Love at first sight. I love you Bei Bei! I have been listening to you for about 15 years..your old myspace channel. - from a Canadian 19 years in China :)
Do it, it's really rewarding and sounds nice, even if you just improvise random notes on it. Finding a teacher isn't easy if you are not in China. Finding tutorials is also not easy if you don't speak Mandarin. But I guess it's doable. I would suggest to learn the basics face to face but an online teacher might be good enough if you are strict with yourself and don't use bad posture or technique just because the teacher can't see if through the camera. If online teaching is ok for you, then there should be plenty of teachers to choose from. The instrument itself costs from $400 up to no limit but for a beginner, $500-$600 should be ok. My first was 400 € including shipping. It wasn't great but got me started until I had the wish (and money) for a better one. I have now been playing for some years, found different teachers and learned a bit by myself. Thus, my technique sucks and my progress is slow but I still enjoyed every minute. So if I calculate the fun per Euro, it was the cheapest fun I've ever had, even though I spent a few thousand euros on the hobby so far.
I'm trying to decide between the Guzheng and the Guqin. As a guitarist I'm attracted to the technical parts of the guqin, the slides and the idea behind it (and how it looks, in my opinion); on the other hand, I find the Guzheng to be very melodic and I absolutely love how it sounds. I couldn't find too many guqin players to hear more about it sadly.
@@kablammy7 i bought one off of ebay for like $400 4 years ago. And if your consistent in practice, it gets easier. Luckily i live in l.a. area so i was able to find classes, but if you find classes be prepared to be in a room full of chinese speakers because it was very intimidating. I have no regrets getting it. My daughter loves when i play as well, good for the babies if you have any.
@@kablammy7 Have you started playing? At least don't buy too cheap in my opinion. The strings of my cheap ($400 including interenational shipping) snapped frequently and later, I bought a more expensive guzheng which included great strings that never snapped again. But maybe the US shops have a wider selection of cheaper guzhengs that are not crap like my initial one. Although I already play for a few years, I should still consider myself a beginner but I also absolutely love the sound and the relaxation it gives me when playing.
I’m getting excited watching this; in just a week or so I’ll have the spare money to purchase a Guzheng and I’m so eager to learn it; The main intimidating thing will be having to set it up and get it tuned .
i was proper nervous about it too. allthough tutorials show tuning startingat 1 string, i decided to start at 21 which is less fragile and work down, so i was more confident by the time i got to the fragile ones. no snapping!
Wow!!! You've been playing guzheng for 30 years? And also a teacher Ed too? Woahhh, you're so Amazing! You're too Awesome and KooL!!! I'm a music lover too but an intermediate player only. I play piano and knows some skills of it a bit. Oh, I am always interested in guzheng, erhu, koto, shamizen, flute, guitar, bass guitar, saxophone, harp and strings of violin family but too hard to play it. Mang, guzheng and erhu are the most beautiful instruments ever and all the instruments I mention here that I'd dream of learning and playing one day! Ohhh, thanks for the video lesson course, Lady!
Awesome to see English language tutorials pop up. That will allow more people who lack Mandarin skills to enjoy learning this instrument. The only critique I have is that you could have used a microphone to record your voice. It sounds distant and has a low volume compared to the sound of the guzheng. Apart from that, great overview for people who start learning.
Hello Bei Bei, I just want to express my gratitude to you for making this great tutorial video and sharing your knowledge and passion. It is a wonderful tutorial! Thank you for all your time and effort. You are a generous and dedicated soul. Your presentation is clear and easy to follow and very well organized. I will look into ordering your books too ;) May Go bless you and your loved ones always and best wishes of prosperity, health, happiness and success!
Very helpful video, thank you !!I recommend the universal tuner app, The only app in which a guzheng is available, for d and g tune. I tuned mine in d.
Went to your channel to find any video of you playing Guzheng - ? ? ? Did you like it ? Which one did you get ? I will copy this comment to your latest video .
There are still way too few resources about learning it in English or other languages. But I recently got a video AI autotranslated into English by UA-cam. I didn't like it because I understand Mandarin. But if this trend continues, many more resources will become available for everyone. This could really be awesome because it opens so much knowledge for people who are not fluent in those languages.
