There is a saying among the people: a thousand-year-old pipa and a ten-thousand-year zheng, a pair of erhus will last a lifetime. A piano bar stands in the sky, and two strings connect things. The inner string is like a dragon's roar, calm and strong; the outer string is like a phoenix, high-pitched and bright. Erhu, which has been passed down for thousands of years, presents the idea of "harmony" in traditional Chinese aesthetics. The 74-year-old Gao Zhenbao is the "spokesperson" of the erhu in Lequan Village, Tancheng County, and the inheritor of the erhu making skills of the intangible cultural heritage project of Linyi City.

"Since I was fifteen or sixteen years old, I have been making erhu with my father. After doing it for more than 50 years, I have learned a lot of experience and accumulated a lot of skills." Gao Zhenbao was very confident when he mentioned his craftsmanship of erhu. He told the Lightning News reporter that an erhu consists of a piano rod, a piano barrel, a piano shaft, a bow, strings and other components. Although the erhu is small, each one has to go through hundreds of processes such as material selection, grinding, polishing, and debugging. The erhu made by Gao Zhenbao is not only a musical instrument, but also a work of art created with his heart.

"To make a good piano, you must first choose materials. You are just like a human being. You have to be disciplined, and every step must be done well and carefully crafted to make a good piano." Gao Zhenbao said that he wanted to do For a good violin, the material selection must be done well. If the material is not selected well, it will also affect the sound quality of the erhu. "There are a lot of tricks in all aspects. When choosing wood, you have to know whether the wood is facing sun or yin; when choosing leather, you must be able to see the four seasons of spring and autumn."

In addition to being very particular about the selection of wood, the craftsmanship of making erhu is also full of rich details. Most of the erhu made by Gao Zhenbao is manual, which requires great patience and skill. Especially the "skinning" link, which seems simple, contains a lot of ingenuity of the violin maker.

According to Gao Zhenbao, under the same material and process conditions, "skin" plays an important role in determining the timbre. "Skinning" requires careful work, through more than a dozen processes such as picking, cutting, cutting, and foaming, to maximize the role of this skin to obtain superior timbre, volume, and sensitivity.

"It's all based on how I feel when I skin the skin." Gao Zhenbao told the Lightning News reporter, "We do it by hand. You can make it as thin as you want, or as thick as you want. We can make it."

For more than fifty years, Gao Zhenbao's passion for erhu remains unchanged. In his old age, he still insists on learning music knowledge and participating in musical instrument fairs. When he sees novel techniques and craftsmanship, he will still ponder and ponder over and over again. His current piano-making technology has made many improvements and enhancements on the basis of his predecessors, but he still has not stopped the pace of technical improvement and exploration.

"I like musical instruments very much." Gao Zhenbao said, "We make musical instruments to meet the needs of these music lovers. When we make handicrafts, you don't want to learn with humility, okay? People have changed their styles, and what they have changed, we will strive to return them. It has to be combined with other people's strengths, and what we can change may look better or work better than what he changed."

Gao Zhenbao said that in the future, he would like to expand the scale of musical instrument production, and the level of musical instrument production will be more elaborate. "You have to accept the valuable opinions from other music lovers, and then improve it!"