A real qin - I didn't make it!

My previous post mentioned the 'qin', a Chinese long zither. The photo on right is a real qin, advertised on ebay. It's about 1.2m long.

The ebay ad didn't tell me much about this particular instrument, but a classic and serious qin would have seven silk strings, tuned by tightening cotton or flax strings attached to the silk strings. The cotton is wound round a wooden dowel, that is turned in a hole.

Sound strange? Well the instrument has a history of around 3,000 years. They did things differently in those days.

It's played, so I've read, by plucking/strumming, and using the row of dots on the side as guides to where to stop the strings. It has neither frets nor bridges.

My reading also suggests it took many, many years to become a master of the qin.

I believe it!

All the best.

vsquared.

Long zither - starting a new instrument

Starting a new instrument. This week I started constructing a new instrument - a long zither, based on the Chinese "qin" (or "chin").
Note, I say 'based on'; I don't claim that this is a qin. I'm not that presumptuous. The qin has a 3,000 year history, and is considered by Chinese scholars to be one of the great musical, poetic and philosophic influences.

So, what I make is a long zither, influenced by the qin.

It will be about 1.2 metres long, by about 160mm wide at it's widest point, and will be strung with six bronze or brass strings.

I'm using one of my favourite timbers for the body - cypress pine. It's a pleasure working cypress; it cuts and planes well, glues well, and finishes beautfully. When it's being worked it gives off a wonderful piney/spicey/turpentiney smell. It can have big variations in colour and grain. The batch I'm working with isn't highly varied, and is a bit like teak in appearance.

As a contrast I'll use NT stringybark for zither pin planks at each end. The stringybark has a pink to reddish brown colour, and is quite hard. It unfortunately smells like dog poo when being cut or planed.

I unreservedly love the cypress, because it's pleasure to work, and if you make an effort with finishing it looks great.
I have a bit of a love/hate thing with the stringybark, because although I do like the contrast in colour it provides, I really don't enjoy working it.

As the zither progresses I'll post some photos to show the stages.

A slab zither

A zither is a stringed instrument, with the strings stretched across the sound chamber or soundboard.
Unlike, say, a guitar, it doesn’t have a neck to extend the strings beyond the sound chamber.
That’s it. Within that description it can look like anything.
For instance, the Chinese (and Japanese and other Asian nations) have traditionally used long zithers, with anything from five strings to more than 30. They are usually unfretted, with movable bridges.
I’ve made a couple of long zithers based on the Chinese “qin”.
The European zither is more commonly rectangular with multiple strings - often 20 or more.
The nearest I’ve made to the European style zither is what I call the slab zither. It’s made from a slab of camphor laurel, which was given to me by a very generous man. Thanks Peter.

I use mainly Australian native timbers, but camphor laurel is an introduced species. Its very common in parts of New South Wales and Queensland. In fact its been declared a noxious weed in some places.
In dairy farm regions it’s a real pest, because if cows eat the foliage their milk tastes of camphor!
But the timber is good to work - medium hardness, interesting grain patterns, planes and sands OK.
This particular slab (which means I don’t know if it’s all like this) seemed to be affected by some dark staining - perhaps fungal attack. As often as I sanded/planed it out, it appeared again next day.
I ultimately decided to lightly stain the main body to conceal the marks. In the photos, the natural colour of the timber is the sound chamber cover; the darker body is due to the stain.
This zither has 17 bronze strings, from .012” to .025”.