That's called fan yin (泛音). You pluck the string with your right hand while the left finger slightly tips on the string and leaves just at the moment when you pluck but doesn't linger long enough to completely dampen the sound. The timing and where you put your finger is a bit difficult to grasp at first but then it sounds very nice, unlike any normally plucked sound of the guzheng. It isolates the overtones, hence its name harmoics (or in Chinese, 泛音).
@@LIVINGINFARGO I was also lazy in the last year or so but got back to practicing now. I found that my foundation techniques are bad and that makes it hard to progress. Now I play easier songs but focus on hand positon, technique and all the things I neglected when I was just trying to play songs that were way above my level.
hi, I have problem on learning that how do you remember the note of both left and right hands which are played simaltineously?? I cannot remember the note of all fingers at a time… Would you advise?
Just a little suggestion. First you need sing your music score, let your brain have a memory of the melody. When you can sing like a pop music, it's easy. And then practice a lot. It is worth noting that the left and right hand melodies need to be sung and played separately. Finally rely on rhythm to bring the hands together well.
Yes, but not all music. I sometimes play very slow music like 琵琶语 without picks. You can't do 摇指 without nails, which is used in many songs. That's one of the few downsides of playing guzheng. You can't just pick it up and start playing. You'll have to wrap those picks to your fingers first, then start playing and remove them to go to the bathroom. But the ancient Chinese were at least smart enough to leave the pinky without picks so that you can still unlock your mobile phone while playing.
What do you mean? How much this instrument costs? Depends on the quality and where you live. In China, you can get one for as cheap as $200 or so. Other countries have either shops or you can import one by ship yourself. I bought my first one for around $400 including shipping to Germany some years ago. Qualitywise, it wasn't great but ok for a beginner. Now, I bought a good one for a few thousand that sounds awesome and feels great. For a cheaper one, I'd immediately buy a set of quality replacement strings because the one on my cheap instrument snapped very easily and that's very annoying while playing.
@@artsyhyd That's sad. Flying to another region is infeasible for most people I guess. My teacher in Germany was 80km (around 50 miles) away from where I live. I used to drive there every other week. That was already far but still doable. Then she moved to Berlin, which might be as far away as your next teacher. Now I could do online classes, find a new teacher or learn by myself. Because I'm spoiled by the availability of a teacher, I still hope for face to face classes and continued to study on my own. Then I lost motivation for a while and now I'm back to trying to improve the basics and trying to find a teacher. If I don't find one, then I'll go for online classes. I feel it's not as good as face to face, especially if you are starting out and maybe need someone to grab your hand and just show you how you should hold it but I also guess it could be possible to learn online. I speak Mandarin so for me, the choice of online teachers is basically unlimited. But internet lag and timezones make it more difficult to study with a teacher from another continent so I'll probably stick to Germany. Online resources are also harder to find if you don't speak Chinese. Maybe the new feature of youtube that can translate audio into AI voice of other languages will help with that as well. My advice to you would be: Try to find a teacher near you. Maybe ask Chinese at a music university nearby. One of them might know someone. If not, just look at videos online of teachers who could speak your language or a language you know well enough to follow a class and understand the subtleties of advice they might give you. Or try to find online tutorials like this one that teach the basics. For an instrument, maybe there is a market for used ones. Just don't be like me and buy a very cheap brand that offers worldwide shipping. The quality wasn't very good. Buy one of the respected brands, they also offer beginner instruments. Or if you have a teacher nearby, maybe they know someone who recently upgraded to something better and wants to get rid of their old instrument. Although having two sometimes has the advantage that you don't have to change the tuning if two songs are in a different key or require some strings' tuning to be changed.
@@gagaxueguzheng thankss 😊 I really want face to face lessons bcos I’m a total beginner, like u said I need the teacher to show me how to move the fingers etc.
