John Thompson on the Guqin Silk String Zither

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Pronounced "chin" ("stringed instrument") or "goo chin" ("old stringed instrument"), the qin / guqin throughout its long history has been the musical instrument most prized by China's literati. They categorized it as one of their "four arts", collected it as an art object, praised its beautiful music, and built around it a complex ideology (compare its image in popular culture). No other instrument was described and illustrated in such detail, so often depicted in paintings, or so regularly mentioned in poetry. And its tablature documents the world's oldest detailed written instrumental music tradition, allowing both historically informed performance (requiring silk strings) of the many early melodies, and practical exploration of the relationship between Chinese music theory and music practice.

In 2001 I moved from Hong Kong, where I was Artistic Consultant for the Festival of Asian Arts, to New York. Here my focus is guqin activities, including: research, expanding my repertoire, arranging it by theme, making recordings, performing and teaching. Eventually this site will have information on how to play the qin. More information is available through the bibliography, discographies and links to other sites. And note also the "search me" function on every page.