The Guqin is also called the seven-stringed Qin. The body is a long and narrow sound box made of wood. Generally speaking, it is 130cm long, 20cm wide, and 5cm thick. The surface is generally made of paulownia wood or China fir, and has seven strings stretched along it. On the edges are 13 inlaid jade markers. Catalpa wood is used for the base, and there are two holes, one big and one small (called the "phoenix pool" and "dragon pond," respectively) to emit the sound. The fingering techniques are known as recital, rubbing, plucking, concentration, floating notes, and harmonious notes (same measure, five measure, and octave). The instrument is rich in tone color, with airy, floating notes, and simple and solid scattered notes.

The guqin is a typical musical instrument, representing both Chinese philosophy and traditional musical culture. When the G uqin is played, one can easily get the message of the traditional cultural values of clarity, fineness, simplicity, and far-sightedness. The Guqin, along with chess, calligraphy, and painting, headed the list of the four subjects scholars trained themselves in. Throughout history, philosophers and artists such as Confucius , Cai Yong, and Ji Kang were all masters of the instrument. Old records contain a large number of treatises on the Guqin, and thousands of pieces of music for this instrument have been preserved.

In recent times, a dozen or so G uqin masters have emerged in China, including Wang Lu, Guan Pinghu, Zha Fuxi, Zhang Ziqian, Wu Jinglue, and Gu Meigeng. They have mastered the strong points of the various schools of this instrument and grasped the interpretation of a large number of pieces of G uqin music, manifesting not only their musical skills but also their deep aesthetic appreciation.

Tail-burnt Guqin

Of the Four Great Guqin instruments in Chinese music history, the one named tail-burnt has an interesting legend.

Cai Yi, an outstanding historian and musician in the Han Dynasty (206BC-220AD), once found that a cook was using a piece of paulownia wood, the first-class material to make G uqin, to cook his meal. To everyone's surprise, Cai dragged the wood out of the fire with his bare hands. After explaining the function of paulownia wood to the cook, Cai happily took the wood home and made a refined G uqin. Because the wood was burnt at its tail part, it was later named tail-burnt G uqin.