@@artsyhyd I'm really oldschool on that one as well. Although, I have to say that maybe online classes might also work. Maybe just not as efficient as face to face. But if you have a good camera, or even two (one from above, one from the side), your teacher might be able to see if you are doing it wrong. The only thing that is missing is that you can't walk around your teacher and see his/her hand position and he/she can't grab your hand and position it the way she thinks it is correct. But that happens rarely. The cues like "make a fist, then relax and this is the way your hand should look like" is mostly enough to get how to hold one's hand. Or you could use your holidays, fly to the other region where you found a teacher. Get a beginner's bootcamp for a long weekend where the teacher shows you all the basic stuff in person and then you transition to online classes. Not sure. I guess I'll also have to learn online because trying to find a teacher near my location seems futile.
I have bought two. The first one immediately when I arrived back in Germany from China where I had started to learn. It was around 400 Euro (~$400) including shipping (a few years ago, I'd expect the price of a beginner's zheng to be around $600-700 nowadays). The quality was bad but it was enough for a beginner to learn. Just most of the included strings snapped easily. Then, two years later, my teacher imported guzhengs directly from Dunhuang in Shanghai. I bought a good one and took care of shipping myself via a Chinese group of people who shared a shipping container to get stuff to Germany. Everything went smoothly and I got it three months later. I think nowadays, I'd try finding a shop that sells respected brands like 敦煌 dunhuang or 朱雀 zhuque or 海棠 haitang or some others. They also have beginner's models that are probably much better than the unknown brand I got online because I knew nothing about guzhengs. If I had to do it again, I'd find a shop like the one of Beibei if you are in the US or some other special shop. Don't buy a random brand that offers free shipping worldwide. If you have a teacher near you, they'll probably know how to get one. And if you need spare parts like strings, there is a thing called 帮带群 (bangdaiqun) online where Chinese bring things from China for a small fee when they return from visits home. I can also buy string sets here in Germany but single strings are hard to come by and if my new strings snap (which they don't do if the quality is good and you don't push too hard), I'd have to buy a full set of 21 strings for 120€. Also the tape is harder to come by here. I also let someone bring it to me from China. Maybe there are also shops for that nowadays, I didn't look into it for a few years since I got a huge supply left.
Now all I need is a Guzheng. 🤔..
How to buy ?? I am from india!!
so true
Bruh buy before you learn
Right
@BangkokBall shopee isnt available in india😭
Love at first sight. I love you Bei Bei! I have been listening to you for about 15 years..your old myspace channel. - from a Canadian 19 years in China :)
I'm going to buy a guzheng because I love the sound, this video is very helpful thank you so much!!!
Did you buy one yet?
How I wish college have this course to take!! Music is a therapy and it calm my soul during hard time!! I wish to learn how to play a guzheng! ❤
Do it, it's really rewarding and sounds nice, even if you just improvise random notes on it. Finding a teacher isn't easy if you are not in China. Finding tutorials is also not easy if you don't speak Mandarin. But I guess it's doable. I would suggest to learn the basics face to face but an online teacher might be good enough if you are strict with yourself and don't use bad posture or technique just because the teacher can't see if through the camera. If online teaching is ok for you, then there should be plenty of teachers to choose from.
The instrument itself costs from $400 up to no limit but for a beginner, $500-$600 should be ok. My first was 400 € including shipping. It wasn't great but got me started until I had the wish (and money) for a better one. I have now been playing for some years, found different teachers and learned a bit by myself. Thus, my technique sucks and my progress is slow but I still enjoyed every minute. So if I calculate the fun per Euro, it was the cheapest fun I've ever had, even though I spent a few thousand euros on the hobby so far.
I'm trying to decide between the Guzheng and the Guqin. As a guitarist I'm attracted to the technical parts of the guqin, the slides and the idea behind it (and how it looks, in my opinion); on the other hand, I find the Guzheng to be very melodic and I absolutely love how it sounds. I couldn't find too many guqin players to hear more about it sadly.
Maybe expand and get the guzheng? I got one and it sounds like heaven to me
@@one-seventeen.rev310
which one did you get ?
are you finding it easy to progress and play ?
@@kablammy7 i bought one off of ebay for like $400 4 years ago. And if your consistent in practice, it gets easier. Luckily i live in l.a. area so i was able to find classes, but if you find classes be prepared to be in a room full of chinese speakers because it was very intimidating. I have no regrets getting it. My daughter loves when i play as well, good for the babies if you have any.
