Gong Yaozhong makes an erhu before visitors.

Xu Zhen'gao examines a finished guzheng. Photos: Courtesy of Shanghai No.1 Chinese Musical Instrument Factory

By Hu Bei

Xu Zhen'gao is a master of music, but he never plays. He has spent more than 50 years making guzheng - the traditional Chinese musical instruments related to the zither.

The 78-year-old Shanghai craftsman's hands are the hands of an old man but his fingers are strong and flexible. His hands bear witness to the history of making traditional Chinese musical instruments in Shanghai.

In the 18th century musical instruments were made in private workshops and when the trade boomed in the 1920s and 30s, when traditional Chinese music and operas were all the rage, there were scores of instrument workshops to be found around the Chenghuang Temple, near the present day Yuyuan Garden.

It was in one of those workshops that teenager Xu began his apprenticeship. "My teacher was Zheng Jinwen, one of the great instrument makers. The 'Great Harmony Musicians Society' he established had assembled skilled craftsmen who could make and remodel more than 160 kinds of instruments," Xu said.

In 1958 most of the private workshops were merged to become a collective - the Shanghai No.1 Chinese Musical Instrument Factory.

Xu and his teacher, Zheng, naturally were among the leaders in the collective and began making guzheng there. Other craftsmen worked to make erhu and pipa (Chinese lutes).

Xu said traditional Chinese musical instrument manufacturing in Shanghai has undergone a change from the time when instruments were mostly handmade in private workshops to today's products where sometimes 40 percent of an instrument is constructed with machinery.

Xu was the first instrument maker in China to convert the traditional 16 and 18-string guzheng to the 21-string version that is common today. He also invented the "S-shaped" left hand rest, which was then soon adopted by all guzheng makers. "It made it easier to tune and play and it increased the pitch range and resonance," he said.

Zhong Mingmin carves a pipa neck. Photo: Courtesy of Shanghai No.1 Chinese Musical Instrument Factory

Making a 21-string guzheng involves more than 300 different steps. "The first stage is selecting the material. Then working out how to handle it is the key task - this is the deciding factor for the price.

"Wood is the basic material for almost all traditional Chinese musical instruments. Old redwood is the best but younger redwood or sandal wood is also used."

Zhong Mingmin, another experienced craftsman has been making pipa in the factory for more than 30 years agreed. "The sound boxes for guzheng and pipa are made of wood. The density and tension of the wood create the tone quality," Zhong said.

Great care is taken in the initial stages of shaping the wooden frames. "It is important to cut the wood along the grain. You have to make sure every side of the surface is equal so that the original density and tension of the wood doesn't change."

Zhong said that the price for a guzheng or a pipa ranges from 1,000 ($ 150) to 10,000 yuan, depending on the quality of the wood and the skill involved.

"It is impossible to make instruments entirely by machines. A good instrument cannot be created without the involvement of an experienced craftsman's hands," Xu said. "Every craftsman has a different personal understanding of his instrument - just like two musicians who play in totally different styles even when they are playing the same piece of music."

The erhu (the Chinese two-string violin) is played with a horsehair bow with a sound box made of wood and python skin. Good craftsmen make the bow from bamboo and use exactly 150 horsehairs.

"The most important part of the erhu is the python skin. The resonance of the skin gives the erhu its unique sound," said Gong Yaozhong, the leading erhu craftsman at the Shanghai No.1 Chinese Musical Instrument Factory. "Just as the selection of wood is important, the age of the snake skin, its size, the shape of the scales and its thickness are all important. Not every part of a snake skin can be made into an erhu - we usually use just the middle part of the body. One snake skin can make up to six erhu.

"The most difficult part in making erhu?is putting the skin around the wooden sound box," Gong said.

"It is vital that we adjust the moisture content of the skin before anything else. Fresh python skin needs to be dried in the sunlight for at least three days, sometimes longer in winter. When it is dried properly the markings on the back of the skin will have vanished completely and will be bleached pure white. Sticking the skin to the wooden frame demands a great deal of experience and skill. Making the skin fit the sound box depends on a tacit understanding between the craftsman and the instrument he is making."

Gong said these days most instruments are made with farmed python skins. "We have tried other animal skins but the sound was not as good as python skins and musicians did not like it."