Gu-Zheng (Chinese Zither)

The zheng (Chinese zither) is one of the traditional popular Chinese musical instruments nowadays. It, commonly known as gu-zheng, is a plucked string instrument that is part of the zither family, related to the Japanese koto, the Korean kayagum, and the Vietnamese dan tranh. In fact, the zheng is one of the oldest music instruments in the world. The earliest zheng, which only had five silk strings and a bamboo sound box, can be dated back some 2,300 years. Because it is rich in Chinese culture and history, the zheng has been called gu-zheng where “gu” means “ancient” in the Chinese language.

The gu-zheng was invented before 231B.C. when China was ruled by Chin dynasty. Before the beginning of 1800s, most of the gu-zheng had thirteen strings. After gradual revision, the gu-zheng with twenty-one strings has been commonly used by performers and it is the popular one used at present time.

Over the years, the gu-zheng is made of paulownia wood and measures approximately 5 feet in length, more than one foot in width, and around 25 pounds in weigh. A long and bow-shaped wooden sound box is used as gu-zheng’s foundation. The head and the tail of gu-zheng are fixed with bridges on which strings are lined across. Each string is also supported by a peg, which is movable, so that the pitch of a string can be fixed and adjusted. The strings once were silk, nowadays the strings are steel or steel & nylon varying from sixteen strings to twenty-six strings. Gu-zheng player attaches a little plectrum on each finger using a special tape. For traditional Chinese music, the player mostly uses three fingers of both hands. The thumb, the index and the middle finger of the right hand are used for stroking while the index, the middle and the ring finger of the left hand are for pressing, thus to create a variety of tones. For instance, the “FA” tone is created by pressing the “MI” string with the left hand while stroking it with the right hand. For some contemporary (modern) songs nowadays, both hands are needed to produce complicated harmonies using all five fingers of each, which means that even the fingers of the left hand need to ware plectrums.

Nowadays, gu-zheng has been played around the world. Since it is tuned to the pentatonic scale with a range exceeding five octaves, gu-zheng can accommodate the Western melody. It can be played in symphony as well as in solo performance.