qinqin

The tradition & historical record

The qinqin (秦琴; pinyin: qínqín; Vietnamese: Đàn sến) is a plucked Chinese lute. It was originally manufactured with a wooden body, a slender fretted neck, and three strings. Its body can be round, hexagonal (with rounded sides), or octagonal. Often, only two strings were used, as in certain regional silk-and-bamboo ensembles. In its hexagonal form (with rounded sides), it is also referred to as meihuaqin (梅花琴, literally "plum blossom instrument"). The qinqin is particularly popular in southern China: in Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macau. A similar instrument, the two-stringed đàn sến, has been adapted from the qinqin for use in the traditional music of southern Vietnam. The frets on all Chinese lutes are high so that the fingers never touch the fretboard itself—distinctively different from western fretted instruments. This allows for a greater control over timbre and intonation than their western counterparts, but makes chordal playing more difficult. There are two varieties of qinqins in modern China: the "traditional" version, characterized by "tall" Chinese-style frets (see photo), and the "modern" version, which uses fret wire instead. The modern version also closely resembles a banjo in that its body shape is usually round and includes a drum head made most often of sheep skin or python skin. ¹

The text above is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Qinqin”, available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence. ¹

qinqin is Chinese String Instrument, according to the structured record cited below. This entry was generated automatically from that record and has not yet been reviewed by a person familiar with the tradition. ²

The source record links this tradition to 2 external registers, which can be verified through the citation. ²