Related

Chinese Pentatonic ModesHarmonic SeriesTimbrePitchPipaErhuDiziBianzhongHarp

The guqin is the heart of Chinese literati music and the natural entry point to the bayin system of classification. It puts two very different things on one instrument:

⚠️ First: two systems of classification meet here. The previous eighty-odd entries used the Hornbostel–Sachs scheme, whose test is "what vibrates". China had an earlier system — the bayin (metal, stone, earth, hide, silk, wood, gourd, bamboo) — whose test is "what material it is made of". The guqin's answer in the bayin is one word: silk. And that immediately raises a thoroughly modern question: the bayin sorted instruments by the materials available more than two thousand years ago — and most guqins today use steel-nylon strings. The material changed; the classification becomes an inherited name. This is not a flaw in the bayin, but the common fate of every material-based system: it describes the world as it was when it was invented.

Structure: seven strings, no frets, thirteen studs

Three points:

1. Fretless. This is the essential difference from the pipa: frets make pitch a set of steps; no frets make it a continuous line. So the guqin's left hand can slide up and down the string — one of its most recognisable idioms. 2. Thirteen studs. Not decoration but division points of the string — the next figure is entirely about this. 3. Seven strings, played flat, quiet. It was never designed for a concert hall: small sound and long, slack strings mean guqin music tends to move slowly.

One string, three ways to sound

This figure explains the guqin's most important technical trait:

1. The studs are physics, not decoration. Touch a division point and that stretch of string stops vibrating, leaving a harmonic. The thirteen studs are where they are because that is where the nodes are. (The same fact as the harmonic series — the guqin just marks it visibly.) 2. Three colours: open (whole string, full and deep) · stopped (left hand pressing, rounded and flexible) · harmonic (light touch, bright). Traditionally likened to heaven, humanity and earth: harmonics are heaven, stopped notes are the human voice, open strings are the earth. 3. One pitch, three characters. The same note can be produced on different strings, at different studs, in three ways — very rare among instruments: elsewhere it is one note, one colour; on the guqin it is one note with three personalities.

Range

古琴属弦鸣乐器（拨弦，无品）。正调定弦一至七弦为 C2 · D2 · F2 · G2 · A2 · C3 · D3；全部音域约 C2–D6，共四个八度加一个大二度。传统按徽位把音区分三准：下准（七徽以下，低音）· 中准（四徽至七徽，中音，即图中常用区）· 上准（一徽至四徽，高音）。换调弦音域略有差异。记谱即实音。

• About C2–D6, four octaves plus a major second — very wide for a seven-string fretless instrument.
• The bass comes from open strings and the lower division. Seven open strings give seven notes from C2 up, so its bottom register is one string per note, the same logic as the harp's strings lengthening step by step.
• Working register C3–D5, traditionally the middle division (studs four to seven), where the melodies live.

Timbre, and how to hear it

Four cues:

1. Quiet. By design: it is an instrument for oneself and a few friends, not for a hall. 2. Long decay and living slides. With no frets the left hand slides, carrying tiny pitch inflections — the hardest thing to imitate. 3. Bright, hollow harmonics. Whole sections played entirely in harmonics are not unusual (as in *Three Variations on the Plum Blossom*). 4. Three colours to tell apart. Deep (open) · rounded (stopped) · bright (harmonic) — distinguishing these three is the first thing to learn about the guqin.

Playing techniques

• The right hand plucks, with nail or flesh and at varying angles, which is where much of the colour comes from.
• The left hand lives between pressing and not pressing. Press and you get a stopped note (which can slide); touch a stud lightly and you get a harmonic — half the instrument's expression is in that left hand.
• The music tends to be slow. Long, slack strings make fast intervallic runs on one string impractical, so guqin music favours unhurried lines and slides.
• Notation records actions only. Since the mid-Tang tablature (jianzipu) records string, stud and finger but not rhythm — which is why the same piece differs greatly between schools. (Note the contrast with the mechanical instruments of the previous batch: those recorded actions with perfect precision and lost the intention; jianzipu gives only actions and leaves the intention to a teacher.)
• Da pu. Because the notation omits rhythm, present-day players must re-create a playable text from old scores — a discipline with its own name.

The family

This table is the doorway into the whole bayin batch: the bayin asks "what is it made of", Hornbostel–Sachs asks "what vibrates" — the same objects, two entirely different maps.

History

Common misconceptions

• "The guqin is the guzheng." Two entirely different instruments: string count, bridges, playing method and sound all differ. The shortest test: the guqin has no bridges; the guzheng has one per string.
• "It is so quiet because it is badly made." It is deliberately built for private settings: literati played in a study or among hills and streams, and had no need to be loud.
• "The thirteen studs are decoration." They are the string's division points, exactly the harmonic nodes — without them there is no way to place a harmonic.
• "Jianzipu is a backward notation." It records actions and leaves rhythm to transmission — a deliberate choice, whose price is that one piece differs between schools (and which is precisely why schools exist).
• "The bayin says silk, so only silk strings will do." The bayin sorts by material and describes the material of its own time. Steel-nylon strings are now normal — the name is inherited, and that does not diminish the historical value of the system.
• "The guqin is solo only." There is a qinge tradition of singing while playing, and it often plays with the xiao; solo is merely the most common setting.

Next

This bayin batch starts with silk and proceeds material by material: pipa (silk) · erhu (silk) · dizi (bamboo) — and finally bianzhong (metal). It answers the batch's central question: if you sort the same instruments by material and by what vibrates, how different do the two maps turn out? :::

Sources

• 形制与技法依中央音乐学院试用教材及通行乐器资料：七弦 · 十三徽 · 无品，横置于桌上演奏；右手拨弦，左手按弦或轻触徽位
• 「音域由大字组 C 到小字三组 d，共四个八度加一个大二度」依中央音乐学院试用教材 —— 即 C2–D6
• 「正调定弦一至七弦为 C · D · F · G · A · c · d」依通行资料 —— 即 C2 · D2 · F2 · G2 · A2 · C3 · D3
• 「散音七个 · 泛音九十一个 · 按音一百四十七个（各家统计口径略有出入）；同一音高可在不同弦、不同徽位用三种方法奏出」依通行资料
• 「徽位即弦的等分点（七徽为 1/2、五徽为 1/3、四徽为 1/4 …），轻触等分点即得泛音」依声学通识与古琴徽位定义
• 「初为五弦，汉代定制为七弦；减字谱为中唐曹柔所创，只记指法弦徽、不记节奏」依乐器史
• 「古琴属于八音中的丝（以蚕丝为弦）；二十世纪中期起多用钢丝尼龙弦」依通行资料

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