Sweep your finger across the 21 strings for the cascading sound of the guzheng, then pluck a melody note by note. Press a string to the left of its bridge to reach the notes between the strings, as the left hand does on the real instrument, and play Jasmine Flower in number notation.
Twenty-one strings, a bridge under each one in the curve players call the flying geese, and the number notation used in Chinese scores.
Drag across the strings and they ring one after another, the waterfall of notes that opens so many guzheng pieces. Because the guzheng is tuned to a pentatonic scale, every sweep sounds in tune, whatever the direction or the speed.
The pentatonic tuning has no 4 and no 7. Guzheng players get them by pressing the string to the left of its bridge with the left hand: the 3 string rises a half step to 4, the 6 string a whole step to 7. Click left of a bridge, or hold Shift on the keyboard, and the note bends up.
Chinese music is usually written in jianpu: 1 2 3 5 6 for the notes of the scale, a dot above for the octave above, a dot below for the octave below. The strings and the songs use it, so you read exactly what a guzheng player reads. Switch to note names or computer keys any time.
The standard guzheng is tuned in D, from the low D two octaves below middle C to the high D. Choose C, G or F and the bridges move to retune all 21 strings, as players do by sliding the bridges before a piece.
Play Jasmine Flower, Mo Li Hua, the Qing-dynasty folk song known all over the world. Two originals written for the guzheng, Lantern Walk and Bamboo Courtyard, cover the range of the instrument. Listen, then play along: the next string glows.
On a phone, sweep a finger across the strings. On a computer, the middle row of letters plays from the middle D upward and the top row continues; Shift presses the string. Keys are read by position on QWERTY, AZERTY and QWERTZ keyboards.
Drag from the top string to the bottom one: low to high, the classic guzheng glissando.
Each string shows its number: 1 is D in the standard key, dots mark the octaves.
Click a 3 string left of its bridge: the note bends up to 4. That is how the guzheng plays every note.
Choose Jasmine Flower, press Listen, then Play along and follow the glowing string.
| Type | Guzheng (Chinese zither, also called zheng), playable on this page, free |
|---|---|
| Strings | 21, on movable bridges; D2 to D6 in the standard key |
| Tuning | Major pentatonic (1 2 3 5 6) in D, C, G or F |
| Playing | Pluck, glissando across the strings, press bends left of the bridge (3 to 4, 6 to 7) |
| Labels | Jianpu numbers with octave dots, note names, computer keys, or none |
| Sound | Karplus-Strong plucked string, bright pick attack, long ring, room reverb |
| Songs | Jasmine Flower (traditional), two GOONS originals, simple folk tunes; listen and play-along modes |
| Requirements | Any modern browser with Web Audio - Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Safari |
The guzheng, or zheng, is the long plucked zither of China, played for more than two thousand years. Its strings run over movable bridges set along a curved wooden body; the player plucks to the right of the bridges with picks taped to the fingers of the right hand, and presses the strings to the left of the bridges with the left hand to bend the notes and add vibrato. The modern concert guzheng has 21 strings. The Japanese koto, the Korean gayageum, the Mongolian yatga and the Vietnamese đàn tranh are all members of the same family.
Much Chinese traditional music is built on five notes, gong, shang, jue, zhi and yu, written 1 2 3 5 6 in number notation. Tuning the open strings to these notes makes melodies and glissandos fall naturally under the hand; the other two notes of the major scale are reached by pressing the strings, which gives them their slightly bent, vocal colour.
Pair the guzheng with the erhu, the bowed fiddle that sings the melody in so much Chinese music, or compare it with its Japanese cousin, the koto. The world music studio gathers every instrument on one map.
Yes. The guzheng at the top of this page is free, with no account and nothing to install. It runs in your browser with the Web Audio API.
The standard 21-string guzheng is tuned to the D major pentatonic scale, D E F sharp A B, repeated over four octaves from D2 to D6. Players move the bridges to change key.
Press a string to the left of its bridge: the 3 string rises a half step to 4, the 6 string a whole step to 7. On this page, click left of the bridge or hold Shift while you play the key.
The koto came to Japan from the Chinese zheng family about thirteen centuries ago. Today the guzheng usually has 21 strings tuned pentatonically in a major scale, the koto 13 strings in tunings such as hirajoshi, and their picks and playing styles differ.
Yes. Jasmine Flower, Mo Li Hua, is a traditional Chinese folk song from the Qing dynasty, in the public domain. The other guzheng pieces are originals written by GOONS.
The guzheng is free, with no account. GOONS Studio adds a looper, synths, drum machines and a sequencer that play together - free for 7 days, no card required.
Free on this page, no account. Play the online erhu →