Yangqin

Introduction

The trapezoid hammered dulcimer, from a foreign import to a mainstay of Chinese ensembles

The yangqin is a trapezoid hammered dulcimer struck with two springy bamboo beaters; bridges divide its metal strings into courses, giving a bright, ringing tone. It belongs to the same family as the Persian santur and is generally thought to have reached Guangdong by sea in the late Ming or early Qing. At first written 'foreign zither' (洋琴), it is mentioned in the Qing scholar Li Kai's Hanzhong ji, and around the end of the Qing the name was rewritten as 扬琴. From the late Qing it became a core instrument of Cantonese music and Jiangnan sizhu, and in the 1920s Qiu Hechou compiled the yangqin tutor Qinxue xinbian. Reforms from the 1950s, among them the twelve-tone large yangqin, the key-changing yangqin and the 401 model, widened its range and added semitones, making it a standard instrument of the Chinese orchestra and of solo concerts.

Timeline

1. 1650OriginThe yangqin is generally thought to have come by sea from the Persian world to the Guangdong coast in the late Ming or early Qing, under the name 'foreign zither'; an early Chinese mention is in Li Kai's Hanzhong ji.
2. 1890EvolutionBy the late Qing the yangqin was popular in Guangzhou and the Cantonese-speaking region, at the heart of Cantonese ensemble music; Yan Laolie represents the right-hand-first beating method and Qiu Hechou the left-hand-first method.
3. 1920EvolutionIn the 1920s Qiu Hechou compiled the yangqin tutor Qinxue xinbian, notating ten beating techniques with symbols derived from Suzhou numerals, a system later tutors kept.
4. 1953EvolutionIn 1953–54 Zheng Baoheng and the Tianjin instrument factory built a large twelve-tone yangqin with semitone bridges; in 1959 Yang Jingming built a key-changing model, and his five-bridge 401 model became the basis of the modern instrument.