June 15, 2021, Shanghai Conservatory of Music. The four-bed guqin elaborately made by Mr. Fan Xiaoyang from Tianshui, Gansu Province and his disciple Yao Haifeng was brought to Mr. Dai Xiaolian, a famous Chinese guqin master, to be inspected and evaluated by top experts and artists in the guqin field, and was highly affirmed and praised.

Mr. Dai Xiaolian, who was born in Shanghai in 1963, is a descendant of the Guangling School and an outstanding representative of the modern and contemporary Chinese guqin art. In his youth, he studied Guqin with his uncle and grandfather, the famous master of the Guangling School, and the guqin master Zhang Ziqian.

Later, he participated in the study of many famous guqin masters such as Wu Jinglue, Wu Wenguang, Yao Bingyan, Gong Yi, Lin Youren, Cheng Gongliang, etc. After graduating from the Shanghai Conservatory of Music in 1985, Mr. Dai Xiaolian's artistic achievements became increasingly rich, and he became a professor and a master student of the Shanghai Conservatory of Music. In addition to being a mentor, he has also been awarded the deputy director of the Guqin Professional Committee of the Chinese Kunqu Opera Guqin Research Association of the Ministry of Culture, and the vice chairman of the Guqin Professional Committee of the Chinese National Orchestra Association.

Its style is rigorous, bright, clear and vivid, emphasizing the blending of techniques, artistic conception and verve. It is recognized by the industry that Mr. Dai Xiaolian has played an important role in the history of Chinese modern guqin music. In the thirty years of artistic activities, his artistic achievements have been generally recognized by people and have made great contributions to the development of modern guqin art.

Guqin has a close relationship with Guan Long. According to legend, Fuxi, who was born in Tianshui, "made zithers and composed music". According to "Sounds of Ancient Times", "Fuxi saw the phoenix gathered in the tong, and it resembled its shape", "cut the tong", and "made it into a qin", thus creating the history of Chinese music, especially the production of guqin.

There are many styles of guqin, but the most ancient and typical one is called "Fuxi style". The Tang Dynasty Jiuxiao Huan Pei in the Palace Museum is the oldest piece of ancient qin handed down by experts, and it is a typical Fuxi style. The Fuxi-style guqin originated in the land of Tianshui.

Between the Han, Wei and the Three Kingdoms, there were famous masters of the Shushan (Chuan School) school, a famous school of Chinese guqin, including Jiang Wei, a general of the Three Kingdoms and a native of Tianshui.

From the late Southern and Northern Dynasties to the Sui and Tang Dynasties, Zhao Yeli from Tianshui (AD 563-AD 639) was the master of the guqin and a leader in the qin altar.

Later, when the Tang Dynasty prospered, Dong Tinglan, a native of Longxi, Tianshui, became famous in the world. With a guqin, he won the praise of the poet Gao Shi. The swan song: Mochou is ignorant of the road ahead, and no one in the world knows you.

Gansu Guqin is produced mainly in the Tianshui area of Qinling Mountains. The Qinling Mountains have many odd woods, which is the main reason. In addition, the close relationship between the guqin culture and Tianshui is the inner driving force for Tianshui's excellent guqin making skills. So far, Tianshui, represented by Mr. Fan Xiaoyang, enjoys a high reputation in China.

Mr. Fan Xiaoyang was born in Huoqiu, Anhui Province in 1957, and later moved to Tianshui City, Gansu Province, a famous historical and cultural city in China. Mountains and rivers, forests of ancient trees, Bijian Liuquan and Gaomai ancient rhyme get along together. From his childhood learning wood craftsmanship with his father, Mr. Fan Xiaoyang has always upheld his love for ancient Chinese culture and his passion for wooden art. Since the 1980s, Mr. Fan Xiaoyang has become the only two domestic pure hand-made guitars. He is one of the craftsmen, and has won high praise from the government and domestic and foreign guitar artists, and became an early member of the Chinese Musicians Association.

Since then, Mr. Fan Xiaoyang has been involved in calligraphy and sculpture, furniture production and restoration in Ming and Qing Dynasties, and hand-made traditional Chinese musical instruments such as guzheng, pipa, and guqin. Among them, Guqin has become his most affectionate and hard-working in the past 20 years. Since then, he has become a famous qin master and guqin maker in the domestic guqin world.

In 2021, the "Chinese Contemporary Guqin Masters" edited and published by the Music Research Institute of the China Academy of Arts and the Beijing Musical Instrument Society will select more than 170 masters from all over the country. Mr. Fan Xiaoyang is one of the very few in the northwest. one of several.

Since middle age, Mr. Fan Xiaoyang has had problems with his ears and gradually lost his hearing, but he maintains a serious and strict attitude towards guqin and guqin production. Audition, on the basis of listening to the opinions and suggestions of all parties, and then make the final adjustment on the basis of deliberation.

Mr. Fan Xiaoyang said: Chinese ancient musical instruments are not only a kind of culture, but also a kind of identity and dignity, and also have her unique charm, which can only be experienced by those who use it.

Introduced by the famous domestic director Zhou Xiaoqian, Mr. Fan Xiaoyang decided to hand over the four-bed guqin that has been carefully crafted with his disciples in recent years, including the winding beam style, the bell style, the Jiao tail style and the banana leaf style, to Mr. Dai Xiaolian for careful tasting and appraisal. . Due to hearing problems, Fan Xiaoyang was not able to come in person, but Jin Xia, a person from Tianshui qin, led the team, Ji Bin, secretary-general of Tianshui Guqin Society, and Yao Haifeng, a disciple of Fan Xiaoyang, brought the guqin to Mr. Dai Xiaolian.

The industry highly respects Fan Xiaoyang's handmade and carved guqin, especially the lacquer craftsmanship that he has always insisted on and is very distinctive. This characteristic originating from Tianshui's famous lacquer carving craftsmanship is equally splendid in the eyes of Teacher Dai Xiaolian, and has been highly recommended by her.

Mr. Dai Xiaolian used the four-bed qin to perform the qin music respectively, and tasted it from various aspects, such as the difficulty of using the fingers, the speed of the sound, and the richness of the timbre. The Chinese guqin is a single-melody music, but after thousands of years of tempering, various fingerings can show a rich variety of timbres, coupled with the sound of pressing the strings and the friction of the strings, the virtual and the real correspond, and will produce and superimpose, blending out complex tune feeling. Mr. Dai Xiaolian's superb guqin playing skills make guqin and qin music more ethereal and sensitive. The harmony between people and the qin, and the beautiful sounds of nature, the Tianshui qin people who were present fully felt the ancient, remote and the harmony of nature and man in the art of Chinese guqin.

At the end of the piano test, Mr. Dai Xiaolian fully affirmed Fan Xiaoyang's guqin and considered it to be the best in domestic guqin making; At the same time, Mr. Fan deeply admired Mr. Fan Xiaoyang's perseverance and unremitting pursuit throughout his life, and extended his greetings and best wishes to Mr. Fan Xiaoyang, who was unable to come because of deafness. Blessings. All these will bring a huge boost to Mr. Fan Xiaoyang's guqin career and Tianshui's guqin art development.

Group photo of Mr. Dai Xiaolian (middle) with director Mr. Zhou Xiaoqian (second from left) and Tianshui Qin players Jin Xia (first from left), Ji Bin (second from right), and Fan Xiaoyang's disciple Yao Haifeng (first from right)