Butterfly Zheng

In 1978, Hé Bǎoquán (何寶泉) from the Shanghai Conservatory of Music created the Butterfly Zheng, (dié shì zhēng, 蝶式筝). Still produced today, it has 49 strings in an amazing arrangements of fixed bridges and moveable bridges.

While far more versatile than the 21-string zheng, allowing players to pick from a wide variety of scales without retuning anything, all that versatility led to complication. A player had to relearn hand patterns and adjust their spatial memory of where different notes were found. It has yet to reach the popularity of the 21-string guzheng.

Image Source: HKzhengart.com Used under Fair Use exceptions of US and China Copyright law.

ZhengJ BNovember 30, 2017ExpandedComment

"W" Zheng

Similar to the Butterfly Zheng, the W sought to offer greater versatility without changing tunings. Dr. Mei Han attributes its creation in 2000 to Pan Haixin and Pan Haiwei from Hebei province. It has one side arranged in a diatonic scale, and one side in a pentatonic scale. This makes more sense to me than the Butterfly, but time will tell its popularity. I do not yet grasp how vibrato techniques would work on this. I'm not sure how many strings it has or even how to count them... possibly 29?

Image source: guzheng58.com Used under Fair Use exceptions of US and China Copyright law.

ZhengJ BNovember 30, 2017ExpandedComment

Multi-tonic Zheng 多聲弦制箏

The Multi-tonic Zheng 多聲弦制箏 (Duō shēng xián zhì zhēng) or Duō shēng zhēng for short (多聲箏) seems to have been made in 2011 by Professor Lǐ Méng (李萌), though my sources are not good.. It's effectively two zhengs combined; there are 21 strings tuned to the diatonic scale for the right side, with 16 additional strings tuned to the pentatonic scale on the left side. The range of the two sides is roughly the same, with the 21-stringed side having a deeper A and the 16 string has a higher D. The one in the picture is from manufacturer Dunhuang, model number 697-1.

Source: Taiwanese store stmusic.com.tw.

ZhengJ BNovember 29, 2017ExpandedComment

C-Bridge

This is an 18 Steel string guzheng from instrument brand JinYun. It features straight steel and wound copper strings and that sweeping C-Bridge at the tail. I have seen a similar, 21 and 23-string instruments made by the same maker with nylon strings.

Google is throwing security warnings when I try to visit their website, so I won't link directly to them from here. But you can see their url in the photo and I can tell you that the product numbers are:

18 strings - 01157
21 strings - 01018B
The 23-string instrument was reportedly a limited edition; I saw one for sale in California but could not find a product number.

ZhengJ BNovember 29, 2017Modern, Bridge VariantComment

Split Bridge

Made by manufacturer JinYun, this one has 21 nylon strings- and most notably, the fixed bridge at the tail is split into four separate bridges. It mimics the different lengths of string the S-bridge creates, but (I assume) has a different set of tradeoffs. I have yet to see the difference this choice makes first hand. If you have any experience with one of these instruments, please email me! I have also seen the tail bridge in three parts, so please don't think four is the only way to go.

From manufacturer JinYun. Google is raising security alerts when I visit their website so I won't link directly, but this one's product number is 01118.

ZhengJ BNovember 29, 2017Modern, Bridge VariantComment