@@one-seventeen.rev310
haha - thanks for the reply
I had 7 babies - they are all grown now ...
@@kablammy7 Have you started playing? At least don't buy too cheap in my opinion. The strings of my cheap ($400 including interenational shipping) snapped frequently and later, I bought a more expensive guzheng which included great strings that never snapped again. But maybe the US shops have a wider selection of cheaper guzhengs that are not crap like my initial one. Although I already play for a few years, I should still consider myself a beginner but I also absolutely love the sound and the relaxation it gives me when playing.
Thank you for the wonderful tutorial, just got this Gunzhen for the family today. It's so beautiful.
You are an excellent tutor ....very unselfish in sharing your knowledge and talent.
Thank you s much!
I’m getting excited watching this; in just a week or so I’ll have the spare money to purchase a Guzheng and I’m so eager to learn it;
The main intimidating thing will be having to set it up and get it tuned .
i was proper nervous about it too. allthough tutorials show tuning startingat 1 string, i decided to start at 21 which is less fragile and work down, so i was more confident by the time i got to the fragile ones. no snapping!
Wow!!! You've been playing guzheng for 30 years? And also a teacher Ed too? Woahhh, you're so Amazing! You're too Awesome and KooL!!! I'm a music lover too but an intermediate player only. I play piano and knows some skills of it a bit. Oh, I am always interested in guzheng, erhu, koto, shamizen, flute, guitar, bass guitar, saxophone, harp and strings of violin family but too hard to play it. Mang, guzheng and erhu are the most beautiful instruments ever and all the instruments I mention here that I'd dream of learning and playing one day! Ohhh, thanks for the video lesson course, Lady!
This is the most handsome and wonderful Guzheng tutorial I've ever seen. Thank you very much for sharing your knowledge and talents
I love the sounds that come from this beautiful instrument. Thank you for sharing.
Thank you!
Awesome to see English language tutorials pop up. That will allow more people who lack Mandarin skills to enjoy learning this instrument. The only critique I have is that you could have used a microphone to record your voice. It sounds distant and has a low volume compared to the sound of the guzheng. Apart from that, great overview for people who start learning.
Wonderful...
Thank you very much!
What a good voice and clear explanations . A good instructor ❤️
Hello Bei Bei,
I just want to express my gratitude to you for making this great tutorial video and sharing your knowledge and passion. It is a wonderful tutorial!
Thank you for all your time and effort. You are a generous and dedicated soul. Your presentation is clear and easy to follow and very well organized.
I will look into ordering your books too ;)
May Go bless you and your loved ones always and best wishes of prosperity, health, happiness and success!
Thank you Francois! Your support and feedback mean a lot to me!
Very helpful video, thank you !!I recommend the universal tuner app, The only app in which a guzheng is available, for d and g tune. I tuned mine in d.
Just got one last week. Very helpful tutorial. Not much out there! Struggling with those bends and vibrato
Glad to hear that!
Went to your channel to find any video of you playing Guzheng - ? ? ?
Did you like it ? Which one did you get ?
I will copy this comment to your latest video .
Thank you so much Liu Bei!
Thank you so much Miss for your Learn Video ☺
This is very helpful. 😊 I am almost in the advanced level of playing the guzheng. 😊
Thanks for your lesson pretty 老师🙏😇
Very beautiful instrument. I never heard of it before
Very helpful. Thank you for your tutorial.
Can you explain for about proper posture seating and height of instrument? How high should the instrument be from sitting position.
Thank you. I learned so much today 😊
Buying one soon
Let us know if you need help picking one out!
wow ...learn Guzheng with English version i am happy to see your VDO , because i can not understand mandarin language.
There are still way too few resources about learning it in English or other languages. But I recently got a video AI autotranslated into English by UA-cam. I didn't like it because I understand Mandarin. But if this trend continues, many more resources will become available for everyone. This could really be awesome because it opens so much knowledge for people who are not fluent in those languages.
Amazing 👏
我爱你 💜💜💜
Thank you!
Im your fan😍😍😍😍
beautiful......♥ i wish i can learn
What kind of guzheng are you using, and what would you recommend an absolute beginner to buy?
