Created in 1972 by Zhang Ziyue of the Suzhou Musical Instrument Factory of Jiangsu province, pedal actuated zhengs came onto the scene to solve the same problems as the earlier modulated zheng - and had some of the same limitations.
This is a 36-string zheng made around that time, tuned in the western diatonic scale.
Image Source: Music Research Institute via Han 2013.
Read MoreA 1972 guzheng created by Zhang Ziyue of the Suzhou Musical Instrument Factory of Jiangsu province. It had 44 strings tuned to the diatonic scale.
Image Source: Music Research Institute via Han 2013.
Read MoreIn 1974 another instrument maker, Zhang Kun of the Shenyang Musical Instrument Factory, made a 21-string pedal-modulated zheng. This one was tuned to the pentatonic scale.
Source: Music Research Institute via Mei Han 2013.
Read MoreIn 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.
Read MoreSimilar 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.
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