The ''liuqin'' ( Chinese: ,

pinyin Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Chinese, Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally writte ...

: ) is a three, four or five -stringed Chinese mandolin with a pear-shaped body. The range of its voice is much higher than the '' pipa'', and it has its own special place in Chinese music, whether in orchestral music or in solo pieces. This has been the result of a modernization in its usage in recent years, leading to a gradual elevation in status of the ''liuqin'' from an accompaniment instrument in folk Chinese opera, to an instrument well-appreciated for its unique tonal and acoustic qualities. The position of the instrument is lower than the pipa, being held diagonally like the Chinese

ruan Ruan may refer to: Buildings * Ruan Center, office building in Des Moines, Iowa * John Ruan House, historic mansion in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, t ...

and

yueqin The ''yueqin'' (; ja, 月琴, Gekkin; ko, 월금/月琴, Wolgeum; vi, Nguyệt cầm), also called a moon lute or moon guitar, is a traditional Chinese string instrument. It is a lute with a round, hollow soundboard, a short fretted neck, a ...

. Like the

and unlike the pipa its strings are elevated by a bridge and the soundboard has two prominent soundholes. Finally, the instrument is played with a pick with similar technique to both

and

, whereas the pipa is played with the fingers. Therefore, the liuqin is most commonly played and doubled by those with

and

experience. Historically, the ''liuqin'' was commonly made of

willow Willows, also called sallows and osiers, from the genus ''Salix'', comprise around 400 speciesMabberley, D.J. 1997. The Plant Book, Cambridge University Press #2: Cambridge. of typically deciduous trees and shrubs, found primarily on moist so ...

wood (柳 ''liǔ'' literally meaning "willow"), while the professionals used versions constructed with a higher-quality red

sandalwood Sandalwood is a class of woods from trees in the genus ''Santalum''. The woods are heavy, yellow, and fine-grained, and, unlike many other aromatic woods, they retain their fragrance for decades. Sandalwood oil is extracted from the woods for us ...

or rosewood. In contemporary versions, however, the front board is made of ''tong'' wood (桐木) and for the reverse side, of red sandalwood, as comparable to historical types.

History

The ''liuqin'' has gone by various names, firstly the ''liuyeqin'' ( 柳葉琴), meaning willow-leaf-shaped instrument. This was the original term for the ''liuqin'', which is visibly an abbreviation of the term ''liuyeqin''. The other reference to the ''liuqin'' is the ''tu pipa'' (土琵琶), literally meaning unrefined ''pipa'', because of the aforementioned diminutive size and resemblance of the ''liuqin'' to the ''pipa''. Throughout its history, the ''liuqin'' came in variations ranging from two (which only had a range of one and a half octaves) to four strings. However, the earliest precursor of the modern four-stringed version of the instrument appeared and experienced popularity during the

Qing Dynasty The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing,, was a Manchu-led imperial dynasty of China and the last orthodox dynasty in Chinese history. It emerged from the Later Jin dynasty founded by the Jianzhou Jurchens, a Tungusic-spea ...

. This version had two strings, and was only used for accompaniment purposes in traditional operas, as mentioned before. The two-stringed ''liuqin'' remained in use for much of dynastic China from the Qing Dynasty until the late 20th century. With the modernization of traditional Chinese music in the 1970s, the four-stringed ''liuqin'' was developed as an improvement to its musical range, and the body of the instrument was enlarged to allow the player to handle the instrument with greater ease.

Playing technique, tones and range

Its technique is closer to that of the mandolin than that of the pipa, using a

plectrum A plectrum is a small flat tool used for plucking or strumming of a stringed instrument. For hand-held instruments such as guitars and mandolins, the plectrum is often called a pick and is held as a separate tool in the player's hand. In harps ...

and frequently using the tremolo technique. Its strings are either tuned in fifths, G-D-A-E (as a mandolin or

violin The violin, sometimes known as a '' fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone ( string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument ( soprano) in the family in regu ...

), or else in a mixture of fourths and fifths, as for example G-D-G-D, which is the more common tuning employed by mainstream players of the ''liuqin''. This makes playing of the ''liuqin'' exactly the same as the '' zhongruan'', which is tuned an octave lower, hence players of either the ''liuqin'' or the ''ruan'' can often double on both instruments. The modern ''liuqin'' has four steel strings. Like the ''ruan'', the number of the ''liuqins frets was increased from 7 to 29 over the course of the 20th century. These frets are arranged in half-step intervals. Its refreshing and jubilant tonal quality is more delicate than that of the ''

''. Note that the frets on all Chinese lutes are high so that the fingers never touch the actual body—distinctively different from western fretted instruments. This allows for a greater control over timbre and intonation than their western counterparts, but makes chordal playing (double, triple, quadruple stopping) more difficult.

Notable players of the ''liuqin''

*Wang Hongyi (王红艺), daughter of Wang Huiran *Wang Huiran (王惠然),Wang Huiran, the famous Chinese instrumental music composer, who was the leader of instrument revolution of liuqin, and wrote pieces of famous works for liuqin, like Spring comes to river Yi, etc. He was called "father of the liuqin" at present. esteemed "Father of the ''liuqin'" * Mei Han, '' guzheng'' who doubles on ''liuqin''

''Liuqin'' repertoire

composed/co-composed/adapted by Wang Huiran (王惠然)

*Canal Works of Happiness *Melody on a Moonlit River *Sing a Mountain Song of Love *Spring Comes to River Yi (春到沂河) *The Lark (''Yun Que'') Romanian Folk Music *Warrior Suite

By other composers

*Sword Dance (劍器) *Beyond the Horizons (天地星空) *Courtyard After The Rain (雨后庭院)

Bibliography

* Yu Yunfei,"The transition of liuqin's characters", Jiao Xiang-Journal of Xi'an Conservatory of Music, Mar.2005,90-92; * Wang Huiran,"The revolution of liuqin and its current situation", People's Music, May.2006,48-51.

References

External links

More information

On the instrument
''Liuqin'' photographs
(first row)

(a Mp3 recording available here as well)
Information on the ''liuqin''
(also includes information on other plucked-string instruments and notational description of instrumental tonal range) On players of the ''liuqin''
Concert information on Wang HuiranInformation on Wang Huiran and Wang Hongyi

Audio

(click headphones to listen to individual tracks) * ttps://web.archive.org/web/20060208065533/http://www.geocities.com/risheng99/instruments/liuqin_music.html ''Liuqin'' Mp3s on Yahoo! GeoCities

Related Chinese plucked-string instruments

*'' Pipa'' *''

Ruan Ruan may refer to: Buildings * Ruan Center, office building in Des Moines, Iowa * John Ruan House, historic mansion in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, t ...

'' {{Authority control Chinese musical instruments Necked bowl lutes