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| erhu materials, tuning devices - Erhu - Other Instruments - ezFolk Forums | |||||||||||||||
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ed in china Approved
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hi everyone, i have been interested in the sounds of an erhu for over a year. i have a '0' background in music and can not sing. when in grade school the teachers would tell me to not to sing just to move my lips during class qroup performances. my singing has not improved. i like the erhu and admire those of you who can play and those of you who are trying to play. well, yes i purchase an erhu and i received it a few day's ago. i very much want to learn and i want to learn right technigues from the start - instructor / master seem to have their own style - not wrong - just different. i want to try to purchase materials where i can go from a "0" knowledge to a advance using the same style of teaching and technigues- i do not want to keep starting all over again to pick up on each new instructor/ masters styles and techinques. so i have spent the last few day and it seems like nights too - searching and reading about were to get english instrutional material to learn to play the erhu. ( i have a set of chinese instructional materials - but, i can only look at the pictures - i can not read or write chinese) it seems the more i looked the more i found and the more confused i became on which to purchase- keeping in mind i know '0' about music. in the past it seem that most of the instructional materials i purchased all seemed to assume that the person starting to learn has a certian general background in the subject area - and if a person did not - it becomes very difficult and frustrating which almost made it impossible to use the materials. in my search i was very excited to find this site! and was wondering if any of you could suggest which istrutional material i would be able to use and go from the beginner to the advance that would fit my needs. and if any of you have use those electonic digital tuner, metrome, generator with there erhu. would this be something i should purchase? and if you can think of anything else this senior citizen who just turned 29 could use or will need as he moves to an advance student. thanks to those of you who put this site together and those who work to keep it going - and all that read this email, edinchina
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davidmdahl Approved
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Welcome to the forum, Ed. I am going to cut to the chase. Find a teacher. You can certainly doodle around on the erhu on your own, but to get anywhere past the beginner stage, lessons are a must. The erhu is not an intuitive instrument, and it is easy to develop bad habits. A teacher will save you a lot of time and frustration. Even one or two lessons to get you started will be worthwhile. I have not found much useful material for erhu in English. The videos on the Eason website are as good as anything I have found. Sung Wah (of Eason) is developing a web-based erhu course that is very promising. I think that personal lessons with a teacher is still the first choice, but the web lessons could work if that is not possible. George Gao sells videos from his website, but I am not familiar enough with them to comment. I consider my weekly lessons something that I look forward to very eagerly. They are a treat that I give to myself, and they keep me motivated to practice. Through my lessons I have opportunities to play along with other musicians, and that is a tremendous benefit. I enjoy playing by myself, but playing music with others is even more enriching. Best wishes, David
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ed in china Approved
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thank you for your information! i will check on setting up lessons, and try to see if i can get some more information not the istruction materials you suggested. thanks again, looking forward to hearing you play someday. edinchina
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dsouthwood Approved 
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I have used an electronic digital tuner with my erhu, but what I prefer is a small tone generator tuner. It came with my new erhu, but I don't know where to buy one online. Push the button and it sounds a steady tone of either D or A. Each time you push the button, the tone changes to the other note. Holding the button down for a few seconds turns it off. The value of that kind of tuner is that with a bowed instrument like the erhu, the sound of the instrument is very similar to the sound emitted by the tuner, and it is easy to hear when you match the pitch. It also helps keep your ear in tune. A similar tuner that I got with my guzheng is less useful, because it's harder to match a steady tone with a plucked string, but the erhu tone generator is the only tuner I use now. Dennis
____________________ Music contains all of life. |
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mrjackgreen Approved
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I use a free window program called APtuiner to tune my erhu. Having a graph makes it much easier and more accurate than what I can do with my ears. http://www.aptuner.com/cgi-bin/aptuner/apmain.html
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ed in china Approved
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DENNIS AND MR JACKGREEN - THANKS FOR THE INFO! DENNIS, WHEN I GET A CHANCE I WILL PICK UP A LITTLE TONE GENERATOR AND GET SOMEONE WHO HAS A EAR TO WORK WITH ME TO USE IT CORRECTLY. MR. JACKGREEN I WENT TO THE SITE AND WAS VERY EXCITED TO TRY AND TUNE MY ERHU. I READ ALL THERE WAS TO READ AND BECAME VERY CONFUSED - SO, I WENT TO THE TABLE contents AND I TRIED TO DO THE THINGS IT SAYS AND I JUST ENDED UP WITH A HEADACHE. I AM REALLY LOST TRYING TO USE IT. I GUESS, IT IS LIKE WITH MOST SOFTWARE - IF YOU DO NOT HAVE AN UNDERSTANDING OF THE SUBJECT MATTER - YOU NEED TO TAKE A CLASS TO TEACH YOU HOW TO FOLLOW THIER INSTRUCTIONS - THE STEPS ARE USUALLY VERY SIMPLE WITH clear INSTRUCTIONS, BUT NOW A DAYS, IT SEEM, YOU HAVE TO TAKE A CLASS IN TO LEARN HOW TO FOLLOW INSTRUCTIONS AND THAN A CLASS TO UNDERSTAND THE INSTRUCTION CLASS ! OR MAYBE THIS MY JUST BE ME! - AFTER 29 IT SEEM LIKE THING JUST BECOME MORE AND MORE COMPLICATED! I WILL TRY A LITTLE LATER OR SEE IF I CAN GET SOME HELP! THANKS AGAIN, edinchina
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mrjackgreen Approved
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Sorry that it was so confusing. I'm not quite sure what's going on, so I can only tell you about my experience. After installing the program on a window-based computer, you start the program by clicking on the icons. You might need to ensure that your computer's microphone is on. The program should start and you will see the speedometer-looking window. You simply bow in a slow, nice and long stroke, and tune your erhu until the inner string is registered at D4 and outer string registered at A4, with the meter pointed to the center as much as possible. Please let me know you have more difficulties with it; maybe the newest version downloaded from the site is corrupted?
