Guzheng Schools

Resources

Guzheng History & Music Schools

The Chinese guzheng art can be found in literature, as early as in " Shiji - Li

biography " which mentions " strikes builds, pluck zheng ", this is the first

appearance

of the “zheng " character. Li Si is known to be a person in 200

B.C., therefore, the

history of guzheng can not be shorter than 2000 years.

Over the 2000 years of

history, guzheng arts has flourished, it spreads to

Korea in Han Dynasty and turns

into the Korean kayagum; it spreads to

Japan in Tang Dynast and becomes the

Japanese Koto; it spreads to

Vietnam and becomes the Dan Tranh. Later the

Mongolians took it back

during Genghis Khan’s conquering of China, and Chinese

emigrants took it

to many parts of Southeast Asia.

The characteristic that makes guzheng flourish for such a long time is that

its music is

always closely tied with people and always sings the most

contemporary songs of the

time. For the past hundreds of years, guzheng

art has tied closely with the local

drama and opeara, thus gradually formed

different performing methods, and are now

known as the local guzheng

schools.

There are approximately seven guzheng schools currently. These include

the

Shangdong, the Henan, the Shanxi schools of the north, and the

Chaozhou, the

Hakka, the Zhejiang, and the Fujiang schools of the south.

Besides these schools,

the new modern performing style has emerged as

guzheng major being established

in many music conservatories.

Sound of China
Guzheng Music Promotion Center