Chaozhou School Chaozhou Guzheng is originated in the Chaozhou area of Canton Province.  It’s considered as the leader of the southern style guzheng music.  Chaozhou Guzheng Music also has great influence on the Vietnamese Dan Tranh music.   Chaozhou Guzheng music is played on steel-stringed guzheng.  Generally, 16-stringed guzheng is used, but 18-stringed or 21-strigned instruments are seen.  The characteristic of a steel-stringed guzheng is that it has long sustention after plucking.  Therefore, detailed vibration is applied to one pluck to express the subtleness of the music.  This is known as “One sound many tone”.   The left hand vibrating technique is considered more important than the right hand plucking.  Left thumb is often used along with the other 3 fingers to push two or three strings at the same time. Traditionally, Chaozhou Guzheng Music uses 2-4 notation.  It’s a unique music notation system that Chaozhou people adopted from western notation.  Although the 2-4 notation is no longer used, many Chaozhou music terms came from this 2-4 notation.   The scale of 2-4 notation is two three four five six seven eight, which equals to 5 6 1 2 3 5 6 （so la do re mi so la ）in the numeric notation currently used.  6(la) and 7(si) share “three”; 3 (mi) and 4(fa) share “six”.  Therefore, tune such as “heavy six” means push all 3(mi) on the notation into 4(fa).          Types of Chaozhou Tunes Often the same song can be played in different tune for the desired effects. The masters of Chaozhou Guzheng Music are Lin Maogen, Guo Ying, and Chen Leishi.   Famous music pieces include “A Young Lady Named Liu Qing”, “Pink Lotus”, “Winter Duck Playing the Water”, and “Sand Wash”.

Tune	Playing Method	Characteristics
Light Six	No Push on 3(mi)	For Lively Music
Heavy Six	Push  3(mi) to 4(fa)	For Passionate Music
Lively Five	Heavy vibration on 2(re)	For Sad Touching Music
Light Three Heavy Six	No Push on 6(la), and push on 3(mi)	For Loving Music