Chu’s guqin (鳴玉 ‘essence of jade’ qin)
Today ZIYO would like to showcase this professional guqin owned by our Vietnamese student, Chu.
Chu is a student at Cambridge University, who travelled to the ZiYo studio in South East London for her guqin lessons.
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Chu discovered after only a few lessons that she is a keen student of the guqin and therefore wanted to purchase a handmade, professional guqin from one of ZiYo’s recommended master craftsmen.
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It can take our recommended guqin craftsmen several years to produce a guqin from start to finish, with many of the guqins in production are ‘made to order’ to a customer’s specifications.
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Only a handful of guqins are ever in the advanced stages of production, fewer still are available for purchase. So you’ll rarely be spoilt for choice when making a quick purchase of a qin from a master craftsmen. You could purchase a qin from an instrument shop where you could find all manner of styles and finishes, but these are mass produced, whether by hand or by machine. Mass produced handmade guqins will have different people working on a qin through the different stages of production. With a master crafted (professional) qin, the qin’s tonal qualities are ‘tuned’ through craft and tested at each stage of production. Thus a mass produced qin would only ever achieve the harmony of “balance” through pure fluke.
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Guqin master craftsmen have a love and respect for instrument where each qin they produce. For the maker it is not about the speed or quantity of guqins they can produce, but ensuring that they can get the best results out the materials used to make the instrument.
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Every master craftsmen has their own sense of style and this is typically reflected in the shape of the guqin’s body shape, or style. The style references the typical guqin body shape used during a particular period in Chinese history; thus with limited options you should perhaps worry more about the feel and sound of an instrument, rather than its aesthetics.
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Chu’s qin follows the ‘Confucius’ style (仲尼式). Her qin body is crafted from prime 100+ year reclaimed fir wood, with some parts made from aged Chinese red wood (老酸枝). The qin is varnished several times with premium quality lacquer. The lacquer is mixed with deer horn and mineral pigments to add a patina to the finish.
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Chu’s qin started its production during 2018 so took at least 1.5 years to complete, where the master craftsmen made constant adjustments to achieve a good tone and smooth playing experience.
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The name Chu chose for her qin is 鳴玉 (essence of jade), because the word is pronounced the same way as her Chinese name 明玉. The master craftsman engraved the name onto the underside of her qin., along with a poem Chu requested be added to the engraving: 千葉長生千年流 青玉願你康泰呵
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ZIYO has visited many Chinese guqin makers and master craftsmen, and selected a handful of makers that we feel can craft beautifully made guqins, that are easy to play, and have excellent tonal qualities.
Through the sale of these Guqins we are supporting makers who use the best materials and have a true passion for craft. All master craftsmen can play the qin and therefore understand the unique characteristics that a qin possesses.
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#guqin #craftsmanship #古琴 #鳴玉 #禪
