumbeks are great for elementary school drumming circles because they are so lightweight but have big sound.

Fun musical instruments - When deciding what instruments to include in a school assembly presentation, include fun items like a bulb horn (brings in wind family of instruments without the saliva issues!). The gong is big fun, of course. The bull roarer makes an interesting sound, but needs a lot of room and can only be used by the assembly presenter.

The big question is - what instruments do you bring to a school assembly presentation? We're constantly adding to the collection, but here is a list of the main instruments (some of which are pictured):

ashiko drum djun-djun doumbeks (fiberglass and aluminum) tabla set kids conga drum damroo monkey drum stir drum rain stick shakere kalimba bulb horn gong gungaroos ankle bells egg shakers bongos tambourines maracas

Do you conduct school assembly presentations using musical instruments? Let us know what instruments you include!

Bao Dizi squaring off with Dong Dizi

Today Mr BCK of fixing dimo fame was in my shop to pick a Dizi. We had him try some new Dizis from a new maker named Bao.

Here's him playing a D key Bao flute:



Not bad, he says, but let me try one of Dong's D flute:



Immediately he says, Dong's flute still sounds the best. The notes are crisp, clear and focused. And you can feel the difference in the quality of bamboo in your hands.

So after looking at the videos what do you think? Bao's flutes cost 20% less than Dong's flutes though...


Here's a short clip of the Shanghai Dunhuang Rosewood Small Sanxian I mentioned in my previous post:

Where is My Pipa!!!!?????

I have been selling instruments online to customers all over the world for quite sometime now, since May 2006.

Most of the transactions have been smooth and hassle free.

Of course they were some issues here and there, like forgetting to insert dimo or erjiao together with the Dizi, items arrived damaged etc. But all these were resolved quickly and easily.

There was once instance where I mistakenly sent 2 Erhus to a customer instead of 1. The customer had different addresses for his paypal account and his ebay account. Hence I sent Erhus to his 2 different addresses. And because of that, I was late in sending an Erhu to another customer who decided to cancel his order and I had to refund him his money. Efforts to contact the customer who received 2 Erhus from me was met with silence. I suppose the temptation of owning 2 Erhus for the price of 1 was too great to resist.

More recently we made a big boo boo. We mixed up 2 mailing labels. One customer ordered a Shanghai Dunhuang Spruce Wood Pipa with Rosewood Pegs and the other a bullet shaped Erhu case. I sent the Pipa to the Erhu customer and the Erhu case to the Pipa customer!

So came an email from my Erhu customer about the Pipa:
"I have already a hard time learning erhu, Sung Wah....hehe...so what
do you want us to do about this thing?"

Then came the email from the Pipa customer about the Erhu case:
"HI! ,... My pipa arrived and all there was ,... was a case,.. NO INSTRUMENT ,.. no strings no tone generator no nails no dvd ... nothing .. all i got was a case ! ,.... can you please tell me why that IS! and send me instrument and all other items ,... i paid for ! Adult size PIPA!"

Ooops......

I can imagine the horror on my Pipa customer's face when he got the empty Erhu case. My Erhu customer was going to use the Pipa as a frying pan before I stopped him in time.

But all is good now. I have got them to send the items to each other and I will reimburse the shipping fees.

In kind, in the form of canned snails, for my Erhu customer though.