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ed in china Approved
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mrjackgreen, you put the missing instructions in order for me - i know one string was D and one was A - i was looking for D and A trying to find out how to reset the gage. thank you so much. like i said with out instructions on how to use the instructions guys like me are lost. have a great week end! hey! i started to play the first 8 positions - i think in the nest 29 years i will get to be pretty good! thanks again mrjackreen - have a great erhu weekend!
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Magian Approved
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Mrjackgreen, Many thanks for your instructions. The tuner that came with my erhu does not work so I need to use the software. Darren
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Clyde Approved 
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Darren if you could get a small violin pitch pipe it's small enough and has four tone key pipes which you only use the D and A but they are cheap enough and quite easy to get your hands on . God Bless Music units the world and is the common language that needs no translation
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Magian Approved
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Posted response on the wrong thread...  Anyway, I found one on ebay. Unfortunately, I was unable to tune my erhu to D and A. When I tuned the high string to A the string took on a "warbling" sound when I simply bowed the open A note. When I fretted most notes with my left hand on the string it sounded as though I was getting harmonics. I think this may have been happening because my high string was a little short. When trying to set up the erhu for the first time, some of the string broke off. There was still a small amount of cloth-covered string at the end but not much, perhaps half an inch. Because of this problem I chose to tune the erhu to A and E. When set up at this tuning the sound from the strings is very smooth and even when bowing.
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Clyde Approved
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Many musicians take different types of strings and also use different pitches in tuning their erhus, I know this is somewhat confusing however there are many here that will post something for you or guide lines to fallow. Try not to get caught up in these different ways they are fine for musicians with a little of more experience however try to stay on one path. A Electronic Chromatic tuner is about your best bet God Bless Music units the world and is the common langauge that needs no translation Last edited on Mon Sep 8th, 2008 01:19 am by Clyde |
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Magian Approved
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I am a musician.  Since I had the warbling sound when trying to put the erhu into its standard tuning, I decided to tune to A and E to more closely match the tuning for the guitar. This should make composing music for both instruments much easier for me. However, I am still concerned about the "warbling" problem that I am having. I realized a bit ago that I was wrong about the string being previously broken. It was actually the other string that I broke off a little at the end. So the the high string is a full string that is new and yet I cannot tune it to A as it should be.
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Clyde Approved
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Very good Magian and very interesting as well please keep us posted on how your doing with this God Bless Music units the world and is the common langauge that needs no translation
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Magian Approved
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I've never played a bowed instrument before so my coordination between the right hand bowing and left hand fingering is a bit sloppy. However, I have determined the first position of A minor on the erhu using my A and E tuning. I can run through this position using both strings fairly well at this point. I will map out the remaining positions for the scale tomorrow in addition to A Major. I am hoping that after a few weeks I will be able to record some simple pieces in Sonar 7 Producer.
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AllenZ Approved 
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For tuning devices, I recommend the Korg AW-1. It might be expensive, but its the smaller clip on chromatic tuner around. Super accurate and light, you can carrying around in your back pocket with the small case it comes with. You can tune with Piezo (tuning by vibrations detected by the clip) or using its built in mic. The piezo is a great function because since I play in a group, when we tune its hard using a mic tuner because everyone's playing at once. Another good point to this is that you can detact the tuner head and use its mic function to tune, great when your performing you can hide it easily. It's not cool sitting there letting people see you're retuning looking at a big tuner, but with that thing (its just the size of a quarter), you can easily hide the fact your using it. The only beef I have with it is that it doesn't come with a back light, so its you'll need to adjust in dark environments. But the clip on model tuners on the market with back light are huge! Just clip it to the neck of your Erhu and you're set! Attachment: Korg_AW1.jpg (Downloaded 27 times) Last edited on Tue Sep 9th, 2008 05:25 am by AllenZ ____________________ To hell with circumstances. I create opportunities. "You're lucky Buddhism teaches freedom from desire, because I've got the desire to kick your ass!" - Richard Gere |
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| ezFolk Forums > Other Instruments > Erhu > erhu materials, tuning devices | |