1:16:42 Harmonics… I don’t get what difference the left hand made?
That's called fan yin (泛音). You pluck the string with your right hand while the left finger slightly tips on the string and leaves just at the moment when you pluck but doesn't linger long enough to completely dampen the sound. The timing and where you put your finger is a bit difficult to grasp at first but then it sounds very nice, unlike any normally plucked sound of the guzheng. It isolates the overtones, hence its name harmoics (or in Chinese, 泛音).
@ Thanks so much for the explanation! Hopefully I’ll get time to practice more.
@@LIVINGINFARGO I was also lazy in the last year or so but got back to practicing now. I found that my foundation techniques are bad and that makes it hard to progress. Now I play easier songs but focus on hand positon, technique and all the things I neglected when I was just trying to play songs that were way above my level.
xiexie Beibei laoshi :) I've started a 30 day challenge to learn as beginner :) I'll definitely add these drills :)
How did it go? Been a year now, lol. I really want to see if I can learn this myself!
@@chibichibi51 Not well lol! I moved and did not have a place tp practice, the I moved again so have just started up again :)
wow thanks for the video
I just love China so much
有趣😊
tysm!!!
hi, I have problem on learning that how do you remember the note of both left and right hands which are played simaltineously?? I cannot remember the note of all fingers at a time… Would you advise?
Just a little suggestion. First you need sing your music score, let your brain have a memory of the melody. When you can sing like a pop music, it's easy. And then practice a lot. It is worth noting that the left and right hand melodies need to be sung and played separately. Finally rely on rhythm to bring the hands together well.
请问Bei～～点按在谱子上应该怎么记谱呢？谢谢
一般是用一个倒三角标记在音的上方或后面
You are so amazing girl
can you play it without finger picks( nails) ?thx
Hi, sorry I'm late. Yes, you can, but it will be more difficult.
@@Ndreau Thanks a lot for response😊
Yes, but not all music. I sometimes play very slow music like 琵琶语 without picks. You can't do 摇指 without nails, which is used in many songs. That's one of the few downsides of playing guzheng. You can't just pick it up and start playing. You'll have to wrap those picks to your fingers first, then start playing and remove them to go to the bathroom. But the ancient Chinese were at least smart enough to leave the pinky without picks so that you can still unlock your mobile phone while playing.
@@gagaxueguzheng Thank you so much!
Are all wrench sizes the same?
Yes
Is this also applicable to portable guzheng?
how to choose a good Guzheng and where to buy it? It is quite hard to find one in the Philippines
You can check in Shopee Philippines.
Do u teach online? I live in different country 😄
🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
How mach is this?
What do you mean? How much this instrument costs? Depends on the quality and where you live. In China, you can get one for as cheap as $200 or so. Other countries have either shops or you can import one by ship yourself. I bought my first one for around $400 including shipping to Germany some years ago. Qualitywise, it wasn't great but ok for a beginner. Now, I bought a good one for a few thousand that sounds awesome and feels great. For a cheaper one, I'd immediately buy a set of quality replacement strings because the one on my cheap instrument snapped very easily and that's very annoying while playing.
Here bcos I wanna learn to play guzheng!
Did you start learning?
@ not yet bcos no Guzheng teacher available where I live sadly 😢 I have to fly to another region to study which is quite expensive 😢
@@artsyhyd That's sad. Flying to another region is infeasible for most people I guess. My teacher in Germany was 80km (around 50 miles) away from where I live. I used to drive there every other week. That was already far but still doable. Then she moved to Berlin, which might be as far away as your next teacher. Now I could do online classes, find a new teacher or learn by myself. Because I'm spoiled by the availability of a teacher, I still hope for face to face classes and continued to study on my own. Then I lost motivation for a while and now I'm back to trying to improve the basics and trying to find a teacher. If I don't find one, then I'll go for online classes. I feel it's not as good as face to face, especially if you are starting out and maybe need someone to grab your hand and just show you how you should hold it but I also guess it could be possible to learn online.
