Performers › Musicians
Yang Jingming
Yangqin player and instrument reformer from Chaoxian, Anhui, who worked with the Central Broadcasting Chinese Orchestra and created the modulating yangqin and the Type 401 yangqin
Yang Jingming was born in Chaoxian, Anhui, in 1918. As a young man he studied mechanics at an industrial vocational school in Chongqing, but after hearing a street musician play the yangqin he turned to the instrument, and he played with a Chongqing radio ensemble. After 1949 he moved to Beijing to help form the orchestra of the Central Broadcasting Station and led its instrument reform group. In 1958 he devised a layout of multiple parallel bridges, roller boards and key-change slots, shown publicly in 1959, which produced the modulating (bianyin) yangqin; in the 1970s, with the Beijing National Instrument Factory, he built the Type 401 yangqin with a wider range and better tone. He promoted a three-finger grip on the beaters and trained many yangqin players. He died in 1994.
Life and times
Dates 1918 CE–1994 CE