Chinese Musical Instruments

In this session, we've invited Mr Neo Yong Soon Wilson , a Zhonghu musician from Singapore Chinese Orchestra to talk about 8 Erhu tips and tricks.!

Mr Neo is a well known musician here in Singapore, who conducts various schools, Cheng San Chinese Orchestra and has countless Erhu students learning under his wing.

Here's a quick breakdown of the 8 tricks:

i. How to prevent sticky strings

ii. How to protect dry snake skin

iii. How to solve sticky strings

iv. How to remove rosin built up on the sound box of the Erhu

v. Quick fix for Qianjin

vi. Snakeskin tension reliever

vii. Prevent your erhu from slipping

viii. Snakeskin protector tape

We ended our Live! Session with a performance of “慢慢喜欢你”, sang by Biyu Ng, with special guest Neo Yong Soon Wilson on the Zhonghu, Anson on the Yangqin, Ruiling on the Erhu and Sung Wah on the guitar!

In this session, we decided to introduce a few budget-friendly Chinese traditional instruments that you can pick up at the comfort of your own home!

These instruments include:
i. EASON STARTER ROSEWOOD ERHU BY LIU JI FENG:
https://www.easonmusicstore.com/collections/erhu-instrument/products/eason-starter-rosewood-erhu-by-liu-ji-feng

ii. STARTER SYNTHETIC SKIN ROSEWOOD ECO ERHU BY RAOYANG BEIFANG:
https://www.easonmusicstore.com/collections/erhu-instrument/products/synthetic-skin-beijing-rosewood-eco-erhu-1

iii. STARTER CYPRESS PIPA BY SHANGHAI DUNHUANG YUN:
https://www.easonmusicstore.com/collections/pipa/products/popular-cypress-pipa-by-shanghai-dunhuang-yun-with-rosewood-pegs

iv. POPULAR CYPRESS ZHONGRUAN BY SHANGHAI DUNHUANG YUN:
https://www.easonmusicstore.com/collections/zhongruan-instrument/products/starter-cypress-zhongruan-by-shanghai-dunhuang-yun

v. POPULAR WHITEWOOD MINIMALIST DESIGN YANGQIN:
https://www.easonmusicstore.com/collections/yangqin-instrument/products/popular-whitewood-minimalistic-design-402-yangqin-by-yin-song-lin

To close things off, we prepared a performance of the popular song by Louis Armstrong - "What A Wonderful World"!

The highlight of this session is talking about the differences between synthetic skin Erhu and python skin Erhu with Ruijun.

We started off by chatting with Ruijun about his Erhu youtube channel, where he curates and posts good performance videos.
https://www.youtube.com/user/mephistophelesofrico

We then talked briefly about the latest Covid-19 developments, and how it is impacting the Chinese music art scene in Singapore.

We then compared some synthetic Erhus with comparable snakeskin Erhus.

The Erhus that we compared in this video are:
i. Synthetic Skin Rosewood Erhu by Raoyang Beifang:
https://www.easonmusicstore.com/collections/erhu-instrument/products/synthetic-skin-beijing-rosewood-eco-erhu-1

ii. Rosewood (Red variety) Erhu by Shanghai Dunhuang:
https://www.easonmusicstore.com/collections/all-things-erhu/products/starter-rosewood-erhu-by-shanghai-dunhuang

iii. Synthetic Skin Black Sandalwood Erhu by Raoyang Beifang:
https://www.easonmusicstore.com/collections/erhu-instrument/products/synthetic-skin-beijing-black-sandalwood-eco-erhu

iv. Black Sandalwood Erhu by YKM:
https://www.easonmusicstore.com/collections/erhu-instrument/products/eason-popular-premium-black-sandalwood-erhu-by-ykm

Ruijun also gave a short performance on the Erhu, playing "Little Flower Drum", and finally Sung Wah joined in the fun with his guitar as they both brought us "Reflections" from the movie "Mulan"!

The spotlight is on Anson today as he discussed the many aspects of the Yangqin.

Ruiling and Sung Wah bombarded Anson with complains about the Yangqin, being too bulky and having too many strings; but Anson addressed all their concerns through the introduction of the different types of Yangqin and the general structure of the Yangqin!

In a nutshell, we discussed in this podcast:
i. The different challenges Yangqin players face and what non-Yangqin players think of the instrument
ii. The different models of Yangqin (402, 402G, Die Meng, Pedaled Yangqin, Portable 401 Yangqin)

The session then ended with a Yangqin solo performance of "General's Command" performed by Anson.

If you would like to purchase any of the instruments you seen in this video, here's the link:
https://www.easonmusicstore.com/

If you would like to learn how to play Chinese music instruments, please visit us here:
https://www.easonmusicschool.com/

In this podcast, we had a quick chat about the Hulusi!

We have a quick introduction of the Hulusi, including the mythology behind it (Please correct us!)

After which, we have an introduction and demonstration of the various Hulusi we have.

Our dizi instructor, Kok Wee played a lovely tune on it and we ended off with A SPECIAL Performance by Kok Wee and non dizi players - Sung Wah and Anson!

It was so much fun, we're practically breathless! (Pun intended)

In this podcast, we did a quick comparison between the Shanghai & Beijing Pipas.

This was followed by a demonstration of our Qiu Ting Yu Pipas and a quick introduction of the Jiayue Pipa Leather Cases.

We ended off the session with a Pipa performance by our very own, Bi Yu!

In this episode, we talked about the crisis that's been gripping Singapore - the Covid-19 virus, and how it has impacted the Chinese music community here in Singapore.

Upon a viewer's request, we tuned a Liuqin without using the fine tuner and we shared about our latest product, the newly arrived mini Guzheng as well as the Jiayue Guzheng Bags.

We ended off with a lovely performance on the mini guzheng by our very own Guzheng instructor, Yayi!