A question often asked by many Guqin lovers is: "Is Guqin easy to learn? Can I still learn it when I am old?" The answer is yes, and it is still very easy to get started with Guqin. Because in some remote places there are few masters of guqin, there is no teacher to teach, or because of their limited economic conditions, it is very inconvenient to learn from a teacher. Therefore, there are many people who learn guqin by themselves. Of course, there are also some self-taught people. This spirit is commendable. Although they have achieved some achievements, they have also gone through many twists and turns.

However, to really play the guqin, you need to do the following four things:

1. Start by listening

In fact, the most effective way to learn the guqin is to follow the teacher one-on-one. The teacher plays a sentence and the students play a sentence, including the teacher's left fingering "Yin, Yi, Chuo, Zhu" skills and the right fingering "light, heavy, slow, slow, slow, slow, slow, slow, slow, soft and smooth". urgent". During the teaching of guqin, students can see every move of the teacher, and if they go back to practice hard, it is not difficult to master it. Although this method of teaching progresses slowly, it is also the best way for students to acquire the essence of the teacher.

However, self-taught qin friends can only complete the process of learning guqin through some guqin introductory books. When learning music, the score has become the most important teacher, but the score is only a reference for guqin music. Whether it is notation, line notation or subtraction notation, it can only simply record the situation of the music, but cannot record all the details of the music. In order to make up for this deficiency, we can only listen to the recordings of some guqin masters playing the piano.

For example, the unique rhythmic form of the guqin has not been well recorded, it can only be roughly recorded with the horizontal lines of simple fractions or line fractions. The rhythm of the guqin is like people's language, and the priority of the right hand changes with the development of the tone. Like our nation's wind instrument it should emphasize the "sense of intonation" of the phrase, which is not just a regular variation of simple power, secondary power, etc.

Beginners can learn about the rhythm of the guqin in "Qiu Su Juqin Talk". Based on this, if you don't listen to the performance of famous artists, it is difficult to grasp the "key" of guqin music, which is one of them. In addition, there are some fingerings, such as "singing yin", "pushing out three sounds", etc. These fingerings are difficult for guqin learners to understand in a short time, and there are many changes in the teaching of different teachers.

If self-study relies on some simple definitions in textbooks, it will be more likely to be confused. This also requires listening to demonstration performances by some famous experts, paying more attention to these fingerings, simply judging fingerings from some sound effects of music, and more practice and time. , you can master it slowly. In the beginning, you can only listen to the teacher and choose a Guqin master you like. After mastering his basic methods, you can extensively study the strengths of other masters, integrate them, and use their techniques in time.

2. Start by looking

Self-taught guqin must be prepared for hardships, one is to watch more videos of famous qin masters, and the other is to watch more guqin theories. Guqin performance is not only an auditory art, but also an important part of the posture and shape of the qin. Whether the posture is correct is also related to aesthetic issues. If the posture is too casual, it will directly affect the beauty of the tone, and even some difficult techniques are difficult to complete. Therefore, in the music scores of the past dynasties, they spared no effort to introduce the sitting posture and various fingerings of playing the guqin, and listed "the combination of fingering and posture" as the primary task of playing the piano.

Since the original gesture map was created in the Tang Dynasty, the qin scores of all dynasties have been quoted or modified. In modern guqin scores, pictures are often used instead of ancient hand-paintings, and then simple explanations are given. However, fingering and movements are difficult to express clearly in diagrams or words, which requires us to watch more videos of famous artists performing and practice more by imitating the poses of famous artists. Over time, we slowly develop muscle memory.

In addition, it is best to refer to some qin theories, such as qin theories handed down from ancient times and qin scores of past dynasties. Among them, "Xishan Qinguang" from the Ming Dynasty has always been regarded as the standard by guqin lovers, and many modern guqin theories are based on this. . In addition, the Qing Dynasty's "Introduction to Qin Learning", the modern "Qin Learning Series", "Qin Learning Preparation" and so on are all classic works. Try to refer to these classics and understand the ancient aesthetic standards, which will be of great benefit to self-study Guqin.

3. Think more

There is an old saying: "Learn and learn from time to time, it is not pleasant. Review the old and know the new, you can be a teacher." This is especially true for guqin learning. If you immerse yourself in guqin practice without thinking about more problems, progress will be very slow. If you think about how it works, you'll get twice the result with half the effort. For example, although the fingering and rhythm sequence of "Yin Xiao" in the textbook are very clear, there are many subtle changes in the actual playing of the major piano schools. If you think more, it will be more difficult to understand its nature.

For example, in the right fingering "Long Lock", there are seven tones in both ancient and modern scores, but now the original "hook" is replaced by "pick" and "tick" is replaced by "wipe" which is Right, which one is wrong? Hard to say. But if you think about it, its rhythm type is basically four plus three or three plus four, which means that the first four movements are slightly slower and the latter three are slightly faster, or the first three are slightly slower and the latter four a little faster. If you can think through this problem, then it is very easy to first master the basic "long lock", and then selectively learn your own fingering.

In fact, the "long lock" is to make up for the lack of long notes of the guqin, so I realized the key point of this fingering: although the sound is broken, the meaning we want to express is coherent, and it can be completed at one time without any fuss. If you can do this, you will naturally get the essence of it through long thinking and more practice. The same is true for other fingerings. After hard practice, you must think more.

4. Practice diligently

There are no shortcuts on the road to learning musical instruments, especially the guqin. There is only one way, and that is to practice diligently. If you can't master the basic playing techniques and skills of the guqin, and only talk about the advantages of the zither and the qin, it will only be just talk on paper and will only make people laugh.

If you don't practice this technique for a period of time, it will be difficult to develop guqin playing skills, no matter how correct the method and how deep the understanding is. If you don't practice for a day, you know it yourself. If you don't practice for two days, the teacher will know. If you don't practice for three days, the audience will know. Therefore, it is still necessary to practice diligently. This fact should be clearly known as a self-study of guqin. There are also many works on how to practice the guqin, so I won't list them all here, go down and find out by yourself.

It is important to emphasize that practicing the guqin is boring, and it is worth persevering. You must not practice for a while today, and stop practicing tomorrow if you have no time. Slowly, your interest will wear out. Put it on the shelf and become the bottom of the pressure box. 's items. Just imagine how you can play the guqin so well? Self-taught Guqin students should be more diligent and studious, and must know the above four points. Although these four points are what the teacher often expresses, they are not wise words, but they are indeed useful words.