An Instrumental Guide to the Chinese Orchestra

There are not a lot of books on Chinese Orchestra Instruments in English. So I thought this book deserves another mention.


The title of the book is 'Qi' - An Instrumental Guide to the Chinese Orchestra. It gives a good overview of almost all the music instruments that is used in a Chinese Orchestra.

You should buy this book if:
- You are a student and ethnomusicology is one of your subjects
- You are a teacher in an educational institution with an ethnomusicology department
- You like to listen to traditional Chinese music. I'm sure you would want to know a little bit more about the instruments that produces those beautiful melodies.
- You plan to take up a Chinese music instrument and cannot decide which instrument.
- Your kids are in the Chinese Orchestra of their school. Read this book and wow them with your superior knowledge in Chinese Orchestra Instruments.

The author Samuel Wong Shengmiao, is one good Singaporean Pipa player. His previous books include 'Impressions of a Pipa player' and “An Impression of the Pipa: A Recording in 24 hours”. He is currently studying his PhD in University of Sheffield. Click here to read more about him.

Click here for the contents page of the book.

And here for an except of the book.

If you would like to purchase the book, click here!

For bulk purchases, please email Natalie at natalie.teng@gmail.com.

Video: Rosin Your Bow

Just made a short video on how to rosin the Erhu bow.

The first part is on how to rosin a new bow. When I first started learning the violin, I gave my new bow a few strokes of the rosin and expected it to sing! Rosining a new bow is hard work, especially the Erhu bow because it is longer than the violin bow and you have 2 sides to rosin.

The second part is how I usually rosin the bow attached when to the Erhu. I like to put the Erhu lying down on my lap. To prevent the bow from moving about while you rosin, you might want to rest the tip of the bow on the snakeskin protector of the resonator in a diagonal position like in the video.

Glass Armonica

The glass harmonica, also known as glass armonica, '"hydrocrystalophone" or simply armonica (derived from "armonia", the Italian word for harmony) is a type of musical instrument that uses a series of glass bowls or goblets graduated in size to produce musical tones by means of friction, making it both a crystallophone and a friction idiophone). Despite being played with wet fingers, the sound is produced by vibration of the solid glass, so that the glass harmonica is not a hydraulophone even if played completely submerged in water.

Benjamin Franklin invented a radically new arrangement of the glasses in 1761 after seeing water-filled wine glasses played by William Deleval. Franklin, who called his invention the "armonica" after the Italian word for harmony, worked with London glassblower Charles James to build one, and it had its world premiere in early 1762, played by Marianne Davies.

In Franklin's version, 37 bowls were mounted horizontally nested on an iron spindle. The whole spindle turned by means of a foot-operated treadle. The sound was produced by touching the rims of the bowls with moistened fingers. Rims were painted different colors according to the pitch of the note. As were dark blue, Bs purple, Cs red, Ds orange, Es yellow, Fs green, Gs blue, and accidentals white. With the Franklin design it is possible to play ten glasses simultaneously if desired, a technique that is very difficult if not impossible to execute using upright goblets. Franklin also advocated the use of a small amount of powdered chalk on the fingers which helped produce a clear tone in the same way rosin is applied to the bows of string instruments.

Mozart, Beethoven, Donizetti, Richard Strauss, and Camille Saint-Saëns all composed works for the glass harmonica. European monarchs indulged in it, and even Marie Antoinette had taken lessons on it as a child from Marianne Davies. One of the best known pieces is the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy from the ballet The Nutcracker; Tchaikovsky's first draft called for glass harmonica, but he changed it to the newly-invented celesta before the work's premiere performance in 1892.

Here is a documentary about Glass Armonica

"Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy" on the Glass Armonica

GLASS HARMONICA played by VERA MEYER

The Erhu with the weird snakeskin

I have in my possession an interesting Erhu.

The Erhu is made of black sandalwood from Suzhou.

What is interesting is the snakeskin that was used on the Erhu. Its a species of python different from the usual python. The skin colors are lighter and brighter. Looks quite attractive actually.



It sounds mediocre initially. But after letting it stand and playing it for a while, the sound improved tremendously. Now it sounds rich, mellow and has good volume.

Click here for a sample video clip of the Erhu.

If you like something different from the rest, this is the Erhu for you.

Click here for more details.

Stylophone

The Dubreq Stylophone is a miniature electronic musical instrument invented in 1967 by Brian Jarvis. It consists of a metal keyboard played by touching it with a stylus - each note being connected to a cheap voltage-controlled oscillator via a different-value resistor - thus closing a circuit. Some three million Stylophones were sold, mostly as children's toys. Rolf Harris appeared for several years as the Stylophone's advertising spokesman in the United Kingdom.

Here is how it works and sounds:

Hexstatic - Stylophone