Ruan

From Wiki China org cn

Ruan is a very ancient four-stringed moon-shaped lute with long and straight neck and various number of frets. In the Qin dynasty, more than 2,000 years ago, people altered a wobbling drum into a stringed instrument. Later, with references to the zither and other musical instruments, people created qin pipa. Qin indicted the Qin dynasty, and pipa was a kind of stringed musical instrument. Qin pipa was the predecessor of ruan.

Around the 3rd century AD, a musician named Ruan Xian was extremely good at performing qin pipa and people named this musical instrument after him. Mr. Ruan was also known for his composition Guang ling san. The instrument was not called ruan until the Song dynasty, about 1,000 years ago.

Ruan is made up of three parts -- the head, handle and the body. The head is usually decorated with traditional Chinese imagery artwork such as the dragon. There are four tuning gages on the two sides. The body is an oblate resonance box. The structural theory, materials and performing skills are quite similar to those of pipa.

Modern renovations have been made to ruan, and alt, mediant, tenor and bourdon ruan have been developed.

The alt ruan, which is loud and clear, performs the theme in the band. The tone of the mediant ruan is quiet and soft. It is used to perform the cantus and episodes. It is abundant in variations of the rhythm while performing the accompaniment. The big ruan is similar to the cello. While performed in the band, it often incorporates the median ruan, which may strengthen its sound effect. While performing the solo and chord, it may intensify the rhythm. The bourdon ruan sounds deep, similar to contrabass.

Ruan