I speak Mandarin so for me, the choice of online teachers is basically unlimited. But internet lag and timezones make it more difficult to study with a teacher from another continent so I'll probably stick to Germany. Online resources are also harder to find if you don't speak Chinese. Maybe the new feature of youtube that can translate audio into AI voice of other languages will help with that as well.
My advice to you would be: Try to find a teacher near you. Maybe ask Chinese at a music university nearby. One of them might know someone. If not, just look at videos online of teachers who could speak your language or a language you know well enough to follow a class and understand the subtleties of advice they might give you. Or try to find online tutorials like this one that teach the basics.
For an instrument, maybe there is a market for used ones. Just don't be like me and buy a very cheap brand that offers worldwide shipping. The quality wasn't very good. Buy one of the respected brands, they also offer beginner instruments. Or if you have a teacher nearby, maybe they know someone who recently upgraded to something better and wants to get rid of their old instrument. Although having two sometimes has the advantage that you don't have to change the tuning if two songs are in a different key or require some strings' tuning to be changed.
@@gagaxueguzheng thankss 😊 I really want face to face lessons bcos I’m a total beginner, like u said I need the teacher to show me how to move the fingers etc.
@@artsyhyd I'm really oldschool on that one as well. Although, I have to say that maybe online classes might also work. Maybe just not as efficient as face to face. But if you have a good camera, or even two (one from above, one from the side), your teacher might be able to see if you are doing it wrong. The only thing that is missing is that you can't walk around your teacher and see his/her hand position and he/she can't grab your hand and position it the way she thinks it is correct. But that happens rarely. The cues like "make a fist, then relax and this is the way your hand should look like" is mostly enough to get how to hold one's hand. Or you could use your holidays, fly to the other region where you found a teacher. Get a beginner's bootcamp for a long weekend where the teacher shows you all the basic stuff in person and then you transition to online classes. Not sure. I guess I'll also have to learn online because trying to find a teacher near my location seems futile.
Isnt A la and B si in do re mi fa sol la si/ti Do?
Guzheng in the video is tuned to the key of D (the most common and basic key), therefore, D is Do. If it is tuned to the key of C, then C would be Do.
5:00 😮
Nepali song maya by Ashutosh kc
The notes are: RE MI FA# LA SI
❤
Hello there
Guzheng is Fun.. Can you teach me please..
The music in the background is too loud.
How old is this machine throughout history?
This musical instrument has over 2500 years of history
Bei Bei are teaching private in zoom
Anybody bought a Guzheng online before?
I have! In Canada, from a little shop in Ontario. They shipped it quite a long ways and it arrived in great condition.
I have bought two. The first one immediately when I arrived back in Germany from China where I had started to learn. It was around 400 Euro (~$400) including shipping (a few years ago, I'd expect the price of a beginner's zheng to be around $600-700 nowadays). The quality was bad but it was enough for a beginner to learn. Just most of the included strings snapped easily. Then, two years later, my teacher imported guzhengs directly from Dunhuang in Shanghai. I bought a good one and took care of shipping myself via a Chinese group of people who shared a shipping container to get stuff to Germany. Everything went smoothly and I got it three months later. I think nowadays, I'd try finding a shop that sells respected brands like 敦煌 dunhuang or 朱雀 zhuque or 海棠 haitang or some others. They also have beginner's models that are probably much better than the unknown brand I got online because I knew nothing about guzhengs. If I had to do it again, I'd find a shop like the one of Beibei if you are in the US or some other special shop. Don't buy a random brand that offers free shipping worldwide. If you have a teacher near you, they'll probably know how to get one. And if you need spare parts like strings, there is a thing called 帮带群 (bangdaiqun) online where Chinese bring things from China for a small fee when they return from visits home. I can also buy string sets here in Germany but single strings are hard to come by and if my new strings snap (which they don't do if the quality is good and you don't push too hard), I'd have to buy a full set of 21 strings for 120€. Also the tape is harder to come by here. I also let someone bring it to me from China. Maybe there are also shops for that nowadays, I didn't look into it for a few years since I got a huge supply left.
What's your Instagram
@beibeimusic
@@guzhengshop danke schön
Thank you. I had bought your text book many years ago, I am so happy finally find you on UA-cam.
@@hum108 danke schön