Learn to play the qin?

I don’t know if this is the right forum to post this in (if not, the moderators should please feel free to move it to another forum), but I was wondering how difficult and how expensive it would be to get lessons to start learning to play the qin while in Taipei? Any advice?

Thanks in advance!

which qin?

The guqin:

chineseculture.net/guqin/qinjieshao.html

It will be easy to get lessons in Chinese. In English I’m not so sure. Most traditional music shops that sell guqins will also have leads on teachers. There’s an ad in the Kuting MRT station for a big trad. music shop. That might be a good place to start.

I agree with Sandman. However, I don’t think it will be easy to find a good teacher that way. The Guqin players are usually excentric and don’t just teach Guqin in order to earn some extra money. It can be pretty hard sometimes to even find somebody to play Guqin for a audience of more than just a couple of sophisticated friends. Try your luck anyhow.

Generally speaking I think it would be more efficient (not necessarily faster) to look for somebody who can introduce you to a guqin player.

What is your background for (Chinese) music? Can you play any other Chinese instrument? Do you speak Chinese?

Thanks for the advice! :notworthy:

I speak Chinese, but I have never played ANY musical instrument before.

Thanks for the advice! :notworthy:

[quote=“bryan12603”]
I speak Chinese, but I have never played ANY musical instrument before.[/quote]

I suggest to start with something easier.

[quote=“rice_t”][quote=“bryan12603”]
I speak Chinese, but I have never played ANY musical instrument before.[/quote]

I suggest to start with something easier.[/quote]
Better yet, just tune it entirely in D,A & G and just rip! Use metal guitar fingerpicks and a bottleneck, too. It’ll be blasphemy but it’ll sound great. Not very Chinese, tho’. :wink: