Liang Xiao (Part of it)

Finally managed to upload a video clip of decent audio quality of the John Goldie performance. It took me days to upload. It is a clip of Yen Choong playing Liang Xiao with 3 guitars (Jack, Rai and John) as accompaniment during rehearsal time. I switched on the video camera a little late so I did not catch the front part. I think the guitars accompaniment is very refreshing!

Here's the clip:



I'm sorry to inform that I have not managed to put up the Yangqin page on my online store though.

Live and Let Live

After I posted my Hulusi I realized I have sold much of my Hulusis and left with only 1-2 pieces. New stocks will be arriving middle of January.

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My website seems to have frequent downtimes. I've feedback to my webhosting company a couple of times already and they have not been able to completely rectify the problem. The last suggestion they gave was to 'program the system to monitor my Tomcat and restart it automatically if it goes down'. Whatever that means. As long as it works.

But if anyone sees that my website is down, please drop me an email to inform me immediately. Thanks!

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We had an interesting encounter the other day with a customer. He came to our shop to look for an Erhu because he is starting his beginner class with a teacher. So after looking through a dozen Erhu models, he picked a starter model and paid for it.

A few days later he called again and says he want to return the Erhu and get a refund. Why? Is the Erhu defective? Is it not up to his expectations? Because if it is, he can come back and we can do an exchange or he can choose other models which suits him.

But the reason he wanted to return the Erhu is because his teacher had 'picked' an Erhu for him and wanted him to buy the Erhu.

The customer went further to say that he will complain to the Consumer Association of Singapore(CASE) if we do not let him return the Erhu. I am quite well versed in Singapore's Fair Trading Act and I don't see how this transaction contravenes any of the Fair Trading Acts.

But being nice and peace loving business people, and we cannot bear to see him making a fool out of himself at CASE, we told him to come back to our shop and we refunded his money.

Well, we have no problems with teachers selling instruments to their students to earn some side income. But if the teacher goes as far as condemning my instruments in order to sell his, even after the deal is done, then I would have issues with that.

There is a conception that teachers pick better instruments because they know how to play the instrument. True to a certain extent, but I've seen some teacher's picks that left me totally confounded. I don't know about other instrument shops, but my collegues and I are well versed in different kinds of Chinese instruments. On top of that, hundreds of instruments pass through our hands so I would presume we have enough exposure to different models of instruments.

When we see lemons brought in by customers for repairs, we would rather not comment, than comment negatively.

We prefer to co-exist peacefully.

Live and let live.

Hulusi Product Page is Up!

Ok I did it.

I said I'll do up the Hulusi page by Friday and I did it. At times I felt my resolve ebbing away but because put myself on the line by declaring it on my blog I stuck to my task so here it is: The Hulusi product page.

The sound samples was done by Mr Boo of "Fixing Dimo Video" fame. They sounded really good on its own.

Click here for one of the Hulusi sound samples.

There is just 1 slight problem. I don't have a lot of Hulusis left to sell.

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Ladies and Gentlemen, the Yangqin product page will be up by next Friday or you can call me a liar!

This is how a Yangqin looks like for those new to Chinese Musical Instruments:


By the way, because of the ever depreciating US dollar, we will be revising our prices early next year. So if you are thinking of buying anything from our online store, now is the time to take action!

About Shanghai Bows and Song Rosin

Just realized that the Shanghai Erhu bows nowadays are as long as Beijing Erhu bows, contrary to what I thought. Shanghai bow makers realized that size does matter.

So far feedback about Song rosin from customers is good. It is rather powdery but you can feel the difference in tone. And it goes on new bows rather easily. They are currently out of stock. New stocks will be coming in 1 months time.

Hulusi Page Coming Soon!

I've been rather busy the last few days because I attended a 3.5 day course that has really long hours. The class starts at 9am and ends at 1am everyday! As a result I have quite a few backlog of online orders, so if anyone receives their items late, my sincere apologies.

One of the things that was said over and over again during this course is to stop procrastinating and take action to do whatever it takes to succeed, to put ourselves on the line for the things we intend to do.

Thinking back, I do have a lot of things that I 'plan to do' or 'wish they were done', but were left hanging, especially for things on my online website.

So I decided to put myself on the line here by telling my readers what I am going to do by when. If I miss my deadline please feel free to leave a comment to criticize and ridicule me for being a slacker, underachiever etc.

Lets start with an easy one first: 1. To list Hulusi products on my online store.

This is a Hulusi by the way:


I had all the information, pictures and sound files since more than half a year ago.

So, this link to the Hulusi page should be working by this Friday 7 December 10:00pm (GMT+8:00).

If not, you know what to do....

To Buy or Not to Buy

Sometime back someone took his Guzheng to our shop to have it restring in preparation for his upcoming performance.

We noticed that the bridges are setup very close to each other and very close to the right side of the Guzheng. This affects the tone and resonance of the Guzheng. Curious, we asked the customer who setup his Guzheng. He said he did it himself. Oh and I suppose you bought it straight from China? No, he said he bought it from his teacher.

Now I was a little perturbed. Not because he bought the Guzheng from his teacher instead of me, but because he took delivery of a Guzheng in a 'straight from the factory' condition. I thought the barest minimum in buying a Guzheng (unless you have to send it overseas) is to have the bridges set up. And the idea of buying from your teacher is so that the teacher can choose a supposedly good instrument. But how can you test the sound of the instrument when it is not even setup? We know that some teachers choose an instrument based on factors other than the instrument itself, but at least make it seem like you did choose the instrument.

But sad to say, a lot of times students are the mercy of their teachers. If you don't buy from them, you're afraid they might be displeased and not teach you wholeheartedly. If you do buy from them, who do you go to when something goes wrong with your instrument? You've got no one to turn to if they pack their bags and go back to wherever they came from.

Not all teachers are like that though. There are responsible teachers who sits in my shop for half a day to pick an instrument for his or her student.


And so, what is this?

It is actually this....

Which ends up here....

So Sammi Cheng you got it correct. And they didn't ask me to pay for the broken headstock Erhu. Its difficult to ask your business associates to adhere to the 'once broken, considered sold' rule. They didn't look too pleased though. Luckily they were distracted by a fight that broke out between Wang Guo Xing and some others.

I've got some interesting John Goldie/Yen Choong video clips which I am having problems uploading to my blog. I think it might be because of the size. If anyone knows any free movie conversion software other than windows movie maker please drop me a note.

ezFolk Erhu Forum

Been very busy with work lately. For a quick post, I though I'll point you an Erhu forum that I've been reading lately.

There are quite a few interesting topics being discussed, more notably a thread where a Hungarian Erhu enthusiast hand-sculpted some Erhu bridges from various woods and posted his analysis.

Here it is:


I think you need to register to see the pictures posted.

Shanghai Music Fair 2007 Again

Ok, I've been busy with the John Goldie concert lately so I hardly have time to post anything. The concert's just ended and I must say the Erhu blended very well with the rest of the musicians. I'll post some video clips in a while.

But first, here are the rest of the Shanghai Music Fair 2007 photos:

First up a set of Erhu photos with funny headstock, taken from the Dunhuang booth. Don't mind the spotlight in the background.





This is Lu Lin Sheng's booth...


This is Lu Lin Sheng's booth on the second day. Their Erhus sure clear out fast!


This is Man Rui Xing's booth. They make fabulous Erhus, Gaohus and Pipas.


This is the booth of Zhang Zhong. I accidentally caught one of their Erhus on my bag and it fell on the floor and broke its neck. Ouch! I had a very good Erhu by them sold to someone in Louisiana.


Snakeskin for Jinghus....


Jinghus with dragon headstock...


Now this is an oddity from Shanghai Dunhuang Musical Instruments Co., Ltd. It is a newly designed Gehu. I wonder what is going through their minds when designing this.


And this is a 6 string Zhongruan = Guitar. The worse thing is it plays like a cheap guitar.


And this albino Liuqin looks like its missing something... Oh! Where are the pegs?

If you look closely, it uses guitar tuning mechanisms instead.


And what is this for? To be revealed...

Dong Xue Hua Flutes and Xiaos

Our new batches of Dong Xue Hua Dizis and Xiaos just arrived.

Dong Xue Hua Dizis and Xiaos are arguably the best around. Don't just take it from me, but this is what I gather from my customers who are professional musicians.

Although I have brought in different brands of flutes over the years, most of my customers still swear by his flutes. They say his flutes are very responsive and sound the best.

I've previously sent Dizis of different makes to a well known Christian flutist in Ireland and he also likes Dong Xue Hua's flutes the best.

I have a few customers who collects every key of his Dizis and Xiaos.

This time I brought in only 5 of his Xiaos - 2 G, 2 F and 1 E:

You can purchase them in our online store.

His Dizis are here.

Excessive Inhalation of Rosin Powder (EIRP)

My job has its own occupational hazards. One of it is called excessive inhalation of rosin powder (EIRP). The symptoms are running rose, watery eyes and headache.

Especially serious when setting up Shanghai Dunhuang's Erhus.

Sometimes you don't know whether to thank them or strangle them. Its good that you don't need to rosin new bows on new Erhus, but you see, the amount of rosin the factory puts on the bow is horrendous.

Check this out:



Its a Shanghai Dunhuang Aged Rosewood Zhonghu. Did you see the clouds of rosin powder billowing out from the bow?

The rosin are not only on the resonator, but all over the Erhu neck as well. It took while to clean up their Erhus.

So if next time you see me in my shop with a surgical mask, I don't have any communicable disease. Its EIRP prevention.