New Koudi

We have some new koudi in our inventory.

A well made koudi is so much easier to play than a shoddily made koudi.

These koudis sounds nice and are easy to play.

Order them here: http://www.eason.com.sg/products/dizi/wdz42.jsp

Horny Dizis

I've acquired some beautiful looking dizis made from the horns of some animal, which I am quite sure died from natural causes before putting their horns to musical use.

The thing about dizis made from horn is that the horns need to be of a certain thickness before they can be fashioned into dizis. So they are considered rather rare. The dizi is made by joining a few pieces of horn together.

The first type is one made from black buffalo horn. These are more readily available because there are more of them around.


The second type is made from flower ox horn, which is rarely available. They look absolutely gorgeous.


Currently I have a set of 5 (C, D, E, F and G) already reserved by someone.


These type of dizi might not sound as good as those made from bamboo but they are still very much playable. The dizis are made by Xie Bin from Hangzhou.

If you are interested in buying these kind of dizis, do drop me an email at tansungwah@gmail.com.

Difference between a normal and a good dizi

One of the usual questions we get from customers is 'What is the difference between a cheap and expensive dizi?"

Well, besides the difference in price, there is a difference in the ease of blowing, the intonation, pitching and volume produced.

But most importantly, there is a difference in the tone of the instrument. A good dizi should sound rich and bright as compared to a lesser dizi that sounds thin and dull.

We did a test and put 3 of our best model of dizis together in video so that you can hear how they sound compared to one another.


Low G Key Dizis:




D Key Dizis:



Can you hear the difference?

The dizis used in this video are:
http://www.eason.com.sg/products/dizi/xb(d).jsp
http://www.eason.com.sg/products/dizi/dxh(d).jsp
http://www.eason.com.sg/products/dizi/tq(d).jsp
http://www.eason.com.sg/products/dizi/xb(lg).jsp
http://www.eason.com.sg/products/dizi/dxh(lg).jsp
http://www.eason.com.sg/products/dizi/tq(lg).jsp

Stock Arrivals / Simple tunes 8

New stocks have arrived!

We have some new hulusis, Xun, China made mallets, high grade liuqins, synthetic snakeskin sanxians etc.

More details coming soon.

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Here is Simple tunes for Erhu 8 : Auld Lang Syne

Dong Xue Hua Flutes / Simple Tunes for Erhu 7: Scarborough Fair

New Stocks of Dong Xue Hua Flutes just came 1 week ago.

But the Low Bb and Low A are already sold out.

Also the prices have gone up a little, especially for his purple bamboo xiaos because the costs have gone up.

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Simple Tunes for Erhu 6: Red River Valley

Have fun!

Simple Tunes for Erhu 5: Home 可爱的家园

Here is the 5th installment of Simple Tunes for Erhu : Home

I am not sure if that is the correct name of the song, but it is called 可爱的家庭 in Chinese.

Here it is:



Have fun!

Simple Tunes for Erhu 4 : You are my sunshine

Here is the 4th installment of Simple tunes for Erhu:

WTH US customs??? Where is my Erhu???

May has not been a good month for my erhus going overseas to USA. I had been sending erhus to USA for years and most I got are broken erhu necks. Never before had my Erhus been seized by the USA customs.

And in May I had 3 cases of my erhus being seized by Erhu customs. They took the erhu away and in some instances just delivered the bow to my customer. We subsequently received the below letter from them.



I was a little puzzled as we included the proper CITES certification below. I later realized that in addition to getting the CITES certificate, we have to get the box 15 endorsed by our AVA officers (the one that issued the certificate). It is as easy as bringing an erhu along while I collect the CITES certificate but, well, I wasn't told I need to do that.



It was clearly stated in box number 5 though but I guess I didn't notice since I had not been endorsing since 2 years ago and none of my erhus were seized.

Perhaps my luck ran out or perhaps the custom officers have taken a special interest in erhus lately. In any case, now we know what needs to be done. For those erhus that were seized we have sent replacement erhus at our own cost.

So for those living in USA who are buying erhus from overseas, please make sure the seller has the proper CITES documentations.

Well, if you buy from us (http://www.eason.com.sg/products/products_erhu.jsp) there will definitely be no problems because we have gone through a baptism of fire.

I appreciate the initiative of one of the custom officers to send one erhu back to us instead of seizing it. At least we still have the erhu. But we incurred some returned 'fright' charges, I suppose for scaring the shit out of him with the horribly scalely python skin on the Erhu.....ooooooh......


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Anyway, here's installment 3 of Simple tunes for Erhu - Isle of Capri.

Enjoy!

Simple Tunes for Erhu 2: Long Long Ago / Ezfolk Forums

Here is song 2 of simple tunes for erhu: Long Long Ago. Its a simpler song that Amazing Grace because it is all being played in the first position.



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One of my favourite erhu forums in ezfolk.com was recently the subject of a virus attack. All the valuable old posts on all aspects of the erhu are gone. The accounts were deleted as well. What a pity...

So erhu players if you're listening, let's try to rebuilt this forum into the great resource it once was by registering and posting again.

Here is the link to the forum: http://ezfolk.com/smf/index.php/board,35.0.html