Chinese blues on the Guzheng

The Guzheng is a Chinese zither traditionally played by women. Originally it was used for vocal accompaniment, but it’s now often played solo.

This piece is a traditional solo piece. Listen for the bluesiness of it, the bent notes and the pentatonic scale, which is shared between Chinese music and blues. Also, the guzheng player is using another technique commonly found in the blues: plucking two strings on the same note together and then flattening one to give a kind of mournful wail. For those of you with even more sensitive attention, you will also notice that the chord progression of the piece is very bluesy to: moving from a root note to a fourth, a fifth and then back to the root. The structure is different, but the harmony is very similar.

The other thing I love about this little piece is the way it ends, on a low fundamental note with a cheeky little shimmy. Enjoy!

More on the Guzheng, along with more tunes.