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Songs on the guzheng

Ten of the hundred - the shortest repertoire on the site, played on the instrument with the longest reach on the site. Both facts have the same cause.

What this instrument has got

21 notes, D2 to D6 - a reach of 48 semitones, built from 5 pitch letters: D E F# A B. Everything below follows from that row.

  1. D2
  2. E2
  3. F#2
  4. A2
  5. B2
  6. D3
  7. E3
  8. F#3
  9. A3
  10. B3
  11. D4
  12. E4
  13. F#4
  14. A4
  15. B4
  16. D5
  17. E5
  18. F#5
  19. A5
  20. B5
  21. D6

What it is actually taught from

6 pieces written for this instrument, before the catalogue is opened at all

The hundred melodies below are what a guzheng can borrow. They are not what it is mainly taught from: its shelf opens with music written for it, and the borrowed tunes come after.

Technique studies 6

Named after what the hand does rather than after a tune. This is how a zheng is taught: the ornament first, the melody afterwards.

  • Falling Petals 72 bpm · 4 beats a bar · 13.3s
  • Mountain Echo 76 bpm · 4 beats a bar · 18.9s
  • Flowing Water 66 bpm · 4 beats a bar · 14.5s
  • Four Points 80 bpm · 4 beats a bar · 15s
  • Round Strike 76 bpm · 4 beats a bar · 18.9s
  • Silk Thread 66 bpm · 4 beats a bar · 14.5s

Why 9, and not 100

Twenty-one strings from D2 to D6: four full octaves, wider than any other instrument here, and not one song in the catalogue is refused for being too big.

The strings are tuned to a major pentatonic - do, re, mi, sol, la - repeated up the instrument. Five pitch letters, not seven. There is no fa and no ti anywhere on it, in any octave.

Nine songs out of ten in this catalogue are Western tunes, and a Western tune almost always leans on fa or ti somewhere: the fourth pulls toward the third, the seventh pulls home. Take those two away and most of the repertoire has nothing to stand on. The ten that survive are the ones built on the five notes the instrument actually has.

A real player gets the missing notes back by pressing a string down behind the bridge to bend it a semitone or two up. That is the technique that gives the guzheng its voice, and it is why the instrument sounds like it is singing rather than plucking. A lesson does not ask a beginner to do it, so it is not counted here.

Counted: 0 songs are wider than the instrument, and 90 fit the span and are still refused, because somewhere in them is a note this instrument has not got. A further 1 could be played and are not offered - that pile is a choice, not a tuning, and the paragraphs above say who made it.

Where the tunes sit

Of the 9 it plays, 1 are taught at written pitch , and 8 change key altogether, which is what a player does when they pick up an instrument tuned to something other than C .

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Easy 5

Medium 3

Hard 1

The same catalogue, other instruments

One song list, nine instruments, and every one of them meets it differently.