![]() ![]() Stopped sounds are special for the variety of slides and ornaments used, and the use of glissando (sliding tones) gives it a sound similar to a pizzicato cello or fretless bass guitar. Sounds are produced by plucking open strings, stopped strings, and harmonics. The qin is a very quiet instrument, with a range of about four octaves, and its open strings are tuned in the bass register (its lowest pitch is about two octaves below middle C, or the lowest note on the cello). Other Western nicknames for the guqin include " Chinese guitar" and "Chinaman's harp". Other incorrect classifications (mainly from music CDs) include " harp" or "table-harp". Because Robert Hans van Gulik's famous book about the qin is called The Lore of the Chinese Lute, the qin is sometimes inaccurately called a lute. The guqin is not to be confused with the guzheng, another Chinese long zither also without frets, but with moveable bridges under each string. It can also be called qixianqin 「七絃琴」 ("seven-stringed instrument"). Traditionally the instrument was called simply qin 「琴」, but by the 20th century the term had come to be used on many other musical instruments as well (for example, the yangqin 「揚琴」 hammered dulcimer, the huqin 「胡琴」 family of bowed string instruments, and the Western piano ( Chinese: 鋼琴 pinyin: gāng qín literally "steel stringed-instrument")), so the prefix "gu-" 「古」 (meaning "ancient") was added for clarification. It is uncommonly spelt as Gu Qin (and sometimes GuQin or Gu-qin) in English. It has been played since ancient times, and has traditionally been favored by educated people as an instrument of great beauty and refinement.
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