The guzheng is an ancient percussion instrument in my country. Liu Xi, an exegetical expert of the Later Han Dynasty, explained: "The strings of the zheng are high, so the zheng is the same." The name of the zheng is based on its acoustic effect. According to pre-Qin literature, the instrument Zheng existed in my country as early as the Warring States Period. According to legend, there was a pair of sisters in the state of Qin who liked playing the harp very much. Once, two sisters went to fight for one and accidentally broke the harp in half. The half in the sister's hand had 13 strings, and the half in the sister's hand had 12 strings. When the King of Qin learned of this, he named the unexpected instrument Zheng. It is of course a bit far-fetched to use this story to explain the origin of the guzheng, but it is enough to show that as early as the Warring States Period, the instrument Zheng existed in my country. According to relevant expert research, the zheng originated from an ancient percussion instrument called zhu, and was later influenced and inspired by the harp.
Zheng is arranged and tuned according to the pentatonic scale. It has a wide range of sound, rich and bright. The performer can use the right hand to support, split, shake, wipe and other techniques to produce a variety of volume and timbre changes; the left finger can be used to suppress the strings to control the changes in the string sound and express the emotions of hard, soft and sad music. In addition, you can also use the technique of "catching the kite with both hands" to produce 6-note chords to express the rippling blue waves and gurgling water. That is really wonderful.
There is a record in the history books: During the Three Kingdoms period, during the melee between warlords, Lu Bu defected to Yuan Shao, but was suspicious of Yuan Shao and jealous of his subordinates. After Lu Bu noticed it, he took the opportunity to say goodbye to avoid being killed. Yuan Shao then selected 30 warriors as escorts, but in fact they wanted to wait for an opportunity to murder Lu Bu. As night fell, the soldiers surrounding the tent were about to take action. Suddenly, the sound of playing the kite came from Lu Bu's tent, like a trickle, and the spring orioles sang. The warrior was unconsciously immersed in the beautiful music. When he was about to take action, Lu Bu had already flown away.
The guzheng, the pearl in the treasure house of Chinese music culture, has shone with its dazzling brilliance for more than two thousand years. For thousands of years, it has been widely spread among the people and has formed various schools with different phonological and technical characteristics. At the same time, it also affects the music culture of Japan, North Korea and other Asian countries. Vietnam's sixteen-stringed harp and North Korea's gaye harp are both descendants of the Chinese guzheng. With the development of the times, Zheng has entered the field of systematic professional education from the private sector, and its future will be even more brilliant.