Liuqin
Liuqin ( Chinese 柳琴 , Pinyin liǔqín ) is a bowl-neck lute played in Chinese music with four strings and a pear-shaped body. The plucked instrument is small and appears as a miniature copy of the pipa , with a range larger than that of the pipa .
A modernized way of playing led to a gradual increase in their reputation in the second half of the 20th century, whereby the liuqin is assigned a special place in Chinese music - both in orchestral music and in solo pieces. It serves as an accompanying instrument in the Chinese folk opera and as a solo instrument, which is valued for its unique sound and acoustic qualities.
history
The liuqin had different names; originally it was called liuyeqin (柳葉 琴), which means "willow-leaf-shaped instrument". This indicates that liuqin is an abbreviation of the term liuyeqin. Another reference to the liuqin is tu pipa (土 琵琶), which literally means “unrefined pipa” (because of the smaller size and similarity of the liuqin to the pipa mentioned above ).
In the course of its history, the liuqin came in variations from two strings, which made only one and a half octaves playable, to four strings. The earliest forerunner of the modern four-string version appeared during the Qing Dynasty (1644–1912) and was very popular. It had two strings and was used for accompanying purposes in traditional operas.
The two-string liuqin was played from the Qing Dynasty until the end of the 20th century. With the modernization of traditional Chinese music in the 1950s, the four-string liuqin was developed as a successor, which has a larger range of four octaves and also a larger body, so that the musician can handle the instrument more easily.
Design and style of play
Historically, the liuqin was made from willow wood (柳liǔ , literally “willow”), while professional musicians used higher quality instruments made of red sandalwood or rosewood . In contemporary versions of the liuqin , the front panel is made of tong wood (桐木) and the back is made of red sandalwood, which is again comparable to historical instruments.
The liuqin is held diagonally in front of the upper body. The neck, which is shorter than the pipa , barely protrudes over the musician's left shoulder. The strings run over a bridge that sits at the lower end on the ceiling , which has two prominent sound holes. The liuqin is played with a pick in a technique similar to the ruan and yueqin , which is why it is most commonly used by musicians who are experienced with the two instruments.
The technique of playing the liuqin is closer to the mandolin than the pipa; A pick is used and a tremolo technique is often used . The strings are tuned in either fifths, such as GDAE (as a mandolin or violin ), or a combination of fourths and fifths, such as GDGD, which is a more common tuning used by most liuqin players . Since this is similar to playing the ruan , musicians can often play both the liuqin and the ruan .
The modern liuqin has four steel strings, and like the ruan , the number of frets increased from 7 to 29 during the 20th century. The frets are arranged in semitone intervals.
In contrast to western string instruments with frets, the frets in Chinese lutes are so high that the fingers do not touch the fingerboard. This enables a greater influence on the timbre (tone color) and the intonation, but makes playing chords more difficult .
Well-known liuqin players
- Wang Huiran (* 1936)
- Wang Hongyi, daughter of Wang Huiran
- Mei Han
literature
- Wang Huiran: The revolution of liuqin and its current situation. In: People's Music, May 2006, pp. 48-51
- Alan R. Trasher, Gloria N. Wong: Liuqin. In: Laurence Libin (Ed.): The Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments. Vol. 3, Oxford University Press, Oxford / New York 2014, pp. 299f
- Yu Yunfei: The transition of liuqin's characters. In: Jiao Xiang-Journal of Xi'an Conservatory of Music, March 2005, pp. 90-92
Web links
- Spring on Yi River. YouTube (Chen Hongyu plays liuqin )