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GuqinPipaPitchNote Name

This page introduces no new instrument — it is about the most specialised thing on the guqin: how it was written down.

Start with a famous scene:

In *Dream of the Red Chamber*, Baoyu leafs through Daiyu's book and asks about a "大" with a number beside it and a hook below — "what does this mean?" Daiyu tells him: it is a score. ("You call yourself a reader and have never seen a qin score?")

That character — looking like a Chinese character but not one — is a *jianzipu* (减字谱).

⭐⭐ Special-page observation: one character, one action — a notation that fixes "how to play" and leaves "how it should sound" to the next person.

Four characters inside one

⭐ One character carries four things:

Example: "big nine gou five" = left thumb on the ninth stud, right hand strikes the fifth string with *gou*. Not a heavenly script — a manual.

From a sentence to a character

It does not record rhythm — the cost, and the gift

⭐ The defining feature, and the defining cost:

"The jianzipu records pitch and both hands' fingerings in detail, but not the exact durations or rhythm." "Because it cannot record each note's length, a great many pieces were lost."

— a hard causality: what cannot be written down is lost. What it gives instead is da pu (打谱), "working up a score":

"Durations and rhythm must be restored by trained players, from the rules of qin music, their own experience and inspiration… In China this is called dapu." ⭐ And the trade says how long it takes: "three years for a great piece, three months for a small one."

⭐ So the same old score comes out differently in different hands: Guan Pinghu's *Guangling San*, Wu Jinglüe's *Qiu Sai Yin*, Zhang Ziqian's *Long Xiang Cao* — "the same score, played by different players, often comes out very differently, each with its own flavour." The *Guangling San* and *Flowing Water* we hear today were dapu-ed from the Ming *Shenqi Mipu*.

Why it *can* record only actions

⭐ Not laziness — there is a precondition:

"Because the pitch is fixed: the note produced at any stud is the same as it was in the Tang. Just like the keys of a piano."

• the qin's thirteen studs are fixed pitch marks and its seven strings have fixed tunings — position → pitch is a relation that does not change;
• so it suffices to record the action: where to press, with which finger, on which string.

⭐ This connects to two threads in this batch: the bells' three tuning actions (㉕) and the duxianqin's "tuning becomes playing" (㊹) — in Chinese instrument history, the *action* is always what gets recorded and invented first.

What survives

Range

减字谱记录的是古琴的弦序与徽位 —— 也就是这张图上的位置。古琴七弦 · 十三徽 · 无品；正调定弦下，音域约 C2—D6（四个八度），常用音区约 C3—D5。本页音域口径与本维度的「古琴」条目一致。徽位是固定的音高标记，这也是减字谱可以「只记动作」的前提。

Common misconceptions

• "Qin scores are unreadable." ⚠️ They look like characters but are not; the rule is plain: top = left hand (finger ＋ stud), bottom = right hand (stroke ＋ string) — one character, one action.
• "The guqin has no notation." ⚠️ It has the thickest documentation of any Chinese instrument: 150-plus collections, 3,000-plus pieces; the oldest printed collection dates to 1425.
• "No rhythm means primitive." ⚠️ More precisely: it chose to record the action (since position = pitch); the cost is real (many pieces were lost) and so is the compensation (dapu, waking pieces after centuries).
• "Jianzipu are just abbreviated characters." ⚠️ Cao Rou of the Tang simplified the prose notation; each glyph is a composite built from reduced strokes — not casually shortened.
• "Dapu means copying the score out." ⚠️ It is re-creation: reading the fingerings and the era's style to rebuild rhythm — "three years for a great piece, three months for a small one."

Listening: three ways to make a sound

Three cues:

1. Hear three kinds of sound. The same string sounds three ways — open, stopped, harmonic — and that is exactly what a jianzipu has to specify. 2. Hear the slide. Press and move, and pitch glides — which is why it must record the action. 3. Hear the overtones. The qin has 100-plus harmonics, "perhaps the most of any instrument" — and their positions are exactly what the notation writes down.

Related pages

Next

The plucked section's last page returns to the pipa: one instrument whose repertoire is split in two, each half with its own character and technique.

The pipa's civil and martial pieces. :::

Sources

• ⭐⭐ 两种谱：「琴谱的记谱法可以分为文字谱和减字谱两种」；「在 1500 年以前古琴曲《碣石调 · 幽兰》已由专用的记谱法 ——『文字谱』记成并流传至今。唐朝时又将文字谱改进为『减字谱』，至今仍被琴人广泛使用」；「与西方乐谱不同的是，古琴谱记录的不是音高和曲调，而是记录演奏时左右两手的手法和次序。只要按此正确演奏，旋律就会自然地流泻而出」依中国文化研究院资料
• ⭐⭐ 文字谱的繁琐与例证：「唐代以前，中国人尝试用文字来记载古琴的乐谱。但它最大的问题是记录一个音的音高需要几行汉字，一首琴曲则需要几千字。记录不便，读起来更难」；「以现存最早的一份文字谱为例……它是南朝梁丘明所传 · 抄写于唐武则天时期的《碣石调 · 幽兰》……其记谱方法举例如下：『大指当八按商，无名打商。』这两句话分别描述了左手和右手在同一根琴弦上互相配合的两个动作」；「全曲用四千多字描述，极为繁琐」依人民政协网与国琴网资料
• ⭐⭐ 减字谱的构成（四要素）：「相传为唐代曹柔根据文字谱简化 · 缩写而成」；「减字谱的每一字块为由汉字减少笔画后组合而成的复合字……一个字块通常可以分为上下两大部分：上半部表示左手指法及徽位，下半部表示弦次及右手指法」；「减字谱一般为四部分：上方记录左手指法，下方记录右手指法，左上为左手按弦用指，右上为所按徽位」（另一记：「左上记左手指法，右上记徽位，中间记右手指法，下方记弦序」——数种拆法口径略异，共同点是"上半＝左手（指 ＋ 徽位）· 下半＝右手（指法 ＋ 弦序）"）依辞书资料
• ⭐⭐ 一个谱字的著名例子：「电视剧《红楼梦》中……贾宝玉指着书上的字，一个『大』字，旁边还写了一个数字，下面还有一个勾……林黛玉就告诉他，这是谱，就是流传至今的减字谱」；「上半部分的左边是『大』字，右边是『九』字；下半部分是一个勾，勾里边是『五』字。这对应到古琴上就是：左手大就是大拇指，九是第九个徽位；下半部分的用右手，第五根弦，指法是勾——即：用大拇指按九徽，右手用勾的方法弹第五弦」；另一例读作「名九註勾三」＝左手无名指按第三弦八九徽间，右手中指同时勾三弦及左手滑向九徽依人民政协网与中国文化研究院资料
• ⭐⭐ 它不记节奏：「古琴减字谱虽然记录了详尽的音高和左右手的指法，但却不记录音的准确时值和节奏」；「但由于减字谱无法记录每个音的时长，故而造成了大量琴曲的失传」；「而时值和节奏，要靠训练有素的古琴家，按照古琴音乐的规律 · 自己的体会和灵感去还原谱子上的音乐。在中国，这种演奏称为打谱」依辞书与人民政协网资料
• ⭐⭐ 打谱：「打谱，是指按照琴谱弹出琴曲的过程……打谱者必须熟悉琴曲的一般规律和演奏技法，揣摩曲情，进行再创造，力求再现原曲的本来面貌」；「打谱非常费时，所以琴界用『大曲三年，小曲三月』来形容这个过程」；「管平湖打《广陵散》· 吴景略打《秋塞吟》· 张子谦打《龙翔操》」；「从前的琴家，在打谱后会在琴谱上标注工尺谱以及断句。当代打谱已经结合西方的五线谱或简谱」依辞书与国琴网资料
• ⭐ 为什么可以只记动作：「因为它是固定的音高，那么演奏者按任何徽位所发出的声音，和唐代时期古琴上的徽位所发出的声音就是一样的。就像钢琴的琴键一样，也是固定音高」依人民政协网资料
• ⭐⭐ 现存家底：「现存琴谱有 150 余种，收录琴曲 3000 余首（含不同版本）」；「现存最早的古琴谱，是《碣石调 · 幽兰》，相传为南朝梁代丘明所传……1884 年，这份唐代抄本从日本回流中国」（另一记「现存日本东京国立博物馆」——两说并列）；「明代朱权（宁王）编撰的《神奇秘谱》，刊印于 1425 年，是中国现存最早刊印的古琴谱集……共三卷，收录琴曲 63（一记 64）首，上卷『太古之操』多为上古名曲，如《高山》《流水》《广陵散》《潇湘水云》等。我们今天能听到的《广陵散》《流水》，正是琴家依据《神奇秘谱》打谱而来的」；「最早的减字谱：宋代姜夔《白石道人歌曲》中的《古怨》」依辞书与国琴网资料
• ⭐ 古琴的固定音位（背景）：「古琴有 13 个徽，代表着一年有 12 个月及闰月」；「古琴有 100 多个泛音，这大概是世界上拥有泛音最多的乐器」；「最初有五根弦……周文王……增加了一根弦，武王伐纣时……又增添了一根弦，所以古琴又称『文武七弦琴』」依辞书资料

Used for fact-checking only; all